Kid Crafts: Make Your Own Finger Paint for Paper Crafts

Finger paint is one of those items that kids can't seem to get enough of when they start crafting. Because it is applied with fingers, it is easy to use a lot of finger paint in one session.

Quick and busy little artists' hands sometimes also spill jars of finger paint, and accidentally mix the colors up. In the end, parents may be left with one painted child, a painting or two, and a whole mess of jars of brown paint.

Why not just make your own homemade finger paint, with household items that you already have in your kitchen cabinet? Homemade finger paints are easy to make, economical, and can be stored quite easily.

Homemade finger paints can be used to paint many things, including a placemat for dad or even a placemat for a pet.

Kids, your parents or caregiver will have to help make these homemade finger paints, since the stove is an important part of the paint making process in this recipe.

Materials for Homemade Finger Paint

recycled jars with covers (baby food jars work) for storage
or plastic cups, like applesauce cups for dispensing, when it's time to paint
1 1/2 tbspns white sugar
1/2 cup dry cornstarch
1/2 tspn table salt
1 cup of cold water
1 box of food coloring with red, green, yellow and blue

tbspn = tablespoon
tspn = teaspoon

For those of you learning chemistry....

water = H20
salt = NaCl2

Equipment for Homemade Finger Paint

one old cooking pot with a handle
one stove
one wooden spoon
one pot holder
one parent
kitchen or craft aprons

Preparation for Homemade Finger Paint

Kids can Do this Part: Line a counter top with some newspaper, to protect the counter from the paint. Wash and dry the glass baby food jars out and line them up so they are not too close to each other. The jars need to be ready when the paint is done cooking.

Also collect all of the materials and equipment listed above. Paint makers big and small should don aprons for safety.

! Kids can Do this Part: Measure out all of the homemade paint ingredients.

How to Make Homemade Finger Paint

! Kids can Do this Part: In the cooking pot, stir in the pre-measured ingredients. This means mix in the water, the sugar, the salt, and finally the cornstarch.

The parent can then place the pan with the homemade finger paint ingredients onto the stove. Mix the ingredients and cook on low heat. Over the next 10 minutes, continue to stir the paint mixture. The ingredients will go from looking funny, to looking watery, to thickening up to a nice painting consistency.

Once the mixture thickens, remove the pan from the stove and place on a safe surface.

Let the adult determine when the paint mixture has cooled down. Parents can now take some of the mixture and put some into each baby food jar.

! Kids can Do this Part: Pick a food coloring bottle. Add just a couple of drops of paint to make a color. Stir.

Because the paint is already cooled, you can start painting right away.

Store away any extra paint by placing the cover on the jars.

Now you can make homemade finger paint any time, as a family.