The best homemade art materials for kids art, including paint recipes, playdough, & drawing materials. Make your own art supplies for fun, economy, and more!
Updated July 2021
If you want to make art with the kids, how about whipping up some homemade art materials first?
We truly believe that oftentimes the best ones are those we make ourselves. Why? Because they are fun to make, economical, and you know exactly what’s going into them.
It might feel intimidating to make your own art materials, but it can actually be easy and fun. And your kids will love making them as much as using them! Here is our list of our favorite homemade art materials, some from the blog, and others from elsewhere on the internet. All are family tested and approved.
Homemade Art Materials for Kids
Paint Recipes to Use with Hands and Brushes
- How to make bathtub paint
- Raised salt paint
- Homemade finger paint using flour and water (on Tinkerlab)
- 2-ingredient homemade body paint (on Pink Stripey Socks)
- Pudding paint (on Babble Dabble Do)
- Edible (yogurt-based) paint for babies and toddlers (on Meri Cherry)
- Natural dye taste-safe paint recipe for babies and toddlers (on Fun at Home with Kids)
- How to make paint with sweetened condensed milk (on Tinkerlab)
- Homemade watercolor paints
- Make your own egg tempera paint (on Tinkerlab)
- Glossy corn syrup paint (on Pink Stripey Socks)
Fun Paint Recipes for Squeezing or Dripping
- “Puffy” paint that dries hard and sparkly
- Make your own colored glue (on Picklebums)
- DIY puffy paint
- Kool-Aid sidewalk paint (on Fun at Home with Kids)
- Microwave puffy paint
DIY Drawing Materials
- DIY scratch art the easy way
- Chalk rocks (on Babble Dabble Do)
- Easy, giant DIY scratchboard (on Pink Stripey Socks)
- Spinning top marker (on Pink Stripey Socks)
- DIY chalk (on Babble Dabble Do)
Homemade Playdough for Kids
- Our favorite cooked playdough recipe.
- The best no-cook playdough recipe (easier and quicker!)
- Edible peanut butter playdough recipe
Homemade Sensory Materials
- Homemade Fluffy Slime
- Cloud dough (on Tinkerlab)
- 13 Fun Things to Do with Oobleck
- The Best Butter Slime Recipe
- How to Make Aquafaba (a taste safe sensory material)
- Basic salt dough recipe and instructions (plus lots of ideas for salt dough ornaments)
Make Your Own Stamps
- DIY stamps with cardboard
- How to make your own abstract stamps (on Dabble Babble Do)
- Make stamp pictures with foam sheets (on Mama Miss)
- How to make potato prints
- DIY roller printers with foam stickers
More Homemade Art Materials for Kids’ Art
- How to dye pasta for arts and crafts
- How to make colored salt for salt art (on Buggy and Buddy)
- A homemade cardboard easel for drip painting
And if you’re looking for a place for of your children’s new art, here’s a DIY paper bag art portfolio to put it all in (on Art Bar Blog).
How about you? Do you make your own art materials? What supplies do you prefer to make versus buy?
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