Editor’s Note: This short week has thrown me for a loop. And, the Filberg Festival meant I had no access to our pal Popsicle all weekend. We’ll have to check in this week to see what mischief he’s up to lately.

So, I wanted to share an older post about a favourite craft around our house that is perfect for right now in that every bug on the island is out and busy making their presence known.

Our tiny person loves finger painting, and finger painting bugs, well, rock and roll.

We are definitely going to be busting out the paints this week as she is coping with allergy-induced yuck after three weeks of birthday fun and is not quite up to speed.

Crafts are great medicine.

Original post from October, 2007

As the tiny person plows through toddler-hood the one thing that she is seemingly more interested in every day is crafts.

Colouring, markers, even play dough are particularly low on the fun scale for her. She’ll jump in, for sure. But, the good times last mere minutes before moving on is required – a serious mark of disinterest from a kiddo who will do puzzles, work on Starfall or redesign her felt board ocean scene for sometimes as long as an hour at a time.

We’ve tried just about every art medium in the universe to see if anything at all sparked her interest and came out the other side with three clear winners – tempera paint, stickers and stamps.

So, because an afternoon of art is the saving grace for me when trying to steer her away from hours of TV, I went on one of my missions to come up with some fun, engaging craft ideas that are right up her alley.

Enter the bug parade:

While we were in Tofino, I was pawing through the books over at Ocean Kids when I stumbled (happily) upon a whole whack of crafting books from Usborne.

We ended up with Mermaid Things to Make & Do as well as a Summer Activities book that made our heads spin with all of the funky craft fun we could pack into a rainy day.

That’s where we discovered bugs.

I mixed a bit of tempera paint (not much because you really do end up wasting a bunch of it), painted up the tiny person’s finger and hands a few dozen times, followed by tons of hand stamping on construction paper to make lady bugs, caterpillars, dragon flies and spiders.

We had such a great time, laughing and telling stories about creatures – with only a minor meltdown when I wouldn’t let her paint her own hands (which would have most definitely resulted in her painting EVERYTHING as paint triggers the whirling dervish in her).

I did spend a few minutes afterward drawing in antennae, legs and faces – which ended up to be very relaxing and fun for me too.

Then, we hung them up all over the living room for a bit of a bug parade.

Easy, only moderately messy and super fun on a chilly afternoon – I only have a few added recommendations for this project.

1. Get a little paint pan that has six or eight separate compartments (egg containers work great for this) as you’ll want to mix up your paint for added colours in your bugs.

2. Lay down some plastic or newsprint as this can be messy.

3. On that note, prepare for gooey hands with paper towel or a wet cloth for clean up and wear a smock.

4. Know that bug-making takes a fair bit of involvement on your part with younger kiddos. But, this would be a really fun one with older toddlers, pre-schoolers and even kindergarteners on their own.

Have fun!