24 Oct 2016 Funky Frugal: The wonders of watercolor

by Tanner Cangelosi

With all our tiny humans running around our home, I love to find fun and easy activities for our kids to do. It’s very difficult for us to take everyone anywhere, so if I can create unique activities for us to do at home, that helps everyone.

It is no secret that I love to paint, but it felt like every time I busted out the acrylic paints, I had to hire professional cleaners to get the stains out of my upholstery, clothing and hair. 

Then, one glorious day, I discovered watercolors for kids. I was wandering through Dollar Tree, my “cheaper-than-therapy” therapy.

There, I found wonderful water color sets. Bringing them home and happily showing my little army what I had purchased, we busted out the scrap paper that daddy always brings home from church. It started as a cheap and inexpensive way to entertain my army, but the more we did it, the more I loved it.

I had been on the hunt for a stress reliever. With six children, can you imagine that? Well, I found it. It was so fun to put music on and just doodle away. I even got fancy and purchased the IKEA set of watercolor paints and bought some actual water color paper. 

Because this is not my normal medium, it made it that much more relaxing to me because I knew I wasn’t trying to sell anything created with watercolor. 

A few nights ago, I got out the watercolors, old brushes and some paper for my kids. It was so simple, and the clean-up is so easy. I love this family activity. 

As they busily worked on their creations, I was actually able to doodle some of my own. I put on Kari Jobe worship music (she is one of my favorites), and we were happily painting and singing along when my 4-year-old son said, “This is woman music, I need some man music!” So, I am currently taking requests for “man music,” if you know any.