S/O what is one of the messier games/projects/crafts/etc your kids have done at your house?

[Tap]

What is one of the messier games/projects/crafts/etc your kids have done at your house?

[Carol in Cal.]

Decorating refrigerator boxes with friends to make clubhouses.  With fairly indelible paint.

I actually set up a hand washing station on the back deck--a bucket of warm soapy water and a bucket of rinse water and a very old towel.

 

And if anyone had to go to the bathroom, I wrapped them in a big towel to carry through the house.  

 

It was a MESS.

 

But deeply satisfying in the end.

[Guinevere]

I once had 9 kids over for a splash pool party, and 7 of them were 5 and under. The other two were 7 and 9. I greatly underestimated how much grass and dirt and mud there would be!

[eternalsummer]

With approval: I had this great idea to buy paint markers for making those twirly wind spinner things.  Paint markers plus small children plus carpet is not, altogether, the best idea.

 

Without approval: when they were 7 and 4, DS-now-9 and DD-now-6, having recently watched Spiderman somewhere, decided to use a jar of honey in the basement to assist in climbing up the walls (they were sure if they just used enough honey, they could climb walls like Spiderman).

ALL the walls.  And the walls were this sort of weird spackled matte glitter paint with a texture, so getting the honey off was not a simple matter of wiping.  That was a rough year for messes - at one point I smelled orange juice from the living room and said to DD12 (then 10): I smell orange juice.  She went to look in the kitchen and the middle three kids were slip-and-sliding on the kitchen floor (quietly!) in orange juice.  DS-then-7 also decided to wash his carpet, which is laudable, but used the first cleaning supply he could find in the cabinet, which turned out to be dishwasher fluid.  Turns out dishwasher fluid kind of gels up and expands when you put water on it, and gets your carpet cleaner all gummed up and useless.  Took hours to get all of the dishwasher fluid out of the carpet.

Edited January 9, 2018 by eternalsummer

[Guinevere]

With approval: I had this great idea to buy paint markers for making those twirly wind spinner things. Paint markers plus small children plus carpet is not, altogether, the best idea.

 

Without approval: when they were 7 and 4, DS-now-9 and DD-now-6, having recently watched Spiderman somewhere, decided to use a jar of honey in the basement to assist in climbing up the walls (they were sure if they just used enough honey, they could climb walls like Spiderman).

ALL the walls. And the walls were this sort of weird spackled matte glitter paint with a texture, so getting the honey off was not a simple matter of wiping. That was a rough year for messes - at one point I smelled orange juice from the living room and said to DD12 (then 10): I smell orange juice. She went to look in the kitchen and the middle three kids were slip-and-sliding on the kitchen floor (quietly!) in orange juice. DS-then-7 also decided to wash his carpet, which is laudable, but used the first cleaning supply he could find in the cabinet, which turned out to be dishwasher fluid. Turns out dishwasher fluid kind of gels up and expands when you put water on it, and gets your carpet cleaner all gummed up and useless. Took hours to get all of the dishwasher fluid out of the carpet.

That is so funny!!!!

 

Eta Though I'm sure it didn't feel like it at the time!

Edited January 9, 2018 by Guinevere

[Tap]

When dd19 was somewhere between 4 and 6 years old, she got scarlet fever twice, back to back. Her best friend's sisters (our neighbors) are type 1 diabetics so when she was sick, they couldn't play with her.  She was in quarantine in our house for almost a solid month. She was going stir crazy.  It was around Christmas so lots of packages were arriving and that was in the days of packing peanuts and large bubble wrap was just starting to show up.

 

She is one of those kids who actively played with her stuffed animals.. I turned our living room into a stuffed animal haven.  We took a large bin (one big enough for a kid to crawl into) and filled it with packing peanuts and cut up bubble wrap bubbles. She pretended it was a bubble bath for her animals. She had a spa day for all her Build a Bears.   She had picnics and napping spots and of course forts to hang out in, a movie theatre (small tv) and other things to entertain her bears. 

