My kids love bathtime! All three have been water babies since day 1 (except for my son... it took him a few weeks to warm up to the water, but now you can hardly keep him out!). We're always looking for fun things to have in the tub - toys, paints and bubbles. I love the Crayola Bathtub products, but when I looked at the label it looked like a whole bunch of artificial stuff. My son has extremely sensitive skin - he breaks out at the slightest irritation, so I wanted to find something that he could enjoy too. The bubbles and store-bought bathtub markers and paints are too harsh on his little body. So I went Pinterest-ing!
THE PIN: I loved the idea of this homemade bath paint! Not only did it look super easy, but I already had all the ingredients on hand! I didn't even have to go to the store to buy anything. Plus, even if I would have had to buy the ingredients, it still would have cost less than the store-bought bathtub paints. Here's the pin I found...
WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup soap or shampoo (I used the last bits from the bottles of baby shampoo I had)
3-6 drops Food coloring
1-2 tablespoons water
Some sort of little containers (I used the Glad snack containers)
The actually making of this was easy, but extremely messy! What I loved most about it was my kids were easily able to help. Plus, as an added bonus, since we already had cornstarch and water out, we made Cornstarch Monsters! (I will post on this later... so much fun on a rainy day!)
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1/4 cup soap or shampoo (I used the last bits from the bottles of baby shampoo I had)
3-6 drops Food coloring
1-2 tablespoons water
Some sort of little containers (I used the Glad snack containers)
The actually making of this was easy, but extremely messy! What I loved most about it was my kids were easily able to help. Plus, as an added bonus, since we already had cornstarch and water out, we made Cornstarch Monsters! (I will post on this later... so much fun on a rainy day!)
Cornstarch Monster - very hard to take a picture of!
We measured the cornstarch and soap into each little cup first. In hidsight this may not have been the best thing to do. Mixing the ingredients in those tiny cups was extremely difficult. Keep in mind that when you mix the cornstarch and soap it's going to foam. The scientist in me (it's a VERY small scientist) should have known what would happen, but I just didn't think about it. The moral is... maybe you want to mix it in a bigger bowl and then separate it into the cups to add the food coloring. Make your life easier! We added the food coloring next and watched it "magically" turn into blue, purple, red, green, yellow and orange (of course we had to make every single color of the rainbow...). The next step was a little confusing to me, and this may have been why my paint didn't turn out exactly the way it was supposed to. You add the water a little at a time until it is "thick enough to stick to the paintbrush without much dripping but thin enough to paint a line." I think I made it too thin. You can thicken it with cornstarch and thin it out with more water, but I just couldn't seem to get the proportions quite right. Gives me something to improve on next time... if there is a next time!
Pre-food coloring...
Add the food coloring....
Mix, mix, mix!
And here's what we ended up with
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Future Picasso painting it up in the tub
One thing I was not expecting was what happened to the paints after we put them away and stored them. The original post said to store them in a cool, dry place in an airtight container... which we did. The paints, however, separated. The soap floated to the top, the water stuck in the middle, and the heavy cornstarch sunk to the bottom. I'm getting deja vu to my 3rd grade science class. I revert to my earlier statement about my lack of scientific ability... I should have seen it coming, I guess, but, again, I just didn't think of it. Here is what happened to the bath paints after they sat for a day or two.
Separated bath paints - no fun!
The other thing was they were REALLY hard to mix back up. We shook them first (which made them all foamy again). Then we stirred them with our fingers, which made a whole new mess. Good thing we were already in the tub! Easy clean up. It would definitely be worth trying to figure out a way to prevent it from happening or to find a different recipe.
COST: $$ I actually spent next to nothing on this, because I already had a ton of the ingredients that I needed. Cornstarch... check (we always keep it on hand to make Cornstarch Monsters). Water... well, yea. Soap/shampoo... I used the leftovers from the bottom of the bottles. Food coloring... double check... we always seem to have about 6 or 7 boxes of food coloring stashed away in our cupboards... with bottles about 1/2 full! Containers... nope. I had gathered all of the ingredients and then had nothing to put them in. Enter: Safeway. I made a quick run and found the Glad snack size containers. They were the perfect size to make each color.
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DO-ABILITY: This was extremely easy to do. Aside from the gargantuan mess my kids would make and the measuring, they could probably have managed it by themselves. I mean, really... who can't measure stuff and dump it into a bowl. The hardest part was that it foamed up so much we had a hard time mixing it without it ending up all over our counter. Once we finally got the soap and cornstarch mixed together, we had a whole new obstacle of getting the consistency right, which, obviously we botched up. Finally, once the first two steps were done we had to mix the food coloring in, and we had the foam issue again. A little tip if you decide to do this recipe... mix it in a bigger bowl and then use a spatch to get it into the containers post-mixing. Lear from my mistakes!
