Yogurt Paints

In our house, we LOVE art projects! Well, Little A does... Mama, on the other hand, likes art that isn't messy. It's not so much that I'm a neat freak as it is that I'm a little lazy and thus don't like the clean up portion of messy projects. However, I know that Little A is at the age where she needs to explore textures and mediums that are inherently messy. Le sigh...

So we made a trip to Michael's for finger paint. This was the result:

She was much more interested in eating it than painting with it. (Also, most of this is just her rubbing it all over her face.) Her interest in eating the paint sparked an idea. 

Yogurt paints! I've seen the idea around the interweb a few times so I thought I'd give it a try. Here's how it went...

We started with an egg carton. (I wiped this out lightly with vinegar, to kill any bacteria.) Then I added a little honey greek yogurt to each little bowl. 

I put a couple drops of food coloring in.

Now, this next part was the vital part for me. I took it all outside where I could just hose the mess off the deck. 

We used parchment paper for something to paint on. It took a little convincing that she could eat the paints as she remembered how bad the finger paints tasted. Once she got a good mouthful, there was no turning back.

This project was wildly successful. I felt comfortable letting her make a mess because I knew it would be easy to clean up, and she had tons of fun eating and painting with the "paints". We'll definitely be doing this one again!