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How to Make Homemade Liquid Watercolor Paint

March 11, 2015 by OneMommy

If you have kids, chances are you have some old, worn out markers around your house.

Before you toss out those markers (or better yet, recycle the plastic cases), you can use them to create homemade liquid watercolor paint.

The paint is super simple to make, and your child will love using it for craft time, like this crayon-resist April showers craft. how to recycle old markers into water color paint

 

I’ve been on a big decluttering spree lately, and this week my attention turned towards our craft supplies.   

I had the kids test out all the markers on a piece of scrap paper.  Those that were drying out didn’t get put back in the marker box.  

Instead we used the old markers to make homemade water color paint.   The paint was perfect for salt painting. 

How to Make Liquid Watercolor Paint

It’s super easy to turn old markers into paint.  

First, gather up all your old, dried-up markers. 

Organize all the markers by color.  This is a great activity for young children to work on sorting skills.

Once the markers are separated into groups, put them upside down into jars.  I used baby food jars.  You could also use small mason jars.

Then, add water and let the makers sit like that for 24 hours.  

The more water you add, the lighter your paint color will be.   So if you only have one or two markers of the same color, you may want to use less water. 

You can always add more water later.

making watercolors from old markers

 

After 24 hours or so, remove the markers.

At this point you could use pliers to take the markers apart and squeeze the last few drops of color from the inner tube into your paint.  

We chose not to do that step.  Skipping it means less mess, and even with skipping it our liquid watercolors turned out brilliant.

how to make homemade watercolor paint

Store your paint in the jars, making sure to put the lids on tightly.  

To use your paint, pour a small amount of each color into the sections of a paint pallette or a foam egg container.  

A small amount will go a long way.  

painting with homemade paint

My daughter loved learning how to make liquid water color paint to use for all her art projects.   It’s a great way to use up those markers before you get rid of them.  

You may also enjoy these ideas:

  • Recycled Crafts for Kids
  • Awesome STEM Activities for Kids

 

Filed Under: Kids Crafts Tagged With: painting, recycled craft

Comments

  1. Suzie@homemaker-mom says

    March 12, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    Simply awesome.

  2. Donna M says

    March 12, 2015 at 10:06 pm

    What a great idea. I’ll bet it would work with dried out markers and pull the color out of those.

    Thanks for sharing this.

  3. susen @Dabbling Momma says

    March 12, 2015 at 10:10 pm

    this is great!

  4. Lili Thomson says

    March 14, 2015 at 4:35 am

    Excellent recycling idea. Must try! Thank you for the share. ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. Tiffiny says

    March 19, 2015 at 10:47 am

    Wow! I didn’t know you could do this. I’ll have to remember this. Sharing.

    • OneMommy says

      March 21, 2015 at 5:49 pm

      Thanks for sharing! ๐Ÿ™‚

  6. Jennifer @ The Jenny Evolution says

    March 20, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    I featured you over on my Friday Flash Blog today ๐Ÿ™‚ Congratulations! And love the idea of making your own watercolors out of old markers. Feel free to grab some swag for your blog saying you’ve been featured — http://www.thejennyevolution.com/grab-button/

    Jennifer @ The Jenny Evolution

Trackbacks

  1. Homemade Liquid Watercolor Paint | Mindy's Little Sidekicks says:
    March 13, 2015 at 9:56 am

    […] throw away many dried out markers; I never realized they could be recycled! Take a look at There’s Just One Mommy’s blog to learn more about recycling dried out markers by turning them into liquid watercolor […]

  2. Friday Flash Blog No 100 {Plus Features} | The Jenny Evolution says:
    March 19, 2015 at 7:00 pm

    […] Homemade Watercolors from Old Markers. Tutorial from There’s Just One Mommy […]

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