This Foam Paint, also called puffy paint for kids, is a great idea for the little artists who love messy play and using their hands to create. This DIY foam paint recipe is made to play outside or in the shower, and it’s easy to wash with water.
Foam paint is very similar to puffy paint, except it’s more aimed at outside free-play than paper painting. It’s a fun sensory activity for kids. It’s fluffy like soap foam but thicker to so it can be used as paint on shower walls, board, or paper. It’s a safe activity from 3 years of age, supervised by an adult, as foam paint should not be ingested.
How to Make Puffy Foam Paint
It’s super easy to make Foam Sensory paint at home with only 3 ingredients. All you need are:
- Shaving cream
- Hand soap or body wash soap.
- Liquid Food coloring – we used the basic four primary colors that we mixed to create a range of paint colors. To make pink, we added more shaving cream and just a drop of red food coloring. To make the purple color, we mixed the pink paint we made with drops of blue food coloring. Finally, we made green color by mixing blue and yellow food coloring drops.
You can use different containers to mix the foam paint ingredients depending on the activity you want to set up for the kids.
- Painting on paper – If you want the kid to paint on paper without touching the paint, then use zip lock bags to mix the ingredients. Then, cut off one of the extremities of the bag and let the kids squeeze the bag to release the foamy paint from the hole and create.
- Free-play painting in the shower or outside – that’s the activity my kids love the most. For this, I used a 12-hole Muffin tray and filled each hole with a different color. Then, I set up a board outside where the kids can do some hand painting. I believe painting by hand is one of the best activities to discover all your senses, so I highly recommend that!
Now that you selected how you want to introduce this foam paint to the kids. Let’s make the paint. All you have to do is mix shaving cream with 1 or 2 squirts of hand soap and few drops of food coloring.
Does the foam paint dry on paper?
No, this foam paint stays soft and washes very well with lukewarm water. If you want to make foam paint that sets and dries overnight, skip the body wash and add an equal part of shaving cream and baking soda or cornstarch.
Age
This activity is safe from 3 years of age as long as there’s an adult to supervise as you don’t want the kids eating foam paint. Shaving cream is ok on a kid’s hands, but it’s not edible. So always watch out when the little ones are playing with this DIY paint.
Storage
You can’t store this paint for very long. It’s possible to place the foamy paint in Ziploc bags and keep it for 1-2 days, but then the shaving cream deflates, and it’s not as fun to play with.
More Kids Sensory Activities
I love to involve my kids in sensory activities like hand painting, playdough, or slime. Below or more ideas you may want to try with your little one.
Foam Paint
Materials
- 1 squirt Shaving Cream just fill one muffin tray hole
- 1-2 pushes Hand Wash or body wash
- 2-3 drops Liquid Food Coloring
Instructions
- Fill a 12-hole muffin tray with shaving cream.
- Top with 1 push of body wash or hand wash and a few drops of liquid food coloring.
- Stir each muffin hole with a stick or skewer until a consistent color forms.
- Use on a wooden board, shower walls, bath walls, or thick paper for hours of fun sensory play.
- This paint won't set or dry, it's washable with lukewarm water and store for 1 or 2 days in a ziplock bag.
