CHOCOLATE PAINT!

Yes.  You read that right.  Paint.  It has chocolate in it.  It smells like chocolate.  It looks like chocolate, and it has a cool texture when it dries.

I am so excited, y'all.  As I walked into the hallway last week, I smelled something delightful and fruity.  I asked my Kindergarten neighbors what the scent was, and they showed me the strawberries they were painting, using strawberry jello and red tempera paint.  They had the texture of strawberries and they smelled divine.  The kids were having such a great time, I decided to experiment for my yummy cupcake lesson....

 

To make the chocolate scented texture paint, I added a little bit of jell-o pudding powder to brown tempera paint.  I stirred it up and saved it in a baby food jar.  It sat all weekend in the jar and hasn't dried up or gotten smelly.  (Except for smelling like delicious pudding!  *drool*)  I would probably recommend using sugar free jell-o to avoid getting little visitors in your room, but I don't know how that would affect the texture.  The white spots on my test paper are vanilla pudding and white tempera.  They didn't smell like vanilla until they dried, so I considered the chocolate more successful.

 

Anyhow, I am planning to do my Cupcake Lesson on Wayne Thiebaud very soon, and I wanted to add another fun element to the paint.  Last year I had puffy paint made with shaving cream which we used for icing.  So I think this year I'll have them make the cupcake bottoms with the jello paint, and add the puffy icing for two different textures. 

 

 

Here is the paint in the jar so you can see the texture when it is wet.  I am thinking later on when we make texture/value collage papers, I will use a little scented paint!  Hooray for JELL-O!

 

UPDATE:  (December 2012)  After trying the chocolate paint method above, I've concluded that since it dries VERY hard, it would work best on thicker paper, or cardstock.  I've since switched to a mixture of shaving cream, elmer's glue, and jello pudding powder for fluffier results.  Also, something about adding the jello to the mixture kept the puffy paint fresh for an extra day.  Previously, the shaving cream/glue puff paint would only last in the ziploc bag for one day.