Are you looking for a simple heart craft or activity that is mess free?
I guarantee you will love making Spin Art hearts! This mess free toddler heart craft is colorful and fun to repeat again and again!
RELATED: Find more of the best Valentine's Day activities for toddlers HERE.
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What materials do you need for spin art?
Spin art doesn't require very many materials.
Here's what you need:
- Salad spinner
- Washable paint (watered down) or Liquid Watercolors
- Dropper
- Cardstock (light colors yield the most vibrant colors)
- Scissors
I love my OXO Salad spinner for Spin Art. IKEA also sells salad spinners for cheap. I have all of our favorite art supplies linked in my Toddler Approved Store Arts & Crafts list.
What kind of paint do you use for spin art?
When I do spin art I either use liquid watercolors or watered down Crayola washable tempera paint.
Any washable paint works fine. I usually have Crayola Tempera Paint on hand, so that's what I use. I like to water the paint down till it is easy to drop onto paper with a dropper or pippettee without being chunky. Half water, half paint is a great way to do it.
Liquid watercolors are also a great option since you won't need to spend any time watering down the paint. They are also often more vibrantly colored than tempera.
Both work great, so don't go out and buy anything if you don't have to. Use what you have on hand.
How do you do spin art?
The mess free and best way to do spin art with kids is using a salad spinner! A salad spinner keeps the mess contained while allowing kids to get involved and help with the painting.
Here are the steps to do spin art:
1. Cut out some paper hearts from cardstock.
2. Put a small paper heart cut out flat in the salad spinner. ** We use cardstock cut outs and/or coffee filters depending on the day.
I’m not a coffee drinker, but I alway keep a stash of coffee filters around for crafting. They are great for spin art and sun catcher crafts, etc!
3. Squirt or drop some watered down washable paint onto the cut out hearts that are in the salad spinner. ** We like to use liquid water colors when we have some, because they are super easy to squirt.
4. Close the lid and SPIN!
5. Add in more color if needed and spin again!
6. Once you’re done, lay the heart art out to dry.
7. REPEAT with a new paper heart.
Not only is this activity fun, but kids feel so excited and confident as they are able to make such beautiful creations.
We also love to talk about color mixing while we are squirting paint.
My kid: "I'm going to use blue and yellow."
Me: "How cool! What colors do you think that will make?"
My kid: "I hope it's green."
Me: "Let's try it and see what happens."
Kids get so excited and sometimes surprised when the color combinations they pick turn into something cool!
Can you do spin art with other shapes?
Yes! If you can think it, you can spin art with it! We love doing spin art for normal days and every holiday in between!
Here are some of the shapes we've done with spin art before:
- apples
- leaves
- pumpkins
- monsters
- witch faces
- stars
- Christmas trees
- wreaths
- gingerbread people
- stockings
- patriotic colors
- hearts
- shamrocks
- eggs
- bunny
- peeps
- chicks
- fish
- pajamas
- butterflies
- turkeys
- fairies
- snowflakes
You can also put objects in the salad spinner and paint them! Here are a few favorites:
- small wooden blocks
- rocks
- shells
- pinecones
Want to try some other things with your salad spinner? Here are some more ideas.
Check out these 10 Salad Spinner Toddler Activities shared by Happy Toddler Playtime!
Have any other favorite salad spinner activities? Share them here!
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