 

Then the before her quarantine ended, the day we decided to clean up, we made it snow!!!  We threw the 'snow' (packing peanuts) up in the air, over and over.  Her bears got to spend the day playing in the styrofoam snow.  LOL  The peanuts were stomped on, rolled in and generally resembled rice at the end of the day. 

 

It was a great last day, but it took FOREVER to completely get the scraps of staticy bits of packing peanuts out of that room! The shop vac picked them up, but the exhaust would blow the other bits around the room so there was a constant cyclone going.  We would have to wait a while in between cleanings to let the bits fall to the ground. . Then we would clean again.  They were stuck to the walls and the ceiling too LOL I think it was months before I finally got the last of it and I am quite certain there is still some under an entertainment center in that room 

 

It would totally do it again, for all the play she got out of that room on those long winter days, but man, What a mess!!

[JudoMom]

When my oldest two were around 4 & 3, we lived in a ranch with laundry in the basement. One day I went to laundry, and came upstairs to baby powder all over the wood floor. They were happily sliding through it. When I asked what they were doing, they proudly told me "skiing"!

 

A few days later, the same scenario, except with water. "Water skiing"! That one wasn't quite as messy.

[J-rap]

So many imaginative kids and hilarious stories!  I can't think of one incident in particular, but we constantly had our main room floor (we have one living room-dining room area combined) covered with "people lands."  We had about 80 2-inch high figurines (of people and animals) that my five kids would split between them, and then they'd make entire villages for each of their own people groups -- out of Legos, Duplos, boxes, kitchen bowls and utensils, blocks, you name it.  Then each village would be connected by little roads that they also built.  This kind of went on for years.  When I picture our living room in those days, I picture my husband and I constantly jumping from one small empty spot to the next (between villages and roads) in order to get to the other side, and without giving it a second thought.  Even our guests would sometimes have to do that!

 

It wasn't messy as in hard to clean, though.  My kids were actually all kind of neat freaks and didn't like doing things that were too sticky or gross!  :)

 

 

 

 

[KatieJ]

We hosted our co-op history group for a craft day. I don’t remember what we did any more, but the scars of that day lived on my sewing table forever.

[skimomma]

The time my friend and I thought it would be awesome to have 9 kids, ranging in ages 4-12, make and decorate full-sized gingerbread houses.  Two adults, maybe too much wine, and 9 kids "patiently" waiting for an adult to help them frosting together their creations or rolling and cutting their gingerbread shapes with piles of candy (AKA ammunition) at their disposal to "help" them be "patient."  Neither friend nor I are very skilled at any part of this.  What we thought would be a two hour activity ended up being eight hours. 

 

We are still finding candy bits and frosting blobs two years later.   But the kids still recall it as "the best day ever."

[BlsdMama]

Clay.  I don't like clay days.  But I have one child who is particularly good at making creative monsters.  It's worth it just to see them.  I had a new round made just yesterday.  I got a pink one. :)

Painting - any type.

 

We are a fairly dirty family I think - we spend a LOT of time in the dirt.  But we live in the country.  So art and landscaping is a mix for me, lol.

We did make box houses.  It drove me crazy.

I did do Waldorf everything for a long while so my house was littered with playsilks and capes for years.  That is messy bliss.

 

 

[PinkTulip]

There was that time when my MIL thought it would be fun to bring my boys glitter glue when they were 7, 5, 4, and 2. She was watching them while I ran a quick errand. She wrote their names on a paper with Elmer's glue and then told them to "carefully" pour the glitter out of a vial into the glue. Of course, when I walked in, my 4-year-old was exclaiming how sparkly the air was when he threw the glitter at his little brother.

 

I'm pretty sure there is still glitter in the carpet of that house.

 

Glitter of any form is now banned from my house. Even if I get a Christmas card with glitter on it, I'll carefully open it over the sink and then almost immediately throw it away.

[Jaybee]

I think I'm blocking the truly messy out of my mind, because I know we had it--I just can't recall. One of the most fun and creative things my dds did was to build an extensive Lego town in one of the bedrooms. It had restaurants, an amusement park, houses, schools, playground, etc. And one ds built a Lego electric guitar (almost full sized) and an automatic rifle (also full sized). I'm always a bit perplexed when people say that Lego is limited by the things a kit is made for. Do they really only use it that way? Our kids always started out a new kit with its boxed purpose. After that, however, it was free game to be added into the general mix of "whatever I can imagine." We have a huge collection of pieces, however, because for years, all they ever wanted for gifts were Lego sets.

