Finger Paints

I’ve not done many activities with my daughter yet, just reading and playing with her toys, but I wanted to do more for her so today in an effort to provide her with an interesting change of routine I made finger paints.

If mess makes you anxious you may want to turn away now, the painter is one, she wasn’t sure what the paper was for.

I found a recipe at Tinker Lab.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 Cup of Plain Flour
  • 1 Cup of Water
  • A Dash of Food Colouring or other liquid watercolours. You’ll want to make sure they clean up easily.
  • A Pinch of Salt, I didn’t use any but if you will be storing it for later use it is necessary.
  • Extra Water.

Directions:

  1. Place Flour and Water in a saucepan.
  2. Stir over a medium heat until they mix together.
  3. When it comes together remove from heat.
  4. Add the Salt if you’ll be storing it.
  5. Add Water until you get your desired consistency. (Personally, I walked off on mine so over cooked it a little and needed to add around a cup or so to get it nice and runny again.)
  6. Now divide the mixture into bowls to add the colour. I had three colours so used three bowls. You’ll just need to add a couple of splashes of the colour. The more colouring you add the stronger the colour you’ll get. I went a little overboard with the red but was quite happy with the nice bright red I achieved.
  7. If you are storing it, keep it in an airtight container in the fridge. Otherwise just let it cool a little and you are ready to go!

There may be some lumps. I wasn’t too worried as I was looking for a sensory activity, but the more you stir the more smooth it will become.

I set us up outside with a picnic rug turned upside down so that the plastic backing was faced upward.

It really didn’t take long for this activity to get messy.

Even the Puppy wanted in on the fun.

Though mostly because as a puppy she eats everything. Honestly I’m surprised my daughter didn’t eat it. I guess it didn’t look like food, despite being in bowls. Fortunately it’s all food safe so there would not have been a worry if she had.

Puppy got a pat.
The moment you know it’s time to pack up.

Fortunately it all washes out easily so it was straight into the bath as soon as she was done.