Learn Together

Color doesn’t just come from store-bought paint or food coloring, it is all around us! Colorful pigments can be found right in your kitchen or in nature.

Materials

  • Shaving cream
  • White glue
  • Bowls
  • Household pigments like: turmeric, paprika, plant leaves, dirt, and old berries.
  • Painting tools like brushes, sponges, spoons, or your fingers

Create Together

Puffy Paint is a rich texture on your fingers and is an easy and fun sensory experience for the whole family. Watch as we make some color mixing foam for our perfect puffy painting. 

  1. First, look around your kitchen for some items that could provide pigment. Pigment is a material that changes the color of something. Turmeric, curry, paprika, plant leaves, and old berries can easily be crushed up to provide homemade pigment colors.
  2. Next, add about ½ cup shaving cream into separate bowls.
  3. In each small bowl mix in each of your pigments using a spoon or your hands. 
  4. Experiment with color combinations! What happens when we mix a yellow and blue pigment in our shaving cream? How about a red and a blue? 
  5. When you have found just the right colors, add in your glue. Mix equal parts white glue and shaving cream. 
  6. Now you can make a painting with your new puffy paint! You can paint on paper or cardboard, or cover a table top with a plastic sheet. You can use a brush, a sponge, a spoon, or even your fingers to paint with. What shapes can you make with your colorful puffy paint? Can you spell your name?