Homemade Puffy Paint

We have had a lot of rainy wet days here in Florida, you can usually set your watch by the afternoon thunderstorms. It is so easy to quickly run out of stuff to do with your little ones. The moment the sky starts to turn dark my children start to immediately lose interest in all of their store bought toys. No matter how many toy trucks, dress up clothes, puzzles, baby dolls or Tinkerbell fairies my children have its never enough to keep their attention when the storms roll in. I immediately see them running crazy through the house, forgetting all of our house rules and driving this mama crazy!


Time to get Creative!

Being a first grade teacher I have tackled my fair share of messy fun projects. Which I minded much less when I knew a janitor would be coming through to help me tidy up before the first bell rung the next morning. Doing messy projects at home can sometimes feel overwhelming...but they are so worth it! Messy play is a developmental must for little hands and minds. They need to be encouraged to explore their own curiosity with minimal guidelines (or rules) from you....after all it's only a mess, nothing a Clorox wipe can't clean up.

We decided to make our own puffy paint. We followed this simple recipe, comprised of things that were already in our pantry.

3 Tbs. Flour
2 Tbs. Corn Starch
2 Tbs. Water
1 Tsp. salt
Food coloring

You want the mixture to be like cake batter consistency. If it's too runny just add a little more flour and corn starch.

I used an over sized muffin tin to hold our puffy paint. Plastic squeeze containers work great too...I just didn't have any on hand and lord knows I didn't want to run to the store in the rain with two kids!  I had the kids use some baby q-tips to apply the puffy paint, even my 16 month old was able to create his own masterpiece using the puffy paint. Once they are done with their creation put it in the microwave for 10 - 15 seconds ( depending on your microwave you might need to do a little more or a little less...please watch it and don't walk away for safety)
When you take the paper out you will see it start to puff up immediately. Viola you have made your own art using homemade puffy paint!

We moved our painting party to the bathtub once we ran out of paper...the kids painted the tile walls and themselves with the paint...cleanup was pretty simple we just rinsed the shower/tub with hot water. The kids had a blast and before we knew it those afternoon thunderstorms rolled through and the sun was out again!

 

What homemade recipes have you tried with your little ones? We would love for you to share your favorites below.....leave us a comment!