26 January 2015

Craft: Straw blow painting

My girls love to paint. I think painting is one of their most favourite things to do alongside colouring-in. To give them something fun to do I thought I'd try them on blowing watery paint with a straw. I remember doing this when I was a kid which I loved.



Instead of using proper paint, I found a great recipe for making thin watery paint using food colouring and cornflour. I've made a slight change to the recipe which you can find here.


Straw blow painting was a good exercise for Cherub, she's still not great at blowing out candles or bubbles, so this gave her some much needed practice.

Cherub whizzed through her paintings
Popette, an expert at blowing paint, loved mixing up new colours in the plastic cups, and testing them out on the paper.

Popette creating a masterpiece!
A thing I loved about this activity is by placing the paper onto a baking tray, not only is it great for capturing drops of paint, but it also saves a mess for me to clean up! The girls also liked picking up the tray and moving the paint around on the paper creating different patterns.

One of Cherub's paintings

Popette's beautiful masterpiece!

All you need is:

Plastic cups
Cornflour
Water
Spoons
Straws
Painting paper
Scissors
Baking trays or plastic container with a flat base


First I cut and folded paper to fit the trays. Then I placed a teaspoon in each colour so the girls could drip paint on to their paper.

Using a straw, the girls then blew the watery paint on the paper to make different patterns. By adding more than one colour, they were able to create different colours.

Enjoy!

Suitable age group: 2+ yrs
Estimated setup time: 10 mins (maybe get your older child to help squeeze the colouring into the water)
Messiness factor: medium

3 comments:

  1. Oh, straw blow painting is such a great activity for preschoolers! My boys also need a bit of practising with blowing and pursing their lips around a whistle. This activity will be perfect! Thanks for the tips x

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    Replies
    1. Glad you like it Grace, I hope the boys enjoy it too :)

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  2. That brings back so may memories. My mum used to make me straw paint and then she would cover my book in the creations. Such a fun thing to do as a tike and for grown ups too lol xx

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