She didn't eat the paint!

Did you believe that? Because its a lie. She did eat the paint. She eats everything. But she ate far less than usual and headed her "warning" so that I did not have to take the paints away.

Anyway... FINGER PAINT! 

I've been meaning to try this for months, but kept putting it off. I make all of her craft stuff because she does, in fact, taste everything. Playdough is a constant battle because she likes playing with it, but just can't keep herself from eating it. I guess she's a salt junkie like me. So this was the first time I've gotten around to making the paint and let me tell you, it was well worth it! She LOVED it!  So I thought I would pass along the recipe and let you enjoy it with your babies too. 

I found the recipe on Pinterest, of course. Here's the link to the blog.

It was easy and quick to make. It did take a little while for the paint to cool - all the while Promise hung on the kitchen gate crying "pain! pain! pain!" as if she even knew what paint was... I said the word when I told her what I was doing, but all she really knew was that I was in the kitchen and she was not. 

So the baby food jars looked so cute and seemed like such a good idea... they were not. It was hard to mix the color in inside the jars and then hard to get the paint out causing a few hilarious incidents of stuck hands...

But the consistency was great and the colors were very vibrant. I didn't have any finger paint paper (it is now on my shopping list) so we used card stock and it held up fine. It got a little soggy once there was a lot of paint on it, but it never tore or anything. I even managed to hang one of her pictures of the fridge after it dried... albeit a very strong magnet was required.

Here's my beautiful rainbow, ha!, so you can see the colors.

Promise has always enjoyed sensory activities, but I've noticed over the past couple of months that she is much more reluctant to get her hands dirty with a new or unknown substance. She has no such qualms with food or dirt! So it took her a few minutes to warm up to it.

But once she got going she absolutely loved it. Seriously. She painted for almost 45 minutes. A definite record for my busy toddler. Usually any activity like this lasts 5-15 minutes. Playdough maybe 20 if I'm actively playing with her. 

This is her masterpiece... its hanging on my fridge! We will be doing a lot more finger paining in the future. I need a better idea for storage though. I would love to make a bigger batch to keep on hand and then scoop some out in a muffin tin or something. I honestly don't know if or how long it would keep, but I think if the containers are relatively air tight it would be fine. I just need to come up with container ideas. Any thoughts from you more creative/crafty Moms?