Community Voices for Health

By:  Kristen Clifford

Doing different craft activities can be difficult if you have a toddler like mine who insists on putting everything in her mouth.  You’d think one little taste of the glue and she’d be running for some water – nope not this child – she would chug it until I took it away.  To prevent lots of arguing between her and I during craft activities, I try to do lots of activities that are actually in fact edible.

The first one we do often is edible paint.  You’ll need:

• marshmallows or popcorn
• milk or for a thicker paint, try sweet evaporated milk
• food coloring

Directions:  Make the edible paint by mixing milk and food coloring together.  I usually use my muffin pan to keep all the colors separate. Then get a clean paint brush and paint the food.  After painting the food you can let it dry for a pretty snack later, or if you’re like my daughter you can eat it right away.

The other edible activity we make often is edible playdough.  For this you’ll need:

• 1 C creamy peanut butter
• 2 C powdered sugar
• 1/2 C honey

Directions:  Just mix it all together and ta da, your ready to play! I usually give Grace different cookie cutters, rolling pins, etc. to play with.  By the end there usually isn’t a lot of playdough left, but if there is you can just put it in Tupperware to save for later.