Cardboard house paint play

For our Disneyland Paris reveal we used massive cardboard boxes which contained Mickey Mouse balloons with reveal notes. It was great but it left me wondering what to do with the boxes. The following day we spent the morning turning them into houses which ended up being big enough for the boys to play inside of. This alone was great fun and once made they set about colouring them in, which gave me the idea of using the houses for a paint play activity.

I used ice cube trays to freeze paint which I mixed with a couple of drops of water. I froze these the night before and once removed from the freezer they were cold little paint cubes ready for decorating the houses on the hot day.

I then mixed paint with a little water in water pistols and set the boys loose on their cardboard creations in the garden. They loved spraying their houses and using the cold paint cubes, once the cubes had melted a little they began rubbing them all over their hands and printing their hands onto the houses. They played with the paints for a good forty five minutes before it began to turn into a paint fight and I called time on it with a nice bath and bath bomb instead.

A great activity for a sunny day and all I needed was:

• Cardboard
• Masking tape
• Paint
• Water pistols (£3.99 for four B&M Bargains)
• Ice cube trays (£1.99 each from B&M Bargains)