Homemade Finger Paints Take 2

As many of you saw, the other day my nephew and I made homemade finger paints that both he and my son enjoyed using. If you missed that blog entry, you can find it here. In that post, you may have noticed something different with the canvas my son was painting on vs. what my nephew was painting on. Because my son is so young, and I'd still love to save his art, I tried out an idea that I saw on Pinterest; tape a word or design on a canvas and see a little masterpiece come to life. This worked brilliantly. Click here to read more about this idea.

Since my son wasn't overly enthusiastic the other day about trying out the paints and getting his hands all dirty, we tried it again today. He seemed to enjoy it a little more and, although the other paint that he had done on the canvas had already dried, it made no difference using the same canvas - he still enjoyed it and it still turned out wonderfully. 

All business

In follow up to my last finger paints post, I thought I'd fill you in on how well the paint worked after 3 days. It pretty much had solidified with a little bit of runniness, but it still worked - at least the parts that weren't like a sort of jello worked. The yellow, for some reason, wasn't as lumpy and I popped it in the microwave for 10 seconds to see if that would help and it did! I actually thought it painted even better than it had before! Popping the rest of the colors that didn't have as much liquid in them did not help, however. My guess is that if I had made them originally without allowing the base to get lumpy, the paint would've lasted longer. There's the lesson for me - don't let it boil and keep stirring the base until it thickens so as to not let it get lumpy. Either way, the paint still worked fairly well and Cade seemed to have fun. 

As you can see, the yellow (I used the same stirring spoon that I used for the green - hence the green dots) had the right consistency, but the purple was much harder to use as it was a little too lumpy. 

And, here is Cade's completed work of art before it was dry. It's not very pretty (which I blame on the ugly tan tape that was on there), but it worked for him and he had a good time. That is, of course, the goal in making this. 

 After the paint had dried, I peeled off the tape and was left with this gorgeous piece of art courtesy of my son. I'm quite happy with how it looks and look forward to doing this with him again.

 So, there you have it! Another Pinterest Test completed and worth doing again! I may even hang this one in our living room...until the next one is completed.