We have internet access on this beautiful farm, so I'm going to post something that I drafted a couple days ago...
Maia and I mixed up some puffy paint recently and she got to paint using squeeze bottles, which was a big hit. This recipe was sent to me by Kimberly Stoney, a woman who tests and develops crafts for a children's magazine. She's the one who also sent me the recipe for the Rainbow in a Bag color mixing experiment.
Puffy Paint Recipe
Not so much about mixing as about colors playing with of each other.
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup of flour
- 2/3 cup of salt
- 2/3 cup of water
- 2 squeeze containers from craft store ($1.99 for package of 2 found in craft store-cake supplies)
- 1 Tablespoon tempera paint
(at least 2 colors)
1. Mix the ingredients together in a big bowl. It will yield enough for 2 containers of wet mix.
2. Measure 1/2 of the mix out into a smaller container.
3. Add 1 Tablespoon of tempera and mix well.
4. Adjust the color by adding 1 teaspoon at a time up to 3 extra teaspoons. The consistency will be similar to stirred sour cream.
5. Pour into squeeze bottle. Repeat with another color for the second ½ of mix.
6. Give the child the bottles and watch them go (mantra here -- stay on the paper, stay on the paper)
It will settle over days if not used. Store the bottles in the fridge for up to week. Shake and remove the plastic wrap for play.
Kids might want to squeeze in one place and not move the squeeze bottle. That's fine or encourage them to move it around a bit. It will just take a little longer to dry if it thick. When it does dry, the salt turns back into beautiful crystals again and the whole thing glitters.
We did ours on foam core scraps and white cardstock- the mix can make paper very soggy-stay away from construction paper (and regular card board weeps leaving a water stain around the art work -- which is fine, just so you are forewarned).
Note: We used squeeze bottles from the cake decorating section of the craft store as well as one of those plastic icing bags. Both seemed to work well. The puffy paint took a few days to dry completely, but is now very hard.
We also made puffy paint with the Toddler Art Group.
And here are 13 more fun kids' painting ideas.
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