*This post is sponsored by Elmer’s. All ideas and opinions are my own.
I am so excited to share with you a fun, cheap, and simple Halloween craft activity that you can do with your family: using Elmer’s Painters paint pens to decorate plates and other dishes. These paint pen plates hardly took any time to set up, complete, or clean up, but the finished product is something darling that I am going to keep for years to come and smile back at when I admire the adorable little kid artwork. I call that a win!
In order to make your own Halloween paint pen plates you will need the following:
- plates (I got mine at the dollar store – gotta love saving money!)
- Elmer’s Painters paint pens
- rubbing alcohol
That’s it! Prep your plates by wiping them down with rubbing alcohol. Allow the rubbing alcohol to dry. Now simply open up those Painters pens and get drawing and doodling! This is the fun part! My kids were busy, happy, and quiet as they enthusiastically decorated their plates. Once again: WIN. 🙂
Once you have finished your plate artwork, set it aside for two or three days to cure. Once they have cured you are going to bake them. Place them in a COLD oven on cookie sheets. Turn on the oven to 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Turn off the oven and let the plates cool inside of the oven.
All done! Now you can use and enjoy your new Halloween paint pen plates. I recommend hand washing them to preserve the colors over time.
The kids are so proud of their plates! I can’t wait to use them for our annual spooooooky dinner! (A blog post for another day.)
Very fine artwork indeed. 😉
I love this picture. It’s a jack-o-lantern showing me his jack-o-lantern plate. Heehee.
I hope that you are inspired to create your own Halloween paint pen plates. We have done dishes with permanent markers in the past, but they always fade so quickly. These Painters paint pens were so easy to use, and the colors are so much more vibrant and rich than the colors from permanent markers! I can’t wait to make our own Christmas dishes as well!
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What a great craft! The kids look so proud of their creations! Can you actually eat off them or are they just decorative?
You know….that thought hadn’t crossed my mind until yesterday. Sometimes I get really excited about ideas before I think them through. They are non toxic paints, so we are going to try eating off of ours. I obviously can’t guarantee that’s a perfectly safe idea, though. If the paint flakes off or anything I’ll update the post with that important info!