Precious Paper Pumpkin Painting Project

I had been trying to figure out for a little while now what Halloween/fall crafts to do with Ashlyn. I was about to throw out some poster board that I had used for a contest type thing for Ashlyn's birthday party last weekend when I realized that I could totally have her paint on the other side! I hadn't tried painting with her recently because it was just such a pain. I didn't have a set up that worked for us.

Late last week, I had an idea! We bought an inexpensive sheet awhile back to use as a drop cloth for messy crafts. That way we can just throw it in the wash and even if it doesn't get all the stains out (which we haven't had an issue with yet) it's only used for crafts so no big deal. Anyway, so I used pushpins to put the sheet on the wall. There was plenty to lay on the floor, too, in case any paint fell on the floor. After drawing a pumpkin in pencil on the poster board (on the back side that hadn't been used yet, of course), I taped the poster board to the sheet at Ashlyn's level. Then after pulling her hair back and putting a little apron on her, I let her paint!


After the masterpiece was dry, I outlined it all in a Sharpie and cut it out. It is now up above our TV as a wonderful decoration.


It would be really cute decorated as a jack-o-lantern, but I would like to keep it up through Thanksgiving, too, so I kept it as is. We both enjoyed the experience so much more than any past painting projects just because the set up worked very well for us. We will definitely be painting more often now!