The first Pinterest Test (blogged) fail

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again (and probably again and again), I love to do projects with my kids. So, we attempted to do a fun little project. I found it on Pinterest with the title "glue and acrylic paint batik," I followed the link to http://ourcreativeday.blogspot.com/2011/08/rainbow-batik.html  and thought it looked easy enough! So, we gave it a try.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any batik and the store that I went out to get some at didn't even know what I was talking about.

Editor's Note: Apparently the project itself is called batik. But, the canvas-like fabric doesn't work for this so well...I've heard cotton may work better...ALSO - it is pronounced bateek, unlike the way I was saying it - batik... :) I stand corrected and humbled. Anyway, back to it:

So, I got some bandanas that are made out of some kind of canvas, I think. That was probably the first error.

I let the kids choose their paint colors - probably the second error as we ended up with an ugly brown and a neon orange with the rest being sparkles and a few primary colors...the pallet was certainly...unique.

We started by drawing designs with Elmer's gel glue. I mention this specifically because the last time we tried this, we didn't have the gel glue so we used the normal white glue and it worked even less than this attempt. Yes...this was our 2nd attempt...

Moving on...

After the glue dried, we went to work with painting.

 And, here is the painted masterpiece.

After the paint dried, we let the little ones play with it in a sink full of water, since they enjoy doing that anyway, it worked out quite nicely.

What ourcreativeday's blog says is to just let it soak in hot water for 15-20 minutes and voila! It's not supposed to upset the paint if you do rub a little bit, but that wasn't so much the case for us. Some of the paint came off as well as the glue. Bummer!

The other thing was, once it was completely dry it was...crunchy. I'm not quite sure what to do with a crunchy bandana, but I thought maybe washing it in the washing machine might help...nope...that didn't work either and it left a little bit of paint bits in the dryer that (thankfully) came off fairly easily.

Here is our creative "masterpiece," just the same, for your viewing pleasure:

I'm certain that if we used batik, we would've been golden...I may have to try that next time. But, if you do attempt to do this little project, be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting - so if you are doing it with kids other than your own, you might want to plan on having them overnight or for a few days. It is way fun just to paint and scribble and have fun with the kidlets anyway - even if it doesn't come out exactly how you were hoping...or how the picture showed that it might... :) Next time though, I may just do it myself and pick colors that I like...and use batik.

I'm thinking if we can ever get it right, it'd be fun to use it for a cover of a blanket or something unique like that. 

We will be attempting this again sometime, to see if we can master it and I'm looking forward to the challenge!