Monday, August 27, 2012

Make a Mess Mondays: make your own fingerpaints



I'm back with a Make a Mess Monday post! This time, Lorelei and I painted the town red -- and blue, and green, and purple...


I was able to whip up the paint pretty easily during her naptime. To make it, I combined 3 cups of water, 1 cup of cornstarch, 5 Tbsp of sugar, and a tsp of salt in a saucepan and stirred (and stirred and stirred and stirred!) over low heat until it got really thick and paint-like. (I actually intended to follow this recipe, but then wasn't paying any attention and dumped in 3 cups of water so had to modify. Maybe it would have gone faster the original way -- it took quite a while for it to thicken.) Then I put a few drops of food coloring into each cup of a 6-cup jumbo muffin tin, added the paint base, and voila!


I wish we had a giant roll of butcher paper, but newspaper taped to the bricks on our patio ended up working pretty well. Next time, I'll tape even more down -- Lorelei wanted to have lots of room to spread out, and I ended up with a few baby footprints that I had to hose down later (it came off really easily, in case you were wondering). I gave her some sponge paintbrushes to try, and she seemed to love dipping them in the paint and then touching them to the paper.


I know from the pictures it looks like she ate more than she painted, but she really only put the brushes near her mouth a few times -- and since the ingredients are safe, I didn't worry too much about it (though of course redirected so she doesn't get in the habit!).


Not bad for a lazy afternoon activity. [p.s. did you see Margaux's post about her own cornstarch + baby fun recently?]

8 comments:

  1. Oh boy! Looks fun. We'll have to try while it's still warm enough to play outside. I like your idea with taping down the newspaper. Maybe I'll slip in a few pieces of paper so he can make "art" to give to his Grandma's :) They would love that.

    And thanks for linking back. I hope you get to try our science experiment with L too.

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  2. Holy cow, these pictures are SO CUTE! Look how big she's getting! SO FUN!

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  3. Anything that makes a mess is a win in my book! Kids LOVE to make messes because it stimulates so much learning. Finger painting is one of our favorites.

    I started doing play doh with Jonas at about that age - it's really really easy to make, too.

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  4. These are the cutest pictures ever!! What a mess, but so much fun!
    ♥ Kyna

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  5. Adorable, as always! I have to say I actually think her "self-decoration" is quite artistic-looking! Definitely tagging that recipe (and this post!) for future fun.

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  6. That recipe sounds great, and those photos of Lorelei covered in paint are even better!

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  7. What a fun idea, and a simple recipe. I know Annabelle would love it. Adding it to our list! I adore that last photo of Lorelei, by the way.

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  8. i'm going to try this tomorrow. wish me luck! and thanks for the recipe!

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