“Can I paint Mum?”
I almost said an automatic ‘no’ when he asked, but something made me stop and think first.
It was already 2pm, and Noey was running around getting in to everything, and I had a blog post to write, and it was ballet night, and…
So many reasons to say not now, to say ‘maybe tomorrow’… except I knew it wouldn’t happen tomorrow, and probably not the day after either. Then in the back of my mind I remembered I’d saved some empty deodorant roll-ons a long time ago.
“Hang on a sec… if I can find the things I’m thinking of them you can do really awesome special kind of painting!”
I was sure I had hidden away three empty roll-ons but time pressure kept me from digging any deeper in to the boxes of ‘craft stuff’ so we went with two. We chose paint colours, and then using a butter knife I carefully popped the ‘ball’ out of both containers.
I gave them a quick rinse then poured in the paint, and added a good amount of detergent (it helps the ball roll better and makes cleaning up lots easier). We popped the balls back in, put the lid on tight and gave them a good shake.
Then we got a little fancy and made some labels so we’d know what colour was in each container.
Then he painted….
And now we have a quick, easy, and mostly mess free painting option for the next time he asks to paint!
Most awesome!
Now I’ll have to start using more deodorant ;-)
this is fantastic Kate. I am going to have to give it a go. I only have one nearly empty deo bottle though :( but it may actually be worth buying some cheap stuff just for the bottles.
This is such a fantastic idea! I’m going to start saving all of my husbands roll on bottles from now on :)
Wow what a great idea….I so often end up throwing paint away as my daughter loses interest in painting after getting everything out…just happened an hour ago in fact! This way theres no prep and very little clean up – I love it! Will be saving my bottles from now on – thanks for the great idea!
Top idea !!
great idea ! great for reusing and because you can refill them :)
you can also get these cool ‘dot’ paint ones from riot crafts or other shops. I think the grannies use them for bingo too – its really hard to buy in red! they arent refillable but way less messy than ‘loose’ paint :)
:)
Lauren
what an awesome idea! regretting having just formally recycled one of these the other day, bummer….
Actually, what else I really liked about your post was your honesty about nearly saying no. I find that I tend to say no, there’s not enough time when I’m feeling rushed, but if I stop and think – what are they asking for? Something that might take 5 minutes to set up? Sure, why not. They enjoy doing it for as long as they can which is not always an enormous amount of time. It’s easy to say no, rewarding to say yes.
love this idea! so mess free! now to find some old roll on bottles!
This is brilliant! Too man times I say no to painting for exacty the reasons you’ve described. I LOVE this option – no prep, just pull them out and we’re ready to go and hardly any clean up. Fantastic.
this is such an awesome idea!!!! i love it! x
Great idea, I’m going to see if I can find empty roll-on containers for sale somewhere… I’m a big “no” sayer when things are slightly inconvenient or messy. I cringe every time I do it and tell myself I’m going to stop but it hasn’t happened yet :(
very unique and wonfderful..
I love this idea so we tried it but the paint didn’t come out easily. Not sure if we didn’t put enough paint in or not enough detergent. Will keep trying though coz I love the less-mess idea!
Linda, I love this idea but am yet to try it, a friend of mine told me it didnt work for her but maybe she didn’t use the detergent, wondering if you have had a 2nd attempt yet & if so have you worked out the amount of paint to detergent to use.
If you are still having problems try adding more detergent or even a little water. Your paint needs to be the same runny consistency as deodorant :) If it is still not working well try running the knife around the edge of the ball to stretch the plastic and loosen the fit a little.
Hope that helps
What a lovely idea! Unfortunately, it didn’t work for me either. My paint just oozed out in one place and the ball did not turn at all. I think it would need quite a bit of detergent to make it work. 1 part paint – 2 parts detergent?
You might need to add more water to your paint too. I think it really depends on how tight the ball is in the container and what sort of paint you use. You could even add a squirt of cooking oil to help lubricate things. Hope that helps :)