How to Make Puffy Paint

My kids are out of school this week for Spring Break and the weather is just gorgeous.  I have been trying to think of things to keep them outside enjoying spring.

On top of that my husband is home this week replacing all of our flooring (Yeah!!) so I really, really need the children out from under everyone’s feet.

So I decided to try this Homemade Puffy Paint idea- I never did get a chance to do this last summer.

You probably have everything you need on hand already.  The only thing I bought are little squeeze bottles.  I found these at Hobby Lobby for $.99 each.

You can also just use an artist’s palatte or even muffin tins and paint brushes.  I decided to get the squeeze bottles because I am hoping these come in handy all summer when we paint outside.  Also I happen to know a certain 3 year old that can get one single M&M and somehow completely coat herself in chocolate, ruin her outfit and require a good shampoo.

Here is what you need:

You don’t have to use food coloring- if I do this again I probably won’t use it again.  Mostly for this reason:

Yup my fingers match my shirt now.  I think tempura paints or I usually just use a few drops of the Crayola washable finger paints and then you really don’t have to worry about stains and such.

So here is what you do:

• Mix 1/2 cup salt
• With 1/2 Cup flour
• and 1/2 cup water

Add your food coloring or paint until it gets to the desired color and mix well. (Try to get the lumps out.)

Now put it in the container of your choice- if you use little bottles like I did you might stop off at the Dollar Store and grab a funnel. If you can’t be bothered with that don’t worry- I just added slightly less salt and flour to make it really easy to pour into the bottles.

This is thick paint so you want to use cardboard or something stronger then a regular sheet of paper. I had some poster board in the garage so the girls used that to paint.

And overall the girls had fun with this. The paint will take awhile to dry so you can either leave it outside or you might try a hair dryer (make sure it isn’t so close it splatters everything.)

The texture is different and one last little thing.  I originally used the plain old food coloring but the colors looked sad and dull to me.  I switched over to some McCormick Neon food color and those colors came out really pretty.

My 5 year old did great with the squeeze bottles but my preschooler did wind up going for paint brushes.

The recipe above makes enough to fill about 2 of the squeeze bottles you see pictured above.  I just did a batch, added to to another bowl and stirred in the color- used a spoon to drip it into the bottle.  Mixed up another color and so on.  It is a pretty fast process.

Thanks to Family Fun magazine for the recipe!

PS:  Don’t you just love those chubby little feet?  These are the coolest little ladies I know.

And if you decide to try this project, here are a few other things that might be fun:

• Super Simple Homemade Playdoh
• Homemade Oobleck (this is something your kids will LOVE!!)
• Freezer Pop painting
• Easy Ivory Soap Clouds (great for bathtime after your painting projects)
• Fast recipe for homemade bubbles (way better then the bottle stuff)
• Easy colored rice (great alternative to sand)
• DIY Bath Jellies