Making homemade soap paint is a fabulously fun way for your children to experience finger painting. Children love to help mix and prepare, especially if it’s something fun or tasty. While this recipe isn’t tasty it certainly has the fun-factor.
Our children enjoyed making the soap paint so much that I didn’t even mind cleaning it off the walls, floor, counters, and body parts after they were done with their masterpieces. Seeing those big smiles and hearing the sounds of delight was well worth it. Plus, it was fairly easy to clean up since it is soap-based paint after all (just be careful around fabrics since there is food coloring in it).
Homemade Soap Finger Paint Instructions
Ingredients: 1 bar of Ivory soap, food coloring, warm water
- Grate 1 bar of Ivory soap. It will be equivalent to about 1 cup.
- Pour soap flakes into a large bowl.
- Add 2 cups of warm water to the soap flakes.
- Mix with an electric-mixer until the soap is slightly firm.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of food coloring to the soap mixture.
- Gently stir with a spoon.
- Drop a few globs of paint onto your child’s paper.
- Let them finger paint and have fun!
Here are the steps as we completed them:
Grate the soap.
Pour the soap flakes into a large bowl. Then add the water.
Mix with an electric-mixer until the soap thickens.
Add food coloring.
Gently stir to combine the food coloring and soap mixture.
Stir some more.
Look and admire this great concoction.
Drop a glob of paint onto a piece of paper.
Begin finger painting!
Hopefully they won’t get so excited that they fling paint all over the walls, floor and their body. You can probably guess by this next picture which of my children did that. 🙂
You could also put the mixture into a dish tub or other bin and have them explore and play.
**Clean-up Tip** I find it’s good practice to always throw unused paint into the garbage rather than put it down the drain. That way you can avoid any splattered paint in your sink as well as any potential clogging problems.
Lastly, put your little ones in the bath to get them clean!
This looks awesome! Totally doing this with my kids…..at bath time!