painted sugar cubes

Sometimes kid craft ideas hit me while I am at the grocery store.  Yesterday I happened upon a box of local sugar cubes for $1.50 and immediately had visions of them glued together as mini igloos for PlayMobil people.  Even better; painted and stacked as colorful sculptures.

Now that Adelaide is at school most of the day (7AM-4:30PM it's breaking my heart every time she comes home and is confused at why I am serving her dinner), Arabella and I have lots of one on one time.  She's great at playing by herself but I can tell she misses her big sister. I am trying help occupy her on the day she doesn't have preschool.  Bella's attention span for crafts is very small so I thought painting the sugar cubes might be a perfect easy craft for her.

Maybe you have a child that has a short attention span for art work too.  This might just be the thing for them.

Stuff you need"
Sugar cubes-the cheaper the better
watercolor set
paint brushes, bowl, towels
piece of cardboard (to paint and build on-paper works too but my kids tend to use too much water)

This is truly the simplest craft for kids.  They can do anything with the cubes.  It's important to remind them to use more paint than water when soaking the cubes.  We had a few cubes disintegrate when Bella soaked them with lots of water.

It was fun letting the paint drip onto the top of a cube and watching it slowly absorb into the sugar.  Bella had a lot of fun doing this for about 20 minutes.  Then she was off flitting about doing something else.  When Addie came home from school she sat and painted and stacked cubes for a better part of an hour.  I have the urge to sit and create a sugar cube rainbow.  Wouldn't that be pretty?  Once the cubes dry you could get out the glue and really start building.