I have an enormous love of art!  Whenever I can get the chance, I absolutely love to paint.  After having children, I found it challenging to including my kidlets in this favored hobby of mine.  Babies always put things into their mouths after all and I didn’t want to chance any rainbow poopie.  Many parents start off their children with non-toxic water paints, and that’s great, however I was just uncomfortable with the possibility of my kids ingesting them.  Yes they are non-toxic, but that doesn’t make them safe to eat.  One day while enjoying some pudding, I couldn’t help but think to myself “If only pudding came in other colors.”  Then I realized that if I added colors to vanilla pudding, it would basically be the same as paint!

The easiest way to color vanilla pudding is to use food coloring.  It’s quick, easy and you can get a wide range of colors.  However, with all of the controversy about dyes and additives, I would recommend using organic food coloring.  If that sort of thing is not handy to you, you can do what I do – use fruit to help color the pudding!  Here’s a quick guide:

• Red – Strawberries/Raspberries
• Blue – Blueberries
• Yellow – Lemon Zest
• Green – Lime Zest
• Purple – Blackberries

The berries I tend to puree since it helps to make the brightest colors.  It also makes the fruit easy to ingest for smaller children.  As for the zests, all you have to do is use a grater on the outside peel of a lemon/lime.  Be careful about adding too much zest as the pudding will end up tasting strong.  Using fruits won’t make super bright colors of course, however you will get enough color to notice it on a picture and it will be healthy to eat too!  These “paints” are great for finger painting as well as traditional brush painting.  They are safe if eaten (as long as there are no milk allergies of course) and easy to clean up too (no stains!).

The only thing about painting with pudding is that the works of art are very hard to keep long term.  My easy solution to this problem is to simply take a photograph of your child’s painting so that it can be displayed for years and years to come!

Once my children were old enough to understand that real paint is not for eating, they graduated onto non-toxic water paints.  I must say that they both really enjoy this activity and I hope it becomes a constant in their lives.

There you have it!  Go ahead and get messy!!