Having seen the term 'Sidewalk paint' bandied about the internet or a while now, I finally found myself   sinking low enough in sanity to actually make the stuff.

You'll find oodles of recipes online for this stuff that all seem to spin off of the same basic ingredients:

* Cornflour (I used one cup)
* Water (I used one cup)
* food colouring (I had some red, yellow and blue so just made various shades through mixing these)

* Bun tray

Piece of piss, you just add the cornflour and water together, decant into a bun tray then add drops of food colouring to each one.

Voila.  Now stand back and admire all the pretty colours (then grimace at your stained hands if you're even half as cackhanded as me)

Let loose your Spawn.

Pro's:

* It's cheap
* Uses ingredients that most o us have in our store cupboard or else are very easily attainable.
* It's washable, you can hose down the pavement afterwards and it'll all disappear or if you're lazy like me, just wait or it to rain.
* As it's an outdoor activity, your kitchen is saved from desecration.

Cons: 

* Yellow food colouring makes your nails look like you smoke 100 a day.  Grim.
* If you let a 3 year old and a 6 year old play at the same time with it, the three year old will mix all the colours up and the 6 year old will get pissed off at this. doh!

Soiled

Whilst waiting for Thing One to come out of school at home time (he's always last) I was casually checking through Thing Two's hair, as you do.

Me: 'Have you been playing in sand today [Thing Two]?'
Thing Two: (Indignantly) 'No!'

(pause)

Thing Two: 'I was playing in soil'

How she quite managed to play in soil, have fun and still have clean clothes is simply beyond me, Thing One just has to look at muck and he's filthy.

I adore her, she's the only person that brings me flowers.