How to Make Paint

What you buy in the stores is not only full of toxic chemicals, it is also extremely expensive to buy when you’re on a budget. The paint that you can make it home isn’t capable of replacing the gallon buckets that you buy at the paint store, but if you just trying to do a small touch up or home project, it’s easier to make a batch of your own paint than to rush down to Sherwin-Williams and fork over $100 for a 5 gallon bucket. The ingredients list isn’t long and probably won’t cost you more than a few dollars. We do recommend putting on old clothes though, as making paint can get fairly messy.

Ingredients List

• skim milk
• chalk
• lime

The Process

See, you don’t need too much to make your own paint. It should be noted before we go any farther that skim milk is the best choice of milk to use when making your own paint. Full cream milk is too thick and the cream in it can curdle very quickly. You obviously don’t want curdling milk in your wood or walls. Also, when purchasing lime you’re going to want fully hydrated lime. Please don’t buy something like quick lime or lime byproducts. The acids and chemicals found inside of lime are often replaced in quick lime or lime byproducts, making the use impossible to use.

1. Start by taking about a quart of skim milk and mixing it with an ounce of lime. This will be the base of the paint. You’ll notice at this point that the milk and lime mix together to create a smooth paste. If you think of the paint looks a little thin, you’re going to want to add some chalk.
2. When buying chalk in the store we recommend you purchase anywhere between two and three pounds of it. You’re not going to use all of it, but to make the paint sticker you can start by adding a little bit. It doesn’t really matter what color the chalk is as it’s going to masked by the color of the paint in just a minute, but plain chalk is always the best option.
3. Thicken the paint that you have with the chalk that you have on the side. Add about an ounce or two at a time so that you don’t overdo it. You’re going for a really smooth paste consistency, so if the original mixture of milk and lime is more like water than paste, add chalk and mix it up until you reach the desired consistency.
4. Now comes the fun part of the entire process. You can call the kids into the kitchen or outdoors wherever you’re making the paint and have them watch. This is when you get to add color. You can do this by using food coloring or other naturally colored foods. A few drops of food coloring should be more than enough to color the entire bucket of paint you have created. If you are uncomfortable with the dark colors the food coloring often produces, try diluting the food coloring in water before adding it to the paint.

What you buy in the stores is not only full of toxic chemicals, it is also extremely expensive to buy when you’re on a budget. The paint that you can make it home isn’t capable of replacing the gallon buckets that you buy at the paint store, but if you just trying to do a small touch up or home project, it’s easier to make a batch of your own paint than to rush down to Sherwin-Williams and fork over $100 for a 5 gallon bucket. The ingredients list isn’t long and probably won’t cost you more than a few dollars. We do recommend putting on old clothes though, as making paint can get fairly messy.

Ingredients List

• skim milk
• chalk
• lime

The Process

See, you don’t need too much to make your own paint. It should be noted before we go any farther that skim milk is the best choice of milk to use when making your own paint. Full cream milk is too thick and the cream in it can curdle very quickly. You obviously don’t want curdling milk in your wood or walls. Also, when purchasing lime you’re going to want fully hydrated lime. Please don’t buy something like quick lime or lime byproducts. The acids and chemicals found inside of lime are often replaced in quick lime or lime byproducts, making the use impossible to use.

1. Start by taking about a quart of skim milk and mixing it with an ounce of lime. This will be the base of the paint. You’ll notice at this point that the milk and lime mix together to create a smooth paste. If you think of the paint looks a little thin, you’re going to want to add some chalk.
2. When buying chalk in the store we recommend you purchase anywhere between two and three pounds of it. You’re not going to use all of it, but to make the paint sticker you can start by adding a little bit. It doesn’t really matter what color the chalk is as it’s going to masked by the color of the paint in just a minute, but plain chalk is always the best option.
3. Thicken the paint that you have with the chalk that you have on the side. Add about an ounce or two at a time so that you don’t overdo it. You’re going for a really smooth paste consistency, so if the original mixture of milk and lime is more like water than paste, add chalk and mix it up until you reach the desired consistency.
4. Now comes the fun part of the entire process. You can call the kids into the kitchen or outdoors wherever you’re making the paint and have them watch. This is when you get to add color. You can do this by using food coloring or other naturally colored foods. A few drops of food coloring should be more than enough to color the entire bucket of paint you have created. If you are uncomfortable with the dark colors the food coloring often produces, try diluting the food coloring in water before adding it to the paint.