[Spryte]

Oh dear. My DH has even written a kids book about this, we’ve had so many (book is being shopped around, fingers crossed, but it was mostly just for fun).

 

DS was always into Big Play. He watched Jumanji and our living room became a jungle with giant construction paper vines and huge plants and I can’t recall all of it, but we could not walk without ducking. He was maybe 5. Mr Magorium’s Magic Emporium was similar, he recreated the set, and then we watched a Stephen Hawking show on black holes and painters tape was used to create black holes, with swirly pics everywhere. After that, his watching of shows was severely curtailed. I am still scarred by the Magic Emporium recreation!

 

Rube Goldberg machines all over the house.

 

Stomp recreations. And A Blue Man Group set up made of PVC pipe in the garage.

 

Leprechaun traps that spanned the entire house.

 

Do birthday parties count? We had 32 kids over for Cupcake Wars a few years ago. That was insane. What was I thinking??

 

Now we have regular cosplay meet ups here. 10 - 15 kids with foam and tools and paint and ... it’s a giant mess at the end, despite supervision, but wow, do they make amazing costumes!

 

We are pretty messy here. We loved the Big Messy Art Book, when DS was small, and I guess we just kept going when we finished it! The tennis balls dipped in paint and thrown at a sheet is still a favorite here.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Spryte

[Elizabeth86]

Nothing stands out as the messiest. I have a 2, 4 and 6 year old so everything they do ends up as a mess. :lol:

[Carol in Cal.]

When DD was around 2 or 3 I set her up with a small disposable bowl of red paint to make valentines on the kitchen table.  I think maybe she was on a booster seat on a regular chair.

 

She was very engrossed, and I was kind of proud of myself for thinking of a project that contained the mess so well--just one color of paint, no problem with the water going all over the place from rinsing, defensible, seasonal choice of color, kid engaged and focussed.

 

So I decided to go to the bathroom.

What could I have been thinking?

 

First I hear this thump as she hit the floor.

Then I hear her walking through the dining room (with the rug I inherited from my grandparents), yelling, "Look!  Mom!  I have red feet!"  In her focussed, engaged way she had painted the tops of her feet red, carefully and thoroughly, and was coming to show me this wonder.  Of course, this got red paint on the cuffs of her pants as well.  It never did come out.

 

Luckily she did not step onto the carpet.

 

[eternalsummer]

There was that time when my MIL thought it would be fun to bring my boys glitter glue when they were 7, 5, 4, and 2. She was watching them while I ran a quick errand. She wrote their names on a paper with Elmer's glue and then told them to "carefully" pour the glitter out of a vial into the glue. Of course, when I walked in, my 4-year-old was exclaiming how sparkly the air was when he threw the glitter at his little brother.

 

I'm pretty sure there is still glitter in the carpet of that house.

 

Glitter of any form is now banned from my house. Even if I get a Christmas card with glitter on it, I'll carefully open it over the sink and then almost immediately throw it away.

 

 

Glitter!  I bought glitter once, and glue to go with it, for what reason I can't remember.  There was posterboard involved, and those little alphabet foam stickers.

 

DH looked at me like I was insane when he came home and saw it.  To be fair, I looked at myself like I was insane.  

[Spryte]

Oh! I just remembered another. Anyone seen the video for Somebody That I Used To Know? DS once face painted his entire body (he wore a bathing suit) and the shower walls. That prompted me to ban face paint for years.

[theelfqueen]

My middle son once decided to pour chocolate syrup into the heater vent in our dining room. It was not a project and certainly not a sanctioned one. ;) But it was a MESS.

 

My youngest would build Thomas the Tank Engine tracks that stretched across our entire main floor living space. Seriously ENORMOUS.

