DIY: 2 Incredibly Simple - And Safe - Homemade Paint Recipes

Here at Coastal Painting, we love encouraging our little ones to get creative with color. But during their creativity, we began to realize something: Arts and crafts can get expensive! 

So in honor of all the creators out there - young and old - today we're devoting our blog post to a really simple and safe DIY trick: how to make your very own homemade paint. 

The great thing about this technique is it costs next to nothing to make paint for you or your children to use in their next Picasso. 

We have two recipes for you, so take your pick. Ready? Set... Paint!

1: Made For Squeezin'

Alright, brace yourselves. Here’s all the ingredients you'll need:

• 1 cup of flour

• 1 cup of salt

• 1 cup of water

We know, it's so much. Unbelievable. 

What we love most about this is that you could eat it if you wanted to. It’s completely safe, totally non-toxic, non-chemical, organic materials.

Mix all three of these ingredients together until the mixture is completely smooth. You could whisk it, but we like to put it in ziplock baggies and have our little artists do some manual labor. 

Once the mixture is smooth, add in a few drops of food coloring and get to mixing again. Be conservative with how much coloring you add in, we noticed that it tends to get dark really quickly. You can always add more coloring to increase the shade, but if you go too dark, it’s much harder to lighten it up.

This recipe is great for squeeze bottle painting. Think of those ketchup tubes that you find at local restaurants.

So if you're putting the mixture into squeeze bottles (which is what we recommend), you may want to dilute it with a little bit of water. 

Don’t be afraid to experiment! Play with it and see what you prefer.

2: Made For Brushin'

This recipe is kind of delicious. It requires a little more prep than the previous recipe, but we think it yields a better consistency of paint.

Unlike the last paint, which works really well in a squeeze bottle, this one is great for use with paint brushes.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 box of instant pudding mix (vanilla)

• 2 cups of cold water

Yum!

Dump the powdered pudding mixture into a bowl, then add 2 cups of cold water. Cold water helps the mixture turn into gel, while warm water prevents that from happening, so be sure to use cold water. 

After you've combined the ingredients, make sure to mix it thoroughly. Once mixed, put the paint in the refrigerator for a few hours. If you have the time, we recommend leaving it overnight. Do try not to eat it.

When it’s hardened up, begin by separating the paint into different containers (a muffin pan works wonders). Next, add a few drops of food coloring to give it some pop. Give it a good mixing and you're all set.

Over here at Coastal Painting, we love color. We had a blast experimenting with different coloring to make fun and unique colors. Add some red and yellow together to make a poppy orange! Like green? Mix some yellow and blue together until you can’t take it anymore!

Get creative.

We loved getting our hands messy with these non-toxic, easy to make paints. Let us know if you loved it too, and send us a message here. You and your art piece may be featured on our website!

And when the adults are ready to paint, give us a call for a free consultation.