Homemade Finger Paint Recipe

Once upon a time, I used food coloring in my house. Once upon a time, when I used food coloring, I felt that the food coloring being sold in my country was such bad quality that I had my dad bring me a package of McCormick brand food coloring when he came to visit me.
That food coloring is now sitting on my shelf, unused, after its long trip around the globe, because we no longer intentionally consume food coloring.
So, what do you do with a bunch of food coloring when you won't eat it in your food?
Paint with it, of course.

Yes, I know this is controversial to suggest, because your skin also absorbs toxins through your pores, and these go directly into your blood stream without needing to go through your digestive system... and many people won't put anything on their body that they won't put into their mouth... and I try to do that for the most part, but... yea, I guess I'm being hypocritical for not using shampoo for this reason but have no problem having my kids paint with something I won't let them eat... 

But either way, here's how to make your own homemade finger paint recipe using just a few basic ingredients. If you don't want to use chemicals, a chemical free variation is written below.

Homemade Finger Paint Recipe

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons sugar

A little under 1/2 cup potato starch or corn starch (or wheat starch- see below)

2 cups water

Food coloring

Instructions:

1. Mix the sugar, starch, and water together in a pot, ensuring there are no lumps. A whisk will help for this.

2. Put the pot on the stove, and heat up on high, mixing constantly, until thickened.  You will end up with something looking like this.

3. Divide the mixture into different containers, and then add your food coloring to it, and mix well. Do this relatively quickly, as you won't be able to mix the colors into it once it's cooled down somewhat. Use a lot of food coloring to ensure a darker color.

4. Once cooled somewhat, give to your kids to finger paint with. I used gave them plain old, non glossy paper. To be extra frugal or green use the reverse side of a paper that was printed on, the inside of an opened envelope (use a razor to open it up), the inside of the cardboard from a cereal box, or anything of the sort instead of using plain printer paper.



Note: If you want to make this completely non toxic, color your food coloring with turmeric for yellow and spirulina for green, and make pink food coloring by using diluted beet juice in place of water for this recipe. Alternatively, they do sell chemical free food coloring, for lots of money, of course.

If you want to be ultra frugal (and you're not gluten free, of course), you can make homemade seitan, and use the starch you washed off in the seitan making process to thicken this in place of potato starch or corn starch.

This, for the record, is non washable, but the texture is as such that I didn't find it got onto my kids's clothes to even stain them.

Enjoy!

Do you use food coloring in your house/ If you don't eat food coloring, would you make finger paints with them, or do you feel food coloring is too toxic to even go on your skin to paint with?
Do your kids enjoy finger painting?
Do you think this recipe is one you'd make?

Linking up to Simple Lives Thursday, Frugal Friday, Homestead Blog Hop