Frugal Homemade Paints

We ran out of tempera paint because my five year old daughter got a hold of it(without me), and promptly used it all up in one sitting. She did learn that paint should be used sparingly if you want to use it again. In order to save some time and money, I thought I'd try making our own paint. I mixed equal amounts of flour and corn starch with some water to the consistency of tempera paint, and poured into mini-muffin pans. I had some Wilton gel food dye which I had squirreled away in the back of my pantry. I had gotten it one sale years ago - blue, red, yellow, and brown. Just a tiny smidgen added to the flour/corn starch paint mix made a very deep color. Any food color would work, but I think the gel dyes are probably deeper in color.

My daughter was able to experiment and mix these paints to her heart's desire. The colors where bright and spread on the paper a bit like watercolor, only a little thicker. We'll definitely make this again.

Note: To keep it fresh, I spritzed a tiny bit of alcohol based "green" cleaner(as a preservative) in the paint base. As a precaution against spoilage, I'll be storing the leftover paint in the fridge as well.

I'll add pictures of painted pictures tomorrow. The colors where really vivid.

2/12/11 Update: The paints dried with a tiny bit of texture. I think next time I'll use cornstarch(no flour at all) because it is finer and less grainy than the flour. On the second day, the paints where even grainier, but still nice for children's paint.