OVERALL THOUGHTS: So I didn't love this recipe, but I'm not sure there are others, but, hey... Pinterest has ideas for everything, right? After we mixed it and were ready to use it, I was expecting that my kids would be able to use their fingers to paint. To get the paint to stick to the tiles, we had to use a paintbrush (which I had to go search for...). Our paint ended up very thin and when we painted it on, it was very light (not at all like the picture of the Pin). I'm definitely going to research and try to find a better recipe to use next time we're in the mood to paint in the tub. That being said... I think the recipe could be good if the proportions were right. I will experiment with that too. Only problem? How much bathtub paint does a family need? FRIENDS... I think you know what your kids getting from our family at their next birthday party!
THE GOOD: So easy and perfect for the kids to help with. It has very few ingredients and nothing you don't already have in your cupboard. Plus you can make cornstarch monsters! In the bathtub when they are finished painting, the clean up is super easy! It didn't leave any stains on the tile (I have white tile too!) and all we had to do was spray it with the shower. Viola... clean!
THE BAD: It was super messy to make. I revert to my earlier comment about mixing it in a bigger bowl. Definitely you want to do this! Although our proportions may have been off a bit, our paint ended up so thin that we had to glob it on in order for it to make any shapes or letters on the tiles. Also, I really didn't like the way the paint separated and mixing it back together was really difficult. So, like I said, I think it is definitely worth investigating a little more.
PIN OR BUST?: I would have to say, at this point, this one might be a bust. After a little more looking into it and trying things out I might change my tune. Like I said before, I'm not necessarily giving up on this one, I might just look around, ask around and figure out how it could be better. Stay tuned for that!
THE LAST WORD: I do have another recipe for bathtub paint I'm going to try... and this one is foamy! Maybe that is the magical solution to my separation problem... we shall see.
Happy Pinning!
COST: $$ I actually spent next to nothing on this, because I already had a ton of the ingredients that I needed. Cornstarch... check (we always keep it on hand to make Cornstarch Monsters). Water... well, yea. Soap/shampoo... I used the leftovers from the bottom of the bottles. Food coloring... double check... we always seem to have about 6 or 7 boxes of food coloring stashed away in our cupboards... with bottles about 1/2 full! Containers... nope. I had gathered all of the ingredients and then had nothing to put them in. Enter: Safeway. I made a quick run and found the Glad snack size containers. They were the perfect size to make each color.
DO-ABILITY: This was extremely easy to do. Aside from the gargantuan mess my kids would make and the measuring, they could probably have managed it by themselves. I mean, really... who can't measure stuff and dump it into a bowl. The hardest part was that it foamed up so much we had a hard time mixing it without it ending up all over our counter. Once we finally got the soap and cornstarch mixed together, we had a whole new obstacle of getting the consistency right, which, obviously we botched up. Finally, once the first two steps were done we had to mix the food coloring in, and we had the foam issue again. A little tip if you decide to do this recipe... mix it in a bigger bowl and then use a spatch to get it into the containers post-mixing. Lear from my mistakes!
OVERALL THOUGHTS: So I didn't love this recipe, but I'm not sure there are others, but, hey... Pinterest has ideas for everything, right? After we mixed it and were ready to use it, I was expecting that my kids would be able to use their fingers to paint. To get the paint to stick to the tiles, we had to use a paintbrush (which I had to go search for...). Our paint ended up very thin and when we painted it on, it was very light (not at all like the picture of the Pin). I'm definitely going to research and try to find a better recipe to use next time we're in the mood to paint in the tub. That being said... I think the recipe could be good if the proportions were right. I will experiment with that too. Only problem? How much bathtub paint does a family need? FRIENDS... I think you know what your kids getting from our family at their next birthday party!
THE GOOD: So easy and perfect for the kids to help with. It has very few ingredients and nothing you don't already have in your cupboard. Plus you can make cornstarch monsters! In the bathtub when they are finished painting, the clean up is super easy! It didn't leave any stains on the tile (I have white tile too!) and all we had to do was spray it with the shower. Viola... clean!
THE BAD: It was super messy to make. I revert to my earlier comment about mixing it in a bigger bowl. Definitely you want to do this! Although our proportions may have been off a bit, our paint ended up so thin that we had to glob it on in order for it to make any shapes or letters on the tiles. Also, I really didn't like the way the paint separated and mixing it back together was really difficult. So, like I said, I think it is definitely worth investigating a little more.
PIN OR BUST?: I would have to say, at this point, this one might be a bust. After a little more looking into it and trying things out I might change my tune. Like I said before, I'm not necessarily giving up on this one, I might just look around, ask around and figure out how it could be better. Stay tuned for that!
THE LAST WORD: I do have another recipe for bathtub paint I'm going to try... and this one is foamy! Maybe that is the magical solution to my separation problem... we shall see.
Happy Pinning!
