Edible Finger Paints

Both my girls have been poorly lately and if I am honest I haven't been feeling to great myself, however boredom has well and truly hit us all being stuck at home, especially with this mini heat wave that is across the UK at the moment. This led me to look for a fun stay at home activity that could be done out in the garden, obviously it had to be something interesting for both girls and myself and take up a good few hours of our time. The answer came from my eldest in the form of "painting please", but as we were running very low on paint supplies we had to find an alternative. After a brief Internet search we found a recipe for edible paints (not to be taken literally but they are safe for little ones if any of the paint does get near a mouth).
My 4 year old was totally fascinated by the process of mixing your own paints so that was a definite bonus. All you have to do is mix 50 % plain flour, 50% water til you get a smooth consistency, this is your paint base and to this you can add your colours. Separate the mixture into separate bowls (we used a paint pallet) then add various food colourings to get a full range of paint colours. Luckily I always have these ingredients in the cupboard so had plenty of supplies and colours.

 

 

Once all the colours were mixed we were able to get on with the fun and slightly messy bit......painting!

A trip out into the garden with paints and paper in hand and away we go......

 

My youngest absolutely loved this activity although we quickly realised that it's not a good idea to use brushes as they just get clogged up with paint and its not easy to wash out. Neither of my girls minded though and in fact probably preferred a more hands on approach anyway.

 Fingers at the ready.... paint away.

 

 

 

 

The finished paintings unfortunately aren't the sort you would be able to keep or frame as once dry the paint mixture starts to crack and crumble off the paper but this activity did entertain for an hour or two which was the main objective and its definitely a project to do again in the future, maybe as part of some sort of science activity - idea for the future.