Before You Begin: Mixing Your Favorite Colors
Aaron sat, tapping his toes as he held the phone, his fingers clutching his Green Beret. Whatever secretive work he was up to, it was the kind of world-changing business he would never be able to tell his wife. But, with the world on his shoulders, his face was still patient and his voice calm as he listened to the tired voice on the other line.
“All week! I have been staring at color swatches ALL WEEK. I’ve tried every color combination of toy-safe paint I could think of, and they all look terrible. No one would want toys in those colors”. Natalie’s voice grew firm. “I’ve been brainstorming solutions and found a good one. But I’m afraid it’s going to be a ton of work.”
Aaron grunted. “I’m used to work.” He waved away the Latvian officer trying to get his attention, “Later,” he mouthed, turning back to the phone.
“We will need to create and mix our own toy-safe paint recipes.” She drew in a big breath and rushed on. “I’ve already experimented with it and found some warm but playful colors. We can make a beautiful rainbow palette. I’m so excited; they look GREAT with each other. But, the only way to make these colors is to mix them by hand until we can get to a point where we can scale.” There was a pause. “Well? What do you think?”
“Mix our own paint.” Aaron passed his hand over his face. “You are sure there is no other way?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He shrugged. “Then let’s mix our own paint.”
BridgeWoods Toy-Safe Paint
When we started making toys, we were soon drawn into the vast world of toy safety. Most paints are not safe for children’s toys. It proved to be a BUGGER to find high-quality and safe paint for children’s toys. And when we finally found excellent, student-grade paint, we soon realized that none of the base colors would work for toys. Every color combination looked, simply put, absolutely terrible.
So we invented our paint recipes.
It was a crash course in color theory and mixology, with a dash of science and a sprinkle of magic. Our goal was to create colors that would look beautiful, no matter their combination or the skill level of the person using them.
And, Voila! BridgeWood colors were born!
You can only find BridgeWood toy-safe paint colors at BridgeWood. Our Rosy Red, Mary Blue, Butter Yellow, Cozy Black, and Snowy White can be mixed and matched to create vibrant, warm color combinations. Empty paint pots are provided in every kit so that you can mix bespoke colors to match your favorite colors, home, or nursery décor.
Mixing Colors
Want to mix custom color palettes? Step with us back to elementary school to remember the basics of color mixing.
Your Toymaker Kit has empty paint pots so you can mix your beautiful colors. You can create the colors of the rainbow; adding white will also make soft pastels.
Supply List
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The Basics
As an example, let us mix up some Meadow Green. Take your white squeegee and dip it into the Butter Yellow paint. It’s better to take only a tiny amount each time; you can always add more later.
Place the paint in an empty paint pot and scrape the squeegee clean. Wash all of the paint off your squeegee and wipe dry.
Next, dip it into the Mary Blue paint and place it in the same pot as the Butter Yellow. Again, clean and pat dry.
Now, turn your squeegee around. The pointy end makes a great stirring stick! Stir up your paint color until it is thoroughly mixed. Be sure to use the ‘point’ on the end of the squeegee to get into the tight edges.
Scrape the squeegee clean; wash and wipe dry.
There is your beautiful green! If you want to make it into a pastel green, repeat the process by adding white. Remember: it is better to add just a little paint at a time, slowly adding colors until you get the exact color you want.
Basic Color Mixes:
Use these same steps and follow the color mixes below to create a rainbow of beautiful colors!
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Mixing Meadow Green:
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Mixing Baby Rose:
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Mixing Hazy Purple:
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Mixing Pastel Hazy Purple:
You can create lovely, soft, pastel colors with your BridgeWood toy-safe paint. But, no matter what pastel color you plan to create, we recommend buying extra Snowy White paint and empty paint pots. Mixing pastels can take a lot of white paint, and it would be better to start with extra white paint to get the exact color and amount of paint you want. Mixing enough of your perfect colors at the beginning of the project is much easier than going back later to color match when you are already halfway done but have run out of pastel paint.
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Mixing Pastel Baby Rose:
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Mixing Pastel Meadow Green:
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Mixing Soft Grey:
Warning! Muddy Paint Ahead!:
Now, if you can add white to make a pastel, surely you can add black to make a color darker?
Right! ….
Right?
Black is the trickiest color to add to other colors. It is easy to add too much too fast, meaning you don’t have a darker red. Instead, you have a redder black.
Although you can technically do whatever you want with your BridgeWood kit, this is the one technique we would urge strong caution on while mixing your colors. It would be best to test a tiny amount of paint on a piece of paper to see how it combines before mixing up larger quantities in your paint pots.
Mixing too many colors will also make the colors appear dull. Instead of happy, vibrant colors, you might end up with muddy grays, browns, and blacks. Granted, some of you folks might be looking for that exact look. We’ve never tried it, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be great! So if you came up with something creative and beautiful, share your picture with us and tell the BridgeWood community how you did it!
Now, if you are a parent like us, and you turned your back on your toddler for just ONE SECOND, only to turn around to discover they helpfully mixed all of your paints into one giant, glorious, muddy puddle…
Well, we are afraid there is not much you can do to reverse muddy paint. Once it’s mixed, it’s mixed. Unless you are a mad chemist who somehow knows how to tediously separate paint molecule by paint molecule to bring back the original colors, you’re stuck with that muddy mess.
But! Don’t despair! You can order more toy-safe, BridgeWood paint here if you need to replace your paint. We will rush it out to you so you can continue your project to bring smiles to the faces of your loved ones.