A few weeks ago, with a Columbus Day holiday off school, Chloe and I decided to finally take some time to craft together. Her best friend, one of our neighbors was coming over and she loved to craft too. I didn't realize how addictive this project was going to be, not just for the girls but for ME! This is a perfect kids craft to do with kids of all ages, but I especially recommend it for tween girls. It was fast and highly satisfying! We did the project outside on our patio for easy clean up and the girls did a great job of keeping things neat.
DIY Paper Marbling Tutorial
Supplies:
2-3 Cans of Shaving Cream (Target brand is really cheap!)
Liquid Watercolor (or Food Coloring)
White Cardstock Paper (can get different sizes)
Disposable Pans or baking pans with rims
Skewer Sticks (Must have pointy ends to mix shaving cream and paint for patterns)
Wooden Mixing Spoon
Ruler
Something to cover your table and/or floors (if necessary)
Paper Towels for clean up
Trash bag nearby
Note: I bought this liquid watercolors pictured above at Michael's because we were short on time. You can order these really affordable liquid watercolors on Amazon. I do recommend to use liquid watercolors over food coloring because I have found that watercolors are so much easier to wash off your hands and won't stain clothing or furniture as food coloring does.
Step 1: Take the can of shaving cream and shake it. Fill your pan or baking sheet with the shaving cream and mix it up.
Step 2: Now add drops of the liquid water color to form the base color of your paper.
Step 3: Mix it up with a mixing spoon.
Step 4: Add in drops of liquid water color randomly all over the shaving cream base. Add in multiple colors and don't be afraid to do more random drops of water colors all over the cream. Then use a stