Little hands can help make this easy (and useful!) craft.
A few weeks ago, my daughter was watching Creative Galaxy on Amazon (so good!) and saw a tutorial for making bath crayons. It’s simple, the kids said: Just use a cheese grater to grate a bar of soap — “be careful not to grate your fingers” — then add a little water and food coloring, smash it into a mold or cookie cutter and freeze until solid. Bath crayons!
Next thing I know, I’m wrestling a toddler for 25 minutes over who gets to use our one and only cheese grater while she repeated, “Be careful not to trade yourself” … and seeing our kitchen transform into what appeared to be a horrific crime scene after adding industrial grade red food gel to the soap … and hearing my daughter freak out like never before after wiping blood red soap in her eyes … and hosing her down in the shower against her will …
And the bath crayons didn’t even work! As in, they did not write on the tub. We like to fail big around here. BUT they did turn the water pink, and that was exciting enough to get her to bathe (and reminded us of the adorable book, “Kid Tea.”) So we retooled the recipe and here’s the no-fail method for making bath “crayons”
Gather your ingredients — food coloring, soap, cookie cutter, essential oils (if you have them) and your food processor with the grater attachment.
– Put the grater attachment in your food processor and feed in chunks of your favorite white soap
– Dump mixture onto wax paper and mix in a half teaspoon of water at a time until it’s squishy. Add food coloring and let your kiddo knead away. If you have essential oil, add some here, too.
– Whatever you do, don’t trade yourself. More importantly: No hands in or near the eyes!
– Squish into cookie cutters or mold with your hands, then pop in the freezer until solid
– BATHE!
If you’re well past the bath crayon phase, Tavi Gevinson has a delightful recipe for homemade bath bombs right here. I haven’t made them yet but it sounds lovely.
I want to hear your favorite kid-friendly Valentine’s Day crafts!