Puffy sidewalk paint

Outdoor sidewalk fun goes 3D

Want to bring some life to the sidewalk, but feeling a bit bored with sidewalk chalk? how about puffy sidewalk paint?

This was fairly easy to make.

First, decide how many colors you want to have.

Then, mix up the ingredients needed for each color – so if you want four colors, you need to do this four times.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour

• 1 cup water

• 1 tablespoon dish soap – just about any dish soap will work.

• 5-10 drops food coloring or washable paint

What’s the difference between food coloring and washable paint? We found this recipe on midgetmomma.com, who notes that food coloring lasts longer, while washable paint fades fairly quickly. And it’s worth remembering in Yuma, we generally don’t get much rain to wash this stuff away. So you may want to break out the hose within a few days to clear off your sidewalk canvas.

The steps are fairly easy to follow:

mix the flour and water, then add the dish soap, and finally, add your coloring. We used food coloring

Then, once your puffy sidewalk paint is ready, the original post suggests putting it into 16 ounce squeezable bottles. however, we didn’t have those, and we didn’t want to make a trip to the store. So instead, we used baggies. We loaded each baggie up, twisted the top, and then snipped off a corner. And that’s where you have to be really careful

On three bags, we snipped the corner just right, just barely taking off the corner. On the fourth bag, however, we messed up, and cut too big of an opening. On the three bags, we had terrific control of the paint. bag number 4? not at all. The puffy paint just glopped out – we had very little creative control on that one. We decided to try it out alongside some regular sidewalk chalk to see which we preferred.puffy sidewalk paint is fun, and we’re glad we tried it – but ultimately, we liked sidewalk chalk better.

it is pretty cool how the puffy sidewalk paint provides a new texture, and it really does puff up once it hits the sidewalk.

little kids likely would love this activity. it is messy and fun, hands-on 3D creative play!

A couple of notes on this project.

We left the puffy paint on the driveway for two days, and then went back to it. it had solidified like a hard clay. So we used a putty knife to scrape it off the driveway, and swept up the remnants with a broom. if that is something that would bother you down the road (especially since we don’t get much rain in Yuma), we would suggest hitting the driveway with a hose and rinsing this off when the kids are done, so it doesn’t have time to harden.two weeks and a few good rains later, and we can still see the outline from the flowers we made in the driveway. This doesn’t bother us – but if it might be an issue, don’t use food coloring. instead, try the washable paint instead.

happy crafting!