Mess free painting for kids, shall we use a brush or not?

Recently we’ve done a lot of painting. We’ve done crafts and painting to make castles, cars, planes, drivers and many more. You have probably read some of that in previous posts. What you did not read though, and I did not talk about, is all the mess and cleaning work I had afterwards. From washing all the paint-brushes and containers as well as washing the paint off my kids, their clothes, the table, … Oh yes, a couple of times I fooled myself that they can be careful. I should have known better!

So what if we could paint with brushes, but we didn’t have to deal with the after-mess? This surely cannot be possible! …… Or can it?

About a year ago, in search for the right toys for our toy webshop, I discovered these cool brushes that have since become my favorite painting tools.

They are called squeeze-‘n-brush and they are at the same time a brush and a paint container. And what I like about them is that they do not need to be cleaned! It’s basically the concept of paint in the brush.

The fat brush is easy to grab for kids’ hands and the plastic top with cover prevents the paint from drying out in between 2 crafts sessions, without the need to clean it. Since the paint is already inside the brush, it means less mess when painting.

Painting with these is really as simple as: open the brush, squeeze it, paint and close it again … and to repeat this over and over again with different colors.

Victoria is the most intensive user of the brushes, and she has been using them since she was 3,5 years, but even Lukas (since he was 2,5 years) is able to paint with these pretty much mess-free  🙂

We’ve run into one problem tough. As most kids, ours have a favorite color and so the pink color was over much faster than the rest. But no problem, we unscrewed the pink container, put some of the red and white into it, steered with a long stick and we had pink again!

We’ve been using these “squeeze ‘n brush”  toys for over a year now and I believe they are about the best painting tools around, because:

1. You get some (relatively) mess free painting play
2. You don’t need  to clean the brush after use
3. They are refillable
4. The paint is washable
5. They are easy to take along on trips (If you fly, don’t pack them in the hand luggage)
6. They are easy to grab and to use, so kids can play with them from relatively young age

In case you are wondering, the brushes come in more sizes. We got ourselves a 12-pack refillable brushes  with many different colors . You can also check out this other ones who have glitter colors. If your kids are older there is a finer version called Paintastics for bigger kids (as of 5 years).

Did you try these already? If not, try them out and leave a comment telling us how it went!