Paint and a butterfly assignment

The paint before I put the color in it. (THIS IS NOT THE
PUFF PAINT!)

 Kylie had her last monthly family fun activity homework to do this weekend. This month, May, it was to decorate a butterfly. Kylie decided she wanted to paint it. I obviously had no paint so I looked online to see different ways to make your own paint. Plus I didn't want to have to get all three of the kiddo's out to go to Wal-Mart or Dollar General.  Gee!!! I never realized there were so many different ways to make paint out there!!!!!

I finally settled on a recipe that I think turned out pretty cool. The recipe we used tonight is as follows:

Kylie's paint colors, Pink,. Green, Blue and Purple

Kylie finishing the first of the paint for her Butterfly

PAINT RECIPE
Equal parts Flour and Water
Food coloring

Mix the water and the flour together till it is lump free then add the food coloring to desired color. I used the Wilton Gel Food Color, just because that is the only food coloring I use anymore. It's my favorite brand. 

Kylie working on the paint

Kylie decided to have pink, green, blue and purple as her colors to paint her butterfly.  I gave her a brush and one paint at a time and she went to town decorating the butterfly how she wanted it.  The best way to describe the end results is the paint ends up with texture on the paper. It reminds me of the texture of pressed paper that you can find in the scrapbook section of craft stores that you can still feel the fibers in the paper.  I love it! Kylie thinks its cool how it is rough and it has dark and light in it on the paper.

We let the paper dry completely and she decided she wanted some decorations on it. I looked online and found a recipe for a puff paint. (Some call it 3-d or raised paint)  The recipe for it is as follows:

different angle of the butterfly

PUFF PAINT RECIPE
1 cup flour
3 tsp baking POWDER
1 tsp salt
Water (enough to make the paint the consistency of pancake batter) I used just under 1 cup of water.
food coloring

The completed Butterfly!!

1. mix the dry ingredients till combined
2. add the water till you have the consistency of
pancake batter.
3. add the food coloring till you have desired color.
4. put in either a small squeeze bottle or pastry bag to use to decorate onto paper
5. after you have the paint on the paper pop in the microwave for30-45 seconds to "puff" the paint

I'll admit I do not keep small squeeze bottles or anything like that around the house. I just used the pastry bag and it worked pretty well I think. I just cut off a small tip on the bottom of the bag that was large enough for the paint to come out but not enough it was hard to control.

Kylie's butterfly face.

I just had to microwave for 30 seconds and it was enough for it. I bet however if you use more of the paint than Kylie wanted we would have had to do more in the microwave.  We also waited till the first paint we used was 100% completely dry before we used the puff paint. I also tested it on a different piece of paper just to make sure that it would not mess up.

Hope you enjoy and maybe get a chance to try these different paints we used tonight!!!!

TILL NEXT TIME!!!