Today I decided to do another of those amazing Pinterest mum activities and had a look at bubble wrap paintings.
This was the specific post I found, but they’re everywhere on Pinterest anyway.
How lovely does this look, right?
(Image credit to Baby Bins)
What could possibly go wrong? I have paint, I have paper and thanks to January sale kitchenware purchasing (because I’m such a boring adult person now that I get excited over matching canisters and utensils that also then match my microwave) I have a surfeit of bubble wrap.
First off I had to stop Daddy from deciding he would actually do some tidying, and be helpful, and retrieve the bubble wrap from the bin bag he was holding. A good omen, no?
Second issue: my little washable paints I bought (to make frankly disastrous hand and foot prints for Christmas cards) don’t squeeze, you either put a brush in or you splodge a splat out. Hmmm... I know, a few splodges using a painting sponge will work!
Next followed “Oh shit, it’s wonky. Argh there’s not going to be enough room for all the colours. Oh well. Argh Robyn get down from there!” whilst my delightful other half knocked at the front window and helpfully asked me to discuss gardening with him through the glass as I held a stupidly small pot of paint whilst trying to stop my daughter using the sofa arm as a diving platform. It was so stressful that I didn’t even get a chance to laugh and make an immature joke when he asked if I wanted him to trim the bush. Alas.
Anyway, these splodges were finally ready and the bubble wrap I had, as Blue Peter always taught me, prepared earlier was masking taped to the paper.
Now for the moment of glory.
“Shit, I can’t do this at the table, oh well, I’ll do it on the floor, that can’t possibly go wrong can it?”
She was not sure at all, but willing to give it a go. Whilst I then foraged for the book under the sofa and stray sock she had pulled off to make the pictures more social media worthy my plan of her sitting on the floor disintegrated into chaos.
I didn’t even get to the stray book and sock. My plans were going very awry.
At this point you may notice that the blobs are looking somewhat like a little rainbow. How nice. And how definitely not done by mummy “demonstrating” what to do.
FINALLY! Robyn is sitting back down again and not crouching like some hobgoblin whilst I complain at her she’s supposed to be enjoying this and needs to sit down or if she’s going to stand, at least stand on the bubble wrap the way she stands and stomps on everything.
Hallelujah! She touched it and looks like a social media worthy picture if you ignore the crumbled up stomped on Organix snacks on the carpet.
This was literally a split second in time. Do not be fooled by Pinterest.
The finished product is indeed adorable and I will keep it, and put it on the fridge blah blah, but I won’t be kidding myself that Robyn did it, that was a really arse about face way of me painting myself a blurry rainbow.
Lessons I learned from this:
1) They do it at a table with the kid STRAPPED IN for a reason
2) Robyn looks a lot like Gollum when she squats and stares and grabs at things
3) All paint needs to be in squeezy bottles, but crayola pots did not spill whilst I was wrangling a hobgoblin trying to so a Tom Daley impression.
4) Robyn’s Daddy needs to pick more appropriate moments to make accidental innuendos
