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Arts & Entertainment

Mass Production: Paper Shapes

Try keeping kids busy with this craft if rain keeps you indoors this summer.

Here is a very easy craft, which also offers tons of entertainment should the neighbor kids come over, or your child has a summer birthday with several children attending:

We used Paper Shapes purchased at .

To get started, we used my go-to-paint: Acrylic paints. I love them for the variety of colors, for their ability to mix into even more brilliant colors, they are easy to clean of skin, surface, and wash out of clothes easily. We painted with sponge brushes and small children's brushes. Decor has not been a big hit today, but I offered foam flowers, beads, glitter glue. And all of that produced a wonderful butterfly garden!

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This craft is a terrific last-minute-craft. It is perfect for kids 5 years and up, because they can paint independently. Drying time depends on how much paint has been used, but a regular hair dryer will speed up the process. 

I suggest, especially when children work independently, to fill embellishments in small bowls (individual apple sauce containers work well).

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Another tip is to purchase inexpensive children's brushes (also from ). They come in sets of 10 to 20, and are really inexpensive. I put all brushes brush side up into a cup and next to it I have a cup filled with a little bit of water, so they can put the used ones in there. Should the supply of fresh brushes run low, I just rinse the used ones for plenty fresh ones.

All you have to do now is let the kids do their thing and cheer them on! They have their own ideas and always come up with funky designs. 

Afterwards, clean up is simple -- I use sponges with a rough surface and some green cleaner. 

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