This crafty project will go down in the history of fails. It was so bad, that we couldn’t even use it. It was so bad it’s still sitting on our kitchen counter, I can’t bring myself to throw it away. Maybe I’m secretly hoping that the longer it sits, the better it will be? Maybe I’m trying to turn it into a science project, so at least some value will come out of the whole thing. Or maybe I just can’t bring myself to throw it away, and to think of the wasted time and ingredients. Whatever the reason, our homemade finger paints have been sitting in our kitchen for, oh, close to 2 weeks now.
The idea was simple. Brilliant. And of course frugal. I would make homemade finger paints, so we wouldn’t have to dish out the money to buy them. I had all of the ingredients on hand. And what a fun idea for decorating pumpkins, since the kiddo is a little too young to get into carving. A great idea, that went horribly wrong. The paints were thick, lumpy, watery and worse of all, they were transparent. Even on white paper, only a faint hint of color could be seen. And I don’t think that they ever dried. They never would have worked on pumpkins. Sad Halloween.
Just in case anyone wants to take a stab at it, here’s the recipe that we used, from Creative Kids at Home. Maybe someone can tell me where I went wrong. Perhaps, someone has a better recipe to share?
Original Fingerpaint
1/2 cup cornstarch
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups cold water
food coloring
In a medium pan, mix all the ingredients together to make the finger paint. Cook over low heat 10 to 15 minutes. Keep stirring the finger paint mixture until it is smooth and thick. After the finger paint has thickened take the pan off the stove and let the mixture cool.
After cooling, divide the finger paint into storage containers depending on how many colors you would like. Add a few drops of food coloring to each container. Stir the coloring in to the paint to determine the shade of color. You’re ready to finger paint! Cover tightly when storing.
What did we do instead? Good old Crayola Washable All-In-One Paints
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Not sure if you tried this but I did with my nephew awhile back…
Edible Play Dough
1 c. peanut butter
2/3-1 c. nonfat dry milk
2 tbsp. honey
@Kariann – I haven’t tried that recipe. Sounds like fun, and a little yummy!
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