Last year for Christmas, I wrapped all of our gifts in shipping paper and did my best to spruce them up with some fun embellishments. My son had been with me every step of the way (whether he liked it or not), so I finally figured out a way to get him even more involved in the process.
So how exactly does one get a toddler involved in gift wrapping??
Drum roll please….finger paint!
Yep! I unleashed him to finger paint on a huge piece of the shipping paper and once it was dried, we used it to wrap some of our gifts.
Now, I’ll be honest with you. My initial plan was to have beautiful little toddler handprints in red and green spaced perfectly over the wrapping paper. Not too close together, but not too far apart. It was going to be so cute. Pinterest was going to eat it up.
But, of course, my little one had his own plan, so we just went with that! Instead of perfect little handprints, we had a beautiful, handmade abstract masterpiece.
The supplies for this one are really simple – just shipping paper and toddler-safe finger paint
I spread the paper over our kitchen table and poured a little bit of red and green paint onto some paper plates.
Initially I smooshed his entire hand into the paint to attempt the handprints, but he clearly didn’t like that so we switched to just using his finger. Before long, he had amassed him masterpiece!
Once we were finished, I just left the paper there to dry. I had to dab a few places with a paper towel where the paint was extra thick, but other than that it was totally ready within a few hours.
Of all the fun extras I’ve been doing with my shipping paper, this is definitely my favorite. It was simple and looks amazing. And as an added bonus, it was a fun sensory activity for my son.
If you haven’t checked out my other wrapping adventures, just click through the images to see the posts:
Good luck with your wrapping this year! Check out my Christmas Pinterest board for other great holiday ideas!
Follow Nikki @ MBAsahm’s board Christmas Time! on Pinterest.