Fun with Homemade Finger Paints -

I cannot believe that this is the first time that I have ever made homemade finger paints! I have four very creative and paint loving kids and have never ever made it from scratch. I even have a 3-ring binder full of “kid friendly” recipes from when I was in college. All sorts of recipes for salt dough, play dough, bubbles, finger paints, etc. I think we will be adding them to our Rainy Day list of things to do.
Fun with homemade finger paints

All you need is water, cornstarch, food coloring and a small saucepan. I grabbed the ingredients and supplies and was able to make my first batch of homemade finger paint in less then 10 minutes.

Here’s the supplies that I used:

1/4 cup cornstarch
2 cups water
3-4 small plastic dishes or applesauce cups
metal whisk
food coloring 10-15 drops
3 wooden popsicle sticks
long sleeved art smock

homemade finger paint helper

Lil’ Red was very excited to have a hands-on activity all to his own. The bigger kids were busy playing video games and it turns out Princess didn’t even know we were painting until it was time to clean up! We were so busy painting and taking pictures that daddy came home!
homemade finger paint toddler fun
I took so many pictures that I decided to share as many of them with you as possible. Some were too blurry to share since mommy had to get her hands messy, too.

Remember to let your child just have fun. He did eat some of the paint and this is another reason I chose to make it instead of buying some finger paints. The other reason is I am too cheap to part with $8 for a pack of finger paint that Eldest would use up making his stop motion videos, lol. This way we can easily create any hue that is needed from bad guy blood to swamp gooey green.
homemade finger paint toddler exploration
I just cannot help but love all the expressions that I captured while Lil’ Red was doing his artwork. He got mad a few times when I tried to change things up but he didn’t want things to be changed out. He was quite content to play with the popsicle sticks I had used to stir the food coloring into the homemade finger paints.

I plan to use some of the finished product to create a few pieces of artwork jewelry, bookmarks, and possibly a few other Mother’s Day gifts. Stay tuned for future posts with some how-to tips for turning artwork into gifts.

This post is part of the Painting Challenge Fun Painting Techniques hosted by Messy Little Monster. Make sure to visit the other 30+ painting posts.