A Different Kind of Recipe - Finger Paint

Monday I finally worked up the nerve to try finger painting with the boys!  I've been wanting to do it for a while but the idea of the mess really had me scared.  This fear of mess is the same reason I still spoon feed yogurt to my kids half of the time instead of letting them practice their spoon skills.  But Anyway! I got over it and it was pretty fun!

I found a recipe online for non-toxic, edible (but not for eating) finger paints.  The name of the blog from which I got the recipe says it all, Easie Peasie.  Mix the ingredients together until it thickens, cool slightly and pour into containers, stir in food coloring.  Viola.  The paints came out nice but were a little gel-y the next day so before I put them on the kids paper "palettes" I mixed in a bit of water to thin them out.  

Hop on over to Easie Peasie if you need more details!

To avoid a huge mess and a mommy meltdown, I covered our glass kitchen table with newspaper (I taped it down), put a sheet of newspaper on each kids' chair (under the booster, our kitchen table chairs are upholstered! gasp!) and stripped the babies down to pj pants since we did this activity about 30 minutes after breakfast.  

The kids "painted" a little bit but mostly had fun swirling the paints together on their paper plates.  Aaron, as usual, tasted quite a bit of his paint but since it is made up of mostly cornstarch and water it was all good.

These finger paints didn't stain hands, clothes or anything else!  I was pretty pleased with the lack of mess and we'll definitely being doing this activity again soon.

Here's a couple of pics...sorry there aren't many but Momma was too busy getting her hands dirty too. :P

Alex giving the "paint" a taste

Aaron enjoying himself :)