Fire Straw Art

This was a fun craft for you to do with your tot. It offers a great new way to paint a picture, but make sure you thin your paint otherwise it will leave you light headed. I’m not speaking from experience or anything. 😉

Materials:

• Metal or Plastic Cake Pan
• White or black paper
• Paint- red, yellow and orange (See Below for edible paint recipe. Please note that edible doesn’t mean delicious.)
• Drinking Straw (We used bendable.)

Directions:

1. Trim paper as needed to cover the bottom of the pan. 
2. Place your white or black piece of paper inside of your cake pan.  This helps control the extra paint that blows around.
3. Place a few drops of red, yellow and orange paint at the bottom of the paper. For best results, set it up like the picture below. (Depending on the thickness of store bought paint I would water it down for easier mobility across the paper.) 
4. Give your child(ren) a straw and have them practice blowing through it.
5. Then have them place the straw near the paint and blow hard. You may need to work together at first. 
6. The paint should stream up the page creating “flame like” designs.

Optional- Glue a couple of pieces of brown construction paper to bottom in the form of an X to look like burning wood.

If you’re worried that you child may suck up paint then you can make your own paint that will be safe if ingested.

Materials:

• cornstarch
• water
• food coloring
• measuring cup
• small dish

 Directions:

1. Combine equal parts of cornstarch and water.  You won’t need much, unless you plan to paint a lot of pictures. 
2. Add a few drops of food coloring and stir until blended to the color of choice.
3. Repeat to make as many different colors as you’d like.

Most importantly remember to enjoy this time creating with your tot.