lesson learned

I emailed some of you with little ones last week with a poll for tempra vs acrylic paint for small ceramic figurines for some surprise Xmas goodies for the grandparents. Baby picked out two very festive colors - royal blue and purple with glitter in it.

I rolled out some wrapping paper over the floor, changed us both into smocky-like clothes, handed her the toddler brush, and held my breath. She did so well... and we managed to get paint on every piece. I cleaned up and figured we'd do the next color the next night. She was excited, I was excited; it was fabulous.

The next morning I woke up and saw that you could hardly tell we painted them. They totally absorbed it so that the streaks of bright purple looked barely pink with a little glitter. Tempra paint was NOT the way to go (if you're thinking about a similar project, don't bother with it!)

So we were back to the drawing board... and her options changed to what acrylic colors I had in stock. She chose bright pink, lavender and UT orange. Over several sessions this weekend we at least have some of each color on each piece. We also experimented between using a bristle-ended toddler brush and the 1" foam sponge brush (I noticed very little difference between the two.).

In her infamous words, "Ta-da!"

She didn't eat that much paint, either - so that's good, too!

Speaking of eating, tonight we figured out that Baby really likes fried okra. She gets it honest.