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We did paint at 2.5 and I know they did it at school earlier.

My LO is 20 months too and she loooooves paint. I just put a tiny bit of each color out and give her qtips and let her go nuts. Qtips are nice instead of brushes because she likes making dots and it's harder to get a lot of paint on them.
We also used those do a dot paint markers which are still paint but less messy.

If you're worried about her eating it, we've finger painted with pudding (vanilla pudding + food coloring) or you could sub the pudding for plain yogurt

We also tried gluing squares of colored tissue paper with a glue stick. My daughter didn't quite get it but a lot of the other kids did so you could try that.

Paint, paint with water, stickers, markers, stamps, crayons

Crafting usually ends in bath time over here at almost 2.5

We paint quite a bit. I strip them down to diapers and let them go to town. Afterward they get a bubble bath because they usually get pretty messy. Our counter tops (Corian) wipe up easily so I don't stress about the mess too much. When it was warmer they'd paint outside at the picnic table and I'd let them go to town out there. I only let them do playdoh outside because I hate the little pieces that end up all over the floor if we do it inside. Blake still samples it occasionally at 2.5, though. We tried leaf rubbings with crayons the other day and they thought that was boring. They like painting stamps (I cut very basic shapes out of potatoes or mushy apples) and then stamping them all over a long piece of butcher paper. We painted leaves and stamped those the other day, too, but that was a little hard for them. We also have Melissa and Doug stamps that they LOVE.