 

We tend to take intentionally messy projects outside or do them in the bathtub for ease of cleanup ;)

[OH_Homeschooler]

I'm fairly strict about the crafts that I allow into our house. So with that in mind...Rainbow Looms. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad my kids have lost interest in those. It's probably been two years since they played them, and I still find those little rubber bands in the carpet. They got everywhere.

[73349]

Here's a fun activity we do OUTDOORS every spring:

 

To make Easter eggs to dye, I make a hole in one end of each egg, take the contents out (and make scrambled eggs) and wash and dye the shells. So after Easter, we have a bunch of different colored eggs with a hole in one end. We move the easel outdoors and put paper on it. I bring bottles of tempera paint out there. Each egg gets filled with paint, and DS stands back several feet and throws it at the paper, splattering the paint and eggshell. We repeat with several colors.

 

It looks interesting, but DS mostly likes the process.

[hellen]

When I had two toddlers I let them play with flour all over the kitchen floor. They used it like sand so there were roads and mountains.

 

I let my kids do messy stuff often. They paint, make big cardboard contraptions, blanket and pillow forts, etc. On Sunday, two of mine were working on a cat hotel in the sewing area involving lots of yarn and my ironing board.

 

If they are willing to clean it up or at least help clean it up, then they can do whatever they want. They understand what sort of mess I would tolerate and what I would not. Basically, I'm okay with messes when they are used to create. A mess that is just destructive is not okay.

 

ETA: I forgot about glitter. I don't allow glitter because it is impossible to clean.

Edited January 9, 2018 by hellen

[Bambam]

I've always let my girls paint, glue, cut, and make whatever. But no glitter in the house. Absolutely not. You must be outside to use glitter. Glitter glue is okay though. 

 

One of my girls used to have craft parties. She had everyone on the back porch using acrylic paint on something, and one of the kids wiped the paint off her hands on the concrete. It is still there. These were not little kids - these were teens. Maybe she had never used paint before? 

[BlsdMama]

We did thermo-color change goop once.

 

Once.

 

I spent like $23 on the colorant.

I STILL threw it out the next day.  Seriously.  It isn't like it was my first rodeo.  I still have no idea what I was thinking.

[6packofun]

Messy, in terms of how much of our house was taken over with materials for a project, is definitely the cosplays that our middle dd creates.  LOL 

[TechWife]

We had a lot of messy art projects at our house. It was the neighborhood messy art center! My sister gave us The Big Messy Art Book when ds was about four and we did several of these projects plus many others that we dreamt up. Standard outdoor play at our house involved rolls of butcher paper, tarps, paints, tennis balls, etc.. I had a rolling 3 drawer cabinet in the garage that we had stocked with various supplies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wheres Toto]

My youngest always has gone all in on any art project, science project, etc.  Paint up to her elbows while she rubs her hands around and around in circles.  Even now, we did the elephant toothpaste science experiment and she was elbows deep in blue foam. 

 

The worst to clean up was when we used Instant Snow with 4-H.  It's a powdered polymer that you add water and it turns the texture of snow.   That stuff does not wipe up easily.   It continues to leave behind little bits and pieces.    We then added dish soap (breaks down the bonds) and wound up with puddles of goop.  And my daughter was not the only one going full on into it.  Can't wash it down the sink because it can clog it up.

 

I can't stand making slime either.  Same reasons, sticky goopy mess that can't be washed in the sink.   Trying to scrape it all off hands is more trouble than it's worth.  (IMO, the kids never agree).

 

Ds is easy.  He hates getting his hands dirty and always has.  

[lllll]

nm

Edited January 16, 2018 by .....

[rebcoola]

The one that comes to mind is the time my bff and I thought it would a good idea to let 7 kids under 7 finger paint at 10 ft roll of craft paper.  We had footprints everywhere!! Plus when we tried to take it outside to dry the wind blew into our faces.  

 

 

[gracefor5]

This will sound totally stupid, but after my second kid was born, and I was struggling with a colicky newborn, I gave my then 2 year old a huge bowl of flour, several bowls and measuring cups and water. She was a mess, the floor and table was a mess, but she was quiet and entertained for 2 hours!!! It was that or I was going to cry uncontrollably. LOL! Oh....such a great memory. Now that those kids are young adults.