Wrapping Paper Masterpiece– Little Man Style

A couple of weeks ago, Little Man went to a birthday party for his friend Olive. I had wanted to make something handmade for her, but with everything that was going on in our lives around that time, it just wasn’t going to happen.

So I decided to add a personal touch with the wrapping paper. Plus it was a way to get Little Man more involved in the gift.

I extolled the benefits of using craft paper at Christmastime, and I’m still crazy about it. Here’s another great way to use and personalize craft paper for gifts.

First, I cut white craft paper to the size of the box I was wrapping.

Then I made finger paints using this recipe I found on Pinterest. You can use any finger paint you want, but since Little Man still tends to put everything in his mouth, I wanted something safe and not full of any chemicals or preservatives. The recipe is made with cornstarch, and it works really well. The other benefits of using homemade finger paints? They cost almost nothing to make and only take 5-10 minutes. It’s a win-win. Or a win-win-win, really.

A couple of notes on the recipe– It’ll take a little while for the cornstarch mixture to start thickening up, but once it starts it will go really fast. Don’t stop whisking it until you take it off the heat! It will also continue to thicken after it cools, so stop cooking it when it’s a little thinner than you want. If it ends up too thick, you can think it out by adding a little water at a time and whisking it until it’s what you want.

I made mine up, and colored it with food coloring while it was warm, then took it to my parents’ house where we had to be for the afternoon. By the time I got it there it was thicker than I was expecting, but it still worked fine.

Then it was time to get down to business! I stripped Little Man down to his diaper, because I wasn’t sure how easy food coloring would be to get out of his clothes, and this way I could just throw him in the bathtub to clean him up when we were done.

He wasn’t so sure about the finger paints at first, but he warmed up to them. We still had to help him some, and encourage him to use the whole piece of paper. I think it would work awesome for older kids. :)

The masterpiece!

Then we wrapped the box with it

and tied a bow on it.

The End!