Play Create Explore: messy art recipes

Friday, January 28, 2011

Homemade Silly Putty

This is a pretty basic messy art recipe.

Silly putty is easy to make, and the homemade kind is more fun than the silly putty you used to get in the quarter machines that was in that little peach egg looking thing.

What You Need

4 tablespoons liquid starch

8 tablespoons of white school glue

Your choice of food coloring

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.

Stir a bit, then let set for 5 minutes.

Start working it by hand and it will firm up

Have fun!

What's nice about silly putty is that yes its sticky but its actually not THAT messy.

It's really easy to peel off of your skin and whatever's left can be easily washed off with warm water.

It also saves for a long time in an airtight container or ziplock bag.

* I haven't yet tried to wash that white shirt above on L, however a friend has informed me that it does not easily wash out of clothing!

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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Baked Cotton Balls

Yes, you can BAKE cotton balls, and they are awesome!

Another idea from MaryAnn Kohl's book "Art with Anything". I thought this was just such a cool idea and so easy to whip up in a few minutes. These are cotton balls covered with a flour/water mixture and baked in the oven! They come out looking like rocks but are in fact "light as a cotton ball!"

My mom said they look like "dinosaur poop" so we've called them that too.

what you need

1 cup flour

1 cup water

cotton balls

food coloring (optional)

what you do

1. combine and mix the flour and water

I added a little extra water because it was pretty thick

2. Pour mixture into separate bowls (if you're going to make different colors)

3. Add food coloring OR use as is. (you can paint them after they are baked)

4. Dip your cotton balls into the mixture.

Fully coat them and then place on a greased cookie sheet.

5. Bake for 45 minutes-an hour at 300 degrees

TADA!

you can also make them touch on the cookie sheet and they'll bake together to form whatever shape you arranged them in! I experimented with this myself.

It's lots of fun to break them open after they are baked because they have that hard shell so they CRUNCH but they are still all cottony soft inside!

you don't actually NEED a hammer to break them. You can step on them and break them. But since we have a soft head hammer I thought he'd have fun doing it this way.