Fun with Finger Paint

Since this is Aaron's first official Father's Day, I wanted to do something special for him.  Now, I'm not working, so I can't go out and get him the grill he drools over every time we go to Home Depot (yawn).  I asked him what he wanted and got the usual response of, "Dear, I don't need anything."  *Sigh*  Typical man...and they say WE'RE hard to figure out!  But let's just not go there...

So I asked myself...what do you get the man who doesn't want anything?  I suppose it should really be from Ayden, so maybe something Ayden can have a hand in?  He's only 7 months old, so there's not a lot he can do besides drool.  So I went to my trusty Pinterest board in search of inspiration.  Eureka!  I saw a pin I had about edible homemade finger paints...and another for art made from letter stickers creating sort of a negative image on a painting (sounds weird...you'll see what I mean).

So I made the finger paints...way easier than I expected.  I made three colors of which I thought would look cute together.  I took an 8x10 piece of canvas panel and, using letter stickers, added 'I love you'.  Canvas panel has the texture of canvas but it's not wrapped around a frame.  It's flat, so I figured it'd be easier to frame and if we didn't add a frame, I wouldn't have to worry about painting the edges.

Once the paints had cooled and the letters were affixed to the boards, I let Ayden have at it.  It took a bit of coaxing and showing him how it's done before he dove in.  I found that, at least for his age, it was easier to pour some paint on the panel and let him swirl it around.

Once the paint has dried (I let mine sit overnight), you can carefully peel the letters off, revealing the white beneath.  Some of the paint bled under on mine, but I think it actually looks pretty cool that way.

A tasty masterpiece

If you want to spend a little extra time and effort on this, you can paint the panel a solid color that you like and let your kids paint a different color over it...I personally prefer the white, though.

An additional word of caution...food coloring stains...so cover everything!  Also...have a bath ready to go for when your kids are finished...mind went directly into the sink to get suds up so we didn't mess up the rest of the house!

Ayden getting clean in the sink...he found Nemo!

Recipe for finger paints:

2 tbsp sugar

1/3 cup flour

1 cup water

1.  Add all ingredients to a saucepan.  Whisk until smooth.

2.  Heat to medium low and stir continuously until thickened. 

3.  Separate into cups and use food coloring to reach your desired color.  Let cool!