Little boys and girls, especially little toddlers like my cheeky monkey, Leo, (20 months) need lots of entertaining in ways that will help them learn through having fun and exploring new things.
Leo has watched his sister (Zoe, 5) doing crafty stuff all his life, but he is starting to want to join in everything which is tricky at his age. Home-made paint is fun and something I make for them using gluten free ingredients and colour with spices and food dye so it’s all edible. I use natural food dyes from Hopper Foods.

FUN PAINT RECIPE

This recipe is great for a fun paint, but not ideal if you want a piece of artwork at the end of it as it doesn’t set when it dries, but it crumbles. It’s also great to use outdoors as it will just wash away in the rain if it hits the floor.

YOU’LL NEED:

• Cover for your table or prepare high chair for your little one (I let Leo paint his high chair tray as this wipes off very easily)
• Tarpaulin for your floor if you have carpet. If you have floor boards, don’t worry as this just sweeps away leaving no marks behind when it’s dry
• A tray or plastic plates to hold the paint (I use a playdoh tray to hold everything)
• A cup for water to rinse the brushes
• Different paint brushes for fun and learning
• Dark coloured thick cardboard to paint on (don’t use paper as this will soak through and damage the paper leaving no fun for the little ones), or you can use a high chair tray (test out on bottom of tray if unsure about staining)
• Bowl for mixing ingredients
• Empty jars for your paint and mixing colours
• Art smock if you wish

INGREDIENTS FOR WHITE PAINT:

• 2 cups tapioca flour
• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 ½ cups water
You can buy both tapioca and rice flour from Asian supermarkets for about $1.20 a bag of 500g.

METHOD:

• Place your ingredients in a bowl
• Mix well with your hands getting all the lumps out

TO COLOUR (colours as seen in pic):

• BRIGHT YELLOW – ½ cup white paint plus ¼ tsp saffron powder (found at Indian groceries)
• PASTEL YELLOW – ½ cup white paint plus ½ tsp turmeric powder
• PASTEL BLUE – ½ cup white paint plus 4 drops blue food dye (use other dyes for other colours wanted)

To make the effect in the picture above, dip brush in the paint just let it drizzle off onto the cardboard. The kids love doing this and watching the paint fall.

When using the high chair, give them a paint brush and some paint on their tray, or just let them use their fingers through the paint. This is fun for toddlers as the paint seems to disappear as they put their fingers through it.

You can also let them use this paint as a glue to learn how to stick things. Cut small, bright coloured pieces of paper for them and let them try like my son is doing here.

When you’re all done, you can even recycle your cardboard. Just let it dry and brush the paint off and use it again next painting day.

Amanda is a devoted mum of two and she’s passionate about helping other mums to become healthy. She’s a qualified personal trainer and specialises in better health for weight-loss and disease prevention. She has created Healthy Mums and spent over 3 years researching and writing a program for mums to help them achieve and maintain weight loss without the need for diets. The program is nutritionist-endorsed and is helping families in three countries around the world. Check out her website or you can follow her on Facebook or Pinterest.