We did smiley faces on paper plates the other day - DD loved that, I think she did about 5 in a sitting!

We have a local council run place called "thats not garbage" or something similar, and basically business's donate excess or scrap stuff and then you can go in and fill diff size bags, starting at like $2 upwards. Its stuff like corks, photo paper, material, plastic tubes, etc. All really good stuff.

I haven't looked on it for a while, but the playschool website I think has some good ideas. One I like is roll a piece of paper up into a tube, put some marbles into different coloured paint and then put them in the tube, put the lid on and roll the tube around. Makes some cool effects.

What about using white crayons to draw on white paper, and then paint over the top - kind of like secret messages?