4 Things I Learned About Liquid Starch

Author’s Note: So as not to confuse you, there is no cast change or understudy replacing the main character within this blog. The character previously known as “Princess” has informed us on a numerous occasions that she is requesting a new moniker. Upon calling Princess “Chicky Bang Bang” (which she responded with “I no like that.” Can’t say that I blame her, what was I thinking?!) on the way home from Day Care this evening, she has now suggested to us — with emphasis — that “Princess Cupcake” would be more apropos from this point forward. We are granting her meager request and she will be referred to as such. Thank you.

“Come here Princess Cupcake. Mommy needs to write a blog post so we’re going to do a project.”

Blank stare. Crickets chirp. Try again.

“Want to do art?”

“YEA!!!!”

“Okay, we’re going to make stained glass WINDOWS!”

“OOWAAHHHH MAN!” And she smacked both hands over her mouth.

Huh? My turn for lost words. Totally not the response I was expecting. Perplexed, I don’t know if this is a good reaction or not. And where did she learn this by the way? So I asked,
“Is that a GOOD ‘oh man?’ or a BAD ‘oh man?’”

“A GOOD ONE!”

Whew, because this one has been in my arsenal for a while and I’ve been wanting to try it on just a night like this one where I am so tired that I will start the laundry but forget to put the clothes in (true story) but still want to do something fun for the light of my life, the reason for my being. Said project only requires three ingredients and from initial evaluation, should be relatively mess-free so naturally I have every intention of pulling this one out on a regular basis.

I needed three things:

Waxed paper – always have this

Tissue paper – had a box of those pre-cut art squares at the ready

Liquid starch – WTH?

Yeah, the starch thing was out of left field. I swear they don’t sell that at Krogers. The only near liquid starch I could think of was the kind in the aerosol can for ironing and surely the toddler art book had no intention of mixing highly compressed canned gas and 2 year olds.

So I Googled it. And thank God I found this video:

Notice it was listed under “housekeeping tips” which is obviously why I’ve never encountered “liquid starch” in my lifetime. While the video doesn’t give a list of housekeeping activities to best use it for or how exactly to apply said mixture, it does strongly suggest that it makes great Christmas gifts. And I have to tell you I am wholeheartedly convinced because:

1) it’s consumable so it falls onto the list of okay to receive more than one

2) no one has ever given it to me before therefore it is unique and unusual

3) it’s CHEAP

4) it takes only seconds to make

I’m sure it is the perfect gift and as soon as I figure out what to use it for I’m going to give it to everyone! Right after I stop laughing.

But the video did what I needed it to and cracked the code on my missing ingredient and thankfully only increased my supply list by two – water and corn starch – and I had a plentiful supply of both. Never mind that my corn starch had an expiry date of 2006. Really don’t think that has major significance in the realm of toddler art. (Note to self: family coming for Thanksgiving. Suspect this product needed for creating gravy. Family reads blog. Buy new box.)

Video housekeeping diva said to mix one pint of water with one tablespoon of starch. So I found a Tupperware container filled it with water and added a rough tablespoon of starch. No earthly idea if it was anywhere close to a pint – more or less. No clue. I do that liquid calculation about as often as I use corn starch. There was water, there was starch. I didn’t have time to Google again. The Cupcake Highness was waiting.

Princess Cupcake mixed the cold water and starch up and we were all set. I gave her a brush to coat the waxed paper with and explained,

“This is like your glue.”

“This is like my glue.” I am not sure if she was mocking me or mimicking me.

Nice thing about waxed paper is that it pools the water so she was able to put the tissue on the puddles and it would absorb the water and stick. It was brilliant. And so easy.

She was silent with focused concentration. I stepped away to finish making dinner.

Not the biggest mistake I’ve made, but while unsupervised she did manage to drench the red tissues so that the color was running in spots across the table and had just about washed the wax off the paper, but still no Oxy Clean necessary. She also pulled all the dividers out of the box of tissue pieces and scrambled the colors together which for someone who likes organization was mildly irritating at the end of a long work day. Sigh, I can think of worse things. No need to get my panties in a wad.

After cramming the cardboard barriers back in relatively the right place, we taped her masterpieces to the windows. The ta-dah would have had a bit more pow if it wasn’t NIGHT outside, but I think she got the gist of it.

Who am I kidding, she didn’t care at all but I’ll re-evaluate in the morning.

Things I learned – moisture saturation could be a problem so keep an eye on your little water monster and his/her brush. The waxed paper was drooping and curling on the window a bit and I did need paper towels. And the whole color running could be a problem if you aren’t paying attention so don’t let them go commando like I did – use a smock even though it seems like you wouldn’t need it.

I would also suggest that if you don’t have the tissues already cut, what might be fun is to take a paper punch and cut some shapes for your kiddo to use. You could even cut the waxed paper into shapes and frame it with construction paper to make a more finished presentation. If you are that into it. Or want to one-up the other mommies in play group when they come to your house and see it casually displayed on your fridge. “Oh that?…”

Also of note, the following morning I found that several of the tissue pieces had slid off the waxed paper. In retrospect, I DO know how much a pint is – I have drank many of them in my lifetime and have a bar shelf full of glasses just the right size. My ratio was completely off. Next time it’ll be a one for me, one for the starch for sure. I think that will fix the sticking problem. And on the plus side, I won’t care a bit when she mixes the tissues up and pulls out the dividers – I’ll just dump them all together into another container and have another pint.

All in all, I thought it was a super easy, fast project. And since I learned so much, I am enthusiastically inspired to do what the big bloggers do and offer my first give-away! Drumroll please….. All you have to do is tell me what you use starch for in the comments below. Can be the liquid kind or the corn starch powder kind. Seriously, I need to know. Comment away. I’ll give the prize to a randomly selected commenter. You can get extra entries if you “like” the Mommy Upgrade fan page on Facebook and tweet the contest (make sure you mention @tperot). Then comment below so I know you did it. And yeah, I’ll need your email or twitter handle to contact you to send you your winnings. Which by the way is a bottle of my super duper homemade awesome liquid starch.

You know you want it.
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