Food allergy and art supplies.

[brasilmom]

Does anyone here deal with food allergy? My child has severe and multiple food allergies including wheat. So, if you are dealing with that too, is there a brand of finger paint and play doh that is safe? If you make them yourself, would you be willing to share a recipe?

 

Thanks. Be well

 

Miriam

[FO4UR]

hmmm....we have peanut/treenut allergies here so a big HUG on having to deal with all that:grouphug:

 

I'll be watching this thread. I bet if you can find a traditional recipe, that you could just susbstitute wheat flour for barley or rice flour??????

[Jenny in Atl]

We are just careful to wash hands after using glue sticks, and basically avoid Paper Mache & Playdough. There are some GF lists from a couple sites. Unless they have a contact allergy, you could use supplies with wheat, but wash, wash, wash afterwards!

 

Hope this helps...

 

 

Gluten Free Art Supplies

 

Over the years with allergic kids, I have found Discount School Supplies to be the safest products for my kids. This espessially became a concern, when I noticed that my oldest daughter was reacting to food dyes. We bought some of their paint and used it for all our paint needs and coloring our home made play dough. Recently, I again called Discount School Supply and the manufactures of their products and was relieved to find out that they are also gluten free.

 

Discount School Supply Products are

BioColor Paints

Sargent Art Gothic Powder Paint.

Many more pains, markers and and play dough

 

Elmers

All Elmers products are gluten free, except the finger paints.

 

Crayola

Cut and pasted from site

"Gluten is contained only in Crayola Dough. Other Crayola modeling materials, including Model Magic modeling compound, Modeling Clay, and Air-Dry Clay are gluten free. All of these products, however, are produced on the same machinery. Although the machines are cleaned prior to the start of each production run, there is a slight possibility that trace amounts of gluten from Crayola Dough may be present in the other modeling compound products."

 

Here's a list we use:

Modeling Clay:

Clayola verified by phone 9/21/06

Klean Klay verified by email 9/22/06

Model Magic verified by website http://www.crayola.com'>http://www.crayola.com'>http://www.crayola.com'>http://www.crayola.com

 

Glue:

Elmer’s or Ross Liquid Glue or Glue Sticks http://www.elmers.com

 

Crayola http://www.crayola.com

All Crayola products EXCEPT Crayola Dough are GF

[abbeyej]

...and basically avoid Paper Mache...

 

What is "liquid starch" made of? It's possible to do papier-mache with liquid starch instead of flour and water -- but I'm not sure if that would truly be better.

 

We're lucky in that ds' gluten allergy is relatively mild, so we just do as Jenny suggested and wash hands and surfaces carefully. Obviously if contact with wheat or gluten will 'cause a reaction, you can't be that lax about it. :(

[Tap]

What is "liquid starch" made of? It's possible to do papier-mache with liquid starch instead of flour and water -- but I'm not sure if that would truly be better.QUOTE]

 

Just if anyone is interested, you can do paper mache with Elmer's glue mixed with water. It will take a day or two to dry, but it does work well. You can do the same for decoupage.

 

Tap

[Jenny in Atl]

What is "liquid starch" made of? It's possible to do papier-mache with liquid starch instead of flour and water -- but I'm not sure if that would truly be better.QUOTE]

 

Just if anyone is interested, you can do paper mache with Elmer's glue mixed with water. It will take a day or two to dry, but it does work well. You can do the same for decoupage.

 

Tap

 

Decoupage is what we use, but worry about recommending it to folks with young kids. I've not tried the glue & water. Thanks, I will give it a whirl, as Fi loves crafts!

[nmoira]

What a great thread.

[brasilmom]

Thanks for all the info. My dd does react to contact with wheat, hence me being a bit worried about the ingredients. I checked out the Discount School supplies site and they have a wealth of materials. I will contact some manufacturers and find out about he products. I sent an e-mail to Handy art, so let's see if and what they say anything.

 

Thanks again for all the help. Be well

 

Miriam

[susie in tx]

Instead of play dough, we like model magic and skulpy. We use both for different things.

 

My girls had never finger painted until this summer when my 4 yo got to try it out with chocolate and vanilla pudding. She had a blast.

 

I can't remember if there are any glue sticks with gluten, but we don't use a lot of glue. It makes me twitch. LOL

[Kimberleigh]

Some celiacs react to external contact with gluten while others don't. The biggest risk from external contact with kids is if they put their fingers in their mouths afterwards or don't get all the gluten out from under their nails. When my kids have done papier mache or dough projects, I've had them wear non-latex gloves.

 

For kids who react even to that minimal contact, you can make a homemade variant of play-doh using peanut butter (but it's a lot messier), use GF flour to make homemade dough (but that's expensive), or order some of the GF play-doh from Discount School Supply. That last option is also pricey, but it's really good stuff and comes in colors. My kids loved it when they were younger. Sculpey clay is also GF, but it has a different consistency than play-doh. Great for older kids, though!

 

For papier mache, you can also try wallpaper paste. Some is GF, and it works really well.