Who doesn’t love a good craft? Anyone, anyone? With 2 kids around and a new next door neighbor with 2 kids of there own, our house is in a constant state of “go, go, go”! How to keep 4 kids busy? Well 3 kids. Addison (the baby) is still far to young to participate in any of there “fun”, but she sure loves to watch!
So the other day, the kids wanted to paint. All of them. We have this awesome wooden easel that we bought for Peyton for Christmas two years ago from One Step Ahead – similar to this one (http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=537743&parentCategoryId=85185&categoryId=85231&subCategoryId=117610), but ours is all wood, with a dry erase board on one side, chalkboard on the other, two shelves of storage and a small tray to put your paint, chalk, etc. on. I think it’s discontinued now. Oh well, I’m glad we nabbed in when we did!
Well Peyton has a habit of leaving the tops off the paint unscrewed and I have a habit of letting her. My new motto: Do As I Say, Not As I Do. I think I wanted her paint to dry up. Not to be mean, but to have an excuse to try a homemade version. Well lucky us, it did. So I went over to handy pinterest and looked at my ever growing roster of crafts on the ole to do list and tada! How to make paint. Yes!
When I read it though, I thought I was making actual paint, not finger paint, so I was a tad bit disappointed, but it worked well for our purposes. I wish I would’ve taken pictures – but if you search “finger paint” on pinterest, you will come across this picture, which I think leads to a blog with more recipes!
So I gave each kid a bowl with all the ingredients which I let them scoop out and mix themselves (ingredients and instructions are on the picture) and I put it on the stove and let it get to the desired consistency. And my massive collection of saved baby food jars came in handy. Each recipe filled like 4 baby food jars and I did 3 colors (1 per recipe) so we ended up with 12 jars of finger paint!!
The kids loved it. It’s all homemade, non-toxic, from kitchen cupboard ingredients. They got messy. Real messy. I wish I had a picture! They had it all over them, the table and a load of paper. I think the consistency of it was the most fun for them. It kind of comes out a little like gelatin, think “jello”, but a little less solid. But it’s fun to mush around in your fingers and rub on the paper. And the best part: it was free (minus a few kitchen ingredients) and it cleans up easily AND it was easy fun!
I will caution one thing though. If you make a bunch like I did and don’t use it all at once, then store the extra in the fridge. We left ours on the counter for a few weeks and I noticed a few jars had started to mold. It makes sense but it hadn’t even crossed my mind before that. It is made out of “food”.
Once Addison gets a little bigger, I’ll even let her participate in this craft. It might taste bad, but it won’t harm her if she gets any in her mouth. Ha! And she can squish and splat until her little heart desires. :)
I think I may have to whip up another batch…pictures next time, promise. :)
Related articles
- Baby food cheats: Easy, inexpensive, and healthy (rookiemoms.com)
- Mess-Free Finger Painting (cobwebscupcakesandcrayons.com)
- Finger Foods for Your Baby or Toddler. (acedarspoon.com)
