Homemade Finger Paint

So, it rained and rained the other day.  I wasn’t really prepared to spend the entire day inside, so I had to come up with some fun activities for J and I so we didn’t go stir crazy.

I decided that making our own finger paints was the way to go.

Please excuse the quality of my pics for this post.  The hubby had the good camera, so I used the camera on my phone.

I know that flour added to water over heat makes the water nice and thick, so I thought that would be the simplest way of making paint.
Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon liquid laundry soap (or dish soap)
• food coloring
• baby food jars (or something similar) to hold paints

I started out by adding the flour to a small saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the water slowly and stir until it thickens. 

Pour the mixture into baby food jars.  I jar per color you plan to use.

Add a teaspoon of liquid laundry detergent into each jar.  Dish soap will work really well too….but mine is blue and I didn’t want to risk it changing the color of the paints.  The soap makes it glossy and WASHABLE!

Add a few drops of food coloring into each jar.  I used gel colors.  Stir until fully saturated.

And…that’s it!  Super simple huh?

We let the paints cool while we had lunch, and then decided to try them out!

I think they turned out pretty good!  They were a little bit watery, so next time I will cook them a bit longer to get it thicker.  Maybe I’ll try adding a bit less water next time.  The paint on his elbow washed right off!

This paint can also be used with brushes…we just decided to forgo them this time!