Smug and Lazy toddler craft: the Autumn edit

It’s been a while since the last smug and lazy craft and for that, I apologise. It’s been what you could call a Challenging few weeks around here, the kind of few weeks that makes you consider your decision to move thousands of miles from family who swoop into help in moments of need.

Beautiful but, you know, a long way from London.

In any case, things are slowly getting back on track and by that I mean, mr tMatM should hopefully be off crutches and back on his feet soon – and now only 1 out of 6 of us is still ill (me), a definite improvement on the 5 out of 6 of us ill last week.

All that to say, there hasn’t been all that much art going on, even of the smug and lazy variety.

But. BUT!

We went out on a little expedition the other morning – Mim (4) and Wilf (2), to scavenge some autumn leaves for a craft because my Instagram feed is full of beautiful autumnal toddler crafting.

This was a separate expedition but illustrates what Wilfred looks like, outdoors in the autumn.

Look at this seasonal display, so tasteful!

I think we all know that by ‘Little Expedition’ I mean we were in the back garden.

And here we are, a hint of what’s to come with the natural wooden paintbrushes:

But yet… wait a moment, not so tasteful – these colours look a little… garish:

Yes! Like all the best toddler art projects, this one is extremely simple and involves colours that are absolutely not approved by your autumnal Instagram feed (brown, cream, chartreuse, a pile of pumpkins – you know what I’m saying).

Here they go, on a very much process-based piece of artwork:

The irony of Wilfred deciding, initially, that he only wanted to paint the leaves green, was not lost on me.

He got into the neon spirit of things soon after though and they both produced quite the display.

I do have some plans to affix these to a sheet of cardboard and pop it up on their bedroom wall to allow for real admiration but one step at a time.

Also! If you would rather some autumnal, smug and lazy process art without the paints (There are often many things I would rather do than get the paints out).. well in that case may I recommend the following project:

I talked about this on Instagram last month: I certainly did not, pre-parenthood, realise the importance and value of glue spreaders, a household tool I would never have imagined to be an essential. But my toddlers have all loved glue almost as much as paint, and it does involve infinitely less hassle / cleaning up, a huge advantage in my mind.

Anyway the additional advantage of glue-based projects is being able to select the items for sticking – so that you can end up with pretty, but very much child-led projects like this rainbow:

Or in this autumnal case, beautiful trees:

Unless you are just crafting with a two year old, in which case you end up with a lot of glue and not all that much interest in sticking anything on top of it:

Wilf: I’m Done, mummy.

More soon; the Challenging Weeks have meant increased levels of CBeebies, so I’m ready for a bit of a toddler art influx. It’s all in the balance.

tMatM x