DIY Scratch and Sniff Paints

Remember Mr. Sketch? I figure either you’re instantly all like, yeah! Mr. Sketch!!! Or, you’re just kind of wondering what’s with all of those exclamation points back over there.

Basically Mr. Sketch markers were THE markers to have in the 80’s. Like THE markers. But I never had any. I suppose my parents didn’t quite understand why it would be worth it to pay more money for markers just because they were scented. Boom. Yep, Mr. Sketch were the scented markers that you just might have jammed halfway up your nose wondering why they would make a nasty licorice smell on the playground way back when. Or maybe I’m the only one that smelled the one I liked least the most.

It was maybe a year or so ago that I found brand freaking new Mr. Sketch markers at the store. And I like totally bought them and totally Instagrammed that business and I totally got a lot of questions from gals (and a guy, I might add) just like me that love novelty odor-ific things. And when I found scented pigment on the internet the other day that I totally wigged out. Like totally. And Solar Color Dust is like my favorite online store right now. So much neat stuff!  :)

And the very moment this business was delivered I ripped it out of the packaging.  Freshly in my hot little hands I was shoving pots of pigments in front of poor Mr. Rob’s face while he was trying in vain to watch the Celtics with me demanding he guess the scent. :) After 2 wrongs I figured he’s just really bad at this and I went back to my office to start making my craft store list so I could get this homemade scratch and sniff paint going the very next day. And here we are. I’m sure you’ve already gathered from the title of this post and the pictures above but I’m gonna announce it like it’s a secret… I made DIY scratch and sniff paint at home.   <– I used every font modification available to me just so that this stands out really well because it’s that big of a deal. Want to learn how to make your own?

For this project you will need:

• Paint pots <— got mine at Michael’s for $3.99 but the linked are smaller but similar enough they’d work.
• Acrylic paints (raid your stash)
• Scratch and Sniff Pigment

Okay so have you gone over there and checked out those scented pigments, yet? They’ve got a nice variety of scents including apple, chocolate, cinnamon, cola, grape, honey, lavender, melon, orange, peach, watermelon, strawberry, banana and pineapple. Now I’m linking to where you can pick out 10 scents for $20. You get these little 1 gram samples of 10 scents of your choosing. With the exception of chocolate I only got fruit scents and I got 2 strawberries so you can mix it up however you please. As it turns out 10 grams of scented pigment is quite a bit and I’ve got another project or 2 coming up with them. Because are you really going to want to spend $20 on pigment just to make scented paint? Probably not. We gotta stretch that craft dollar, right? But no worries, I’m already working on more scent pigment projects so you absolutely will get a good value out of this stuff. That I can promise you!

Select your favorite colors and scents and pair accordingly. Grape and purple are the perfect example!

Now this is what 1 gram of scented powder looks like. All of the scents I received are made of white powders and the packages themselves aren’t marked with the name of the scent but the little zipper bags they come in are. Just to keep from mixing things up and maybe messing up a project a little down the road I only opened one zipper bag at a time to prevent getting scents mixed up.

My little paint pots are 2 ounces apiece. I used various acrylic paints I had on hand and mixed up appropriate colors while busting my paint stash quite nicely, I might add. The purple, however, I purchased from Michael’s because I can never mix up a pretty purple. It’s always brown-ish or too blue. A pretty purple totally evades me.

Remember how I said a little bit of powder goes a long way? Place your paint inside of your little plastic pot and add a little spoonful of pigment (I received a few for free with my order and I’m sure you will, too). Stir the paint very well with the blunt end of your paint brush or a wooden skewer or something making sure to break up all of the clumps of pigment inside of the paint.

Once well mixed apply a small amount of paint onto scrap paper and allow to dry. Does it have enough of a scent? Rub it, does it have enough scent now? If not you might need to incrementally add more. For 2 ounces of paint I used 2 spoonfuls (that came with my order) of the strawberry scent. For my green, however, I used almost half of the tub, or 0.5 gram, to get a scent that was strong enough that I was happy with it. For each scent it can be totally different so realistically have enough time for this project to prepare to mix and test a few times.

Just to have fun after I had scented my paints I made blobs on scrap paper and then doodled the fruit on them. I did this largely so that I can hang on to them and see how long the scent will last as the weeks go on.

You can mark your paint pots if you please but the scented pigments are good and I’m pretty sure you’ll remember yellow is banana if you match scents to colors :) I however had my Silhouette cutting machine hooked up to my computer so I made these little vinyl decals kind of on a whim. Not gonna lie, I totally love the look of them with the little white lids. So worth it :)

In case you can’t tell I’m so excited to have made scratch and scent paint myself. It was an awesome little project and I kind of wish I had some littles around to help me out with it but maybe I can have a do over with the boys this summer. Can you imagine how much fun the kiddos will have with this? I mean, a thirty-something danced around the house with little blobs of paint on card stock asking Rob to yet again guess the scents because it’s just that awesome of a thing. (p.s. his sniffer must be on the fritz because he didn’t get one right but I did!)