For a while now, I've wanted to do some painting with Isabelle, but as she is still very much in the 'stick everything I see into my mouth' phase, I didn't want to risk using real paints with her just yet. There are loads of recipes out there for edible paint, but I found that they are generally all based around something very sugary (like jelly, for example) and I'm not comfortable with Isabelle eating those types of things just yet either. So I had to find a way to paint with her with baby safe, mommy approved 'paint'. Both of these methods are things which I have seen on either Pinterest, or on other blogs, and so I decided to give them a shot and see how we got on.1// No mess painting:
This has to be a winner, just from that name! This is a really simple way of letting Isabelle play around with coloured paint, and I don't even have to wash her hands at the end. What could be better? It's very simple - squirt some paint into a ziplock bag, push the air out, and seal the bag. I duct taped it just to be doubly sure we wouldn't get a paint explosion! You could give this to baby on the floor, at their high chair - wherever really. I decided to tape it to our patio doors. Isabelle loves to stand here and look out at the garden, so I knew she'd enjoy the placement of this activity.
I taped the bag up using sellotape, and we had a squish about with the paint, mixing the colours, and moving the paint around in the bag. The activity was great for introducing the idea of different colours, and color mixing, and helped her fine motor skills as she used her fingers to push around little 'blobs' of the paint. I hadn't put a huge amount of paint in, as I thought it would just run everywhere as soon as I taped the bag up, but it stayed put, and I think I need to be a bit more generous with the pain in future! You could easily pop a page in to the bag as well, and extract it at the end, giving you some lasting art - I just threw our bag out. Maybe next time she can create a wall piece!
2// Flour paint:This was an activity I set up in Isabelle's high chair, but I think next time I would lay it out in her activity tray instead. Very simply, I mixed plain flour with water to get a paste. I didn't use any specific quantities - I simply played about until I got a 'paint' texture from the flour paste. I popped this on to Isabelle's tray, and added 3 spots of food colouring. I could have pre-mixed the colour, but thought it would be more fun to let her be able to mix the color in, and see the transition through 'swirly' patterns to full pink. I won't lie - the first thing she did was eat two handfuls of the paste. But it obviously didn't taste nice (funny that!) as she then decided it was for play instead of eating. She got thoroughly messy, and enjoyed splashing her hands in the paint. She really loved me picking some of the paint up and letting it drip back down on to her tray - she liked the feel of it falling back on to her hands. So as well as showing her more color mixing, this was a great activity for teaching her about movement of different liquids, and the texture of different things. We ended up with pink flour paint everywhere, but I am pleased to report it washed out with no issues! The floor was slightly more difficult to clean up once it had dried though...
So there you go - two ways to have some baby safe painting fun. Two very different activities, but both of which are really quick and easy to set up, and will fill a 10 minute gap in your day! If you aren't a mess fan, I recommend number 1!
Has anybody got any other good paint 'recipes' for Isabelle and I to try out?
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