Thursday, July 5, 2012

DIY Finger Paints

Any mom of a toddler knows those little munchkins will stick anything and everything in their mouths. With that in mind I have been on a mission to find kid friendly finger paint. I have found a few non toxic brands in the store, but none that I felt would be ok for Lil T to eat. After a fun search on Pinterest I found a couple of recipes from The Berry and I Can Teach My Child. 

I ended up doing the one with corn starch. My paint got a little thick and turned a bit gel like. I think adding a little water will fix that problem though. It still worked just fine and we had fun painting with it.

To make this paint you will need the following ingredients:
1/2 C Corn Starch
3 TBS Sugar
1/2 TSP of salt
2 C water
Food Coloring


Combine dry ingredients in a small sauce pan. Beware you might make a mess :)
Slowly stir in water. I added mine 1/2 C at a time to prevent clumping. And heat over medium low heat until mixture thickens.
Here is what mine looked like when it had thickened.
After it has cooled you can transfer to a storage container. A disposable muffin pan with work for one day use or you can use a container with a lid to store for future use. Lucky for me my inner pack rat came in handy and I had these Parkay containers on hand. I had enough paint to fill each one half full and have a little left over for another project that I will share in my next post.

Add the food coloring to the paint in the containers. I had the gel food coloring and added between a nickle to quarter size glob to each container.
Stir in the food coloring and you are ready to paint! Since this paint is made of food products I would recommend storing left over paint in the fridge. I did notice light staining on my hands after painting but it fades with several hand washings.
Thanks for checking out my blog. Now get out there and create something!