Kids Kreativity: Shoe Painting with the Littles

I love to craft and create but my oh my, it's been too long since I had the opportunity to do so. I've painted shoes before and it's something I wanted to do with toddler since he's very artistic and I thought he was ready for the awesome responsibility that is crafting with Mama... umm, I don't know that he was 100% ready. I'd calculate it more at 53% ready. We started off so sweetly. It was going to an uplifting how to post on painting with your toddler. LOL.

Preparations were made using painters tape with some Target canvas shoes for me and some toddler shoes that I found on ebay because it turns out, plain canvas shoes for children are sort of hard to come by. I had plans, people, and we were going to create matching shoes using fabric paint, glow in the dark and some of my crafter's paint because, I mean, he's mature enough for those mediums, right? Acrylics. LOL.

The excitement grows as we set up shop. The sun room is perfect for this type of craft and the creativity that will ensue. The toddler is ready with all his paintbrushes, water for rinsing, paper towels he won't use and a sense of adventure. Let's get ready to rumble, he thinks to himself. He makes a note to not to listen to Mom for the rest of the morning. LOL.

Next time, I'll use a tarp. Next time, I won't give him free reign of the amount of paint that I will allow him to use. Next time, I'll take his socks off first. Next time, I'll use paint that can be easily removed using any household cleaners, not glow in the dark that has to be chipped off with time and care. Next time, I'll go into a kids craft with less expectations and more freedom for fun. I went into this with too much seriousness and the goal of perfection. I'll enjoy it so much more next time when I don't put pressure on us to be the most artistic mother-son pair in Massachusetts.

Overall, our shoes do look very similar and I gotta say that the toddler took to painting inside his shoes like no other. He did commit a good amount of time to this project, which for a toddler, not even three, was a success in and of itself. I ended up finishing both pairs of shoes, which is fine by me and maybe in the future, he and I can do something else together that will be organically awesome and not something I set out to "make a blog post" out of. That's so silly of me, to think like that. I should be planning things for us to do that's fun, not technology centered and doesn't have any other goal than to enjoy each other's company doing something we love.

But that aside, do you like how they came out?