Mess-Free Toddler Crafts for Summer

I love to do really easy crafts with my 3-year-old. I have shared quite a few already, and you can see they are stress-free and easy to do when you have a few minutes to grab the supplies and let the kiddo at it. These types of activities are perfect for us to do when we come home from work and daycare.

Thanks to The Pencil Grip for sponsoring this fun summer craft time.

Since my kiddo loves to paint, and I don’t love to clean up a mess, I was thrilled to come across Kwik Stix at the store. What are they? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Kwik Stix is a solid tempera paint that dries in 90 seconds. Rather than being a paint that you spread with a brush, they are formed like pencils (or crayons). It goes on like paint, but you draw with it like with a crayon.

This makes activities super easy to do any time and anywhere without having to worry about paint dripping or (gasp) spilling everywhere.

Mess-Free Summer Toddler Craft Activity

My son is really into fish lately (among other things) so I thought we would make an easy fish for him to decorate as a summer-related craft. I also made a few other things for him to paint, such as a firework (that looks more like a rocket ship) and a few dinosaurs.

Supplies:

• Kwik Stix
• Paper Plates
• Scissors (preschooler safe scissors) if you want to let the kiddo cut)
• Tape

Steps:

For the fishy part of the summer craft, I got the idea from my friend Inez’s video. You take a paper plate, cut one triangle out for the mouth, and tape it on the opposite side to make the fin. And fishy. Now you give it to said toddler, hand over the paints, and have a few quiet moments to yourself.

Since he had so much fun and asked for more I also made the firework/rocket ship from a paper plate. I freehanded it and just made the top and bottom triangles. Then since I cut this from the middle of the paper plate, I just added some jagged cuts to make two dinosaurs for him. I mean, it passes for dinosaurs. But he loved it and kept asking me what color he wanted me to paint next. So we’ll call this a toddler craft win!

Here’s a quick video you can see for yourself how easy and mess-free these awesome Kwik Stix are:

Kwik Stix are available in stores at Walgreens, in stores and online at Michaels, online at Target, and on Amazon. So go get some and thank me later.