Valentine's Day Crafting - Mommy and Me Handprint Art

I wish I could take credit for the craft craving, today, but it was the little guy's idea. I admit, when he said he wanted to paint, this morning, before we had even had breakfast, I did my Mega-Mom Eyeroll. He has this nasty habit of demanding a very specific craft project, requesting dozens of needed supplies, then spending all of 10 minutes before he is back at his LEGO table or something else messy with only paint in his hair to show for it.

I like doing a canvas painting for holidays and gifts, so I thought maybe we can both get into it. I secretly hid in the craft room and painted two canvases pink, hoping he would buy my explanation that they came that way.

Then, when I told the boy we only had red and white to work with, and he started to cry, I told him we could do handprints. Handprints are a horrible mess so of course he loves them. The other thing I don't like about handprint art for toddlers is that it is so REGIMENTED and creatively stifling. It is only fun for 2 seconds for the kid, but people do it because it looks great on Pinterest and it's a nice keepsake. I'm a blogger with thousands of Pinterest followers and hundreds of Pins. I'm game.

To try to make it more fun, I let him paint my hand.

He did a very thorough job and I could close my eyes while sitting my preggo butt in the chair while he did it! Maybe we are onto something...

Then I stamped my hand...

... and got to return the handpainting favor. This was super giggle-worthy.

Then he stamped. Looks kind of heart-ish, right?

*NOW, this is the important part.* Remove the toddler. Place child in his own area far away from Mommy and Me artwork unless you want to end up on Pinterest Fail Blog. Discourage hand painting with whatever method you think works best for you. I promised some extra paint colors and it worked. The cool thing was that he actually stuck to my preferred approved Valentine color palette for this one! 

Thank you for not bringing the shame of green and blue Valentines to our Instagram feed, little one ;)

While he worked on his "heart" I did some embellishing to our collaborative piece. He brought his canvas over and asked to have some black, too.

I shuddered. Not the dreaded black. The kiss of death for toddler art.

I explained what XO meant on my painting and crossed my fingers as I suggested he put some XO on his and he did. Then he demanded to paint on mine. When I said no, he threw his paintbrush with black paint on the floor and pouted. While I was wiping the paint, he reached another brush over and put a black splotch right in the middle of mine! You fooled me this time, child, but I wiped and painted over with more approved pink and red hearts, so I win!

Daddy said the boy's heart looked like a REAL heart. Like the kind beating in your chest. Points for the kid.

Mine may look like Pinterest-Mom stick-up-her butt art, however, I think I'll get way more pins that the scientific anatomy version above, right?!

Note to son: Fun painting with you, today, baby. Thanks for letting me do all the set-up, cleanup, and playing by my nonsense rules. Looking forward to Shamrocks and Shenanigans with a GREEN pallet, MAYBE a little yellow if you're good, next month. Just not my glitter. The glitter I use is HOT like the stove and it burns. And I love you so very very much.