DIY: Easy Homemade Sidewalk Paint

Last summer we had so many hot days, and with a 19 month old boy to entertain, he wasn't content to just sit around the living room drinking iced tea, like mommy was content to do. So we had to come up with a solution, and fast. Outside play was then, and is now, Eon's favorite. How to play outside in the heat in our limited space, nothing but concrete steps and a big steep hill of non-playable lawn? Google came through for me, and I had the chance to combine two of Eon's favorite things in one fell swoop, outside and paint. As a bonus to me, it was cheap and easily made from stuff I already had! So if you find yourself in a hot, bored funk as we slide toward "real" summer, try this out!

Homemade Sidewalk Paint 

 Cornstarch 
 Cold Water 
Food Colors

You want equal-ish parts of cornstarch and water. I found it easiest to mix the cornstarch and water in separate containers from the beginning as opposed to dividing it later. It tends to settle a bit no matter how freshly stirred it is, so this way they all have equal opacity. You can use more or less water to reach the consistency you want, ours was about like 2% cow's milk in appearance. The paint may seem very thin but that's fine, it may even look like you're hardly using a color at first, but it will brighten considerably as it dries and on a hot day like today it was drying very quickly. We went with about 2 Tbs. of cornstarch and 2-3 Tbs. of water per cup, and we did 4 cups of color. Add food color drops until it's the shade you want, I'd err on the side of a few more drops than you think you might need, the actual color of the dried paint will be more pastel than the shade of wet paint. Eon picked Purple, Blue, Green, and Yellow. Take a variety of brushes out with you, and have fun! It can wash off with rain or you can spray it off later and it's fine for plants and animals and even tots, if they get some in their mouth. There is a possibility of staining, though our clothes didn't, so play in clothes meant to get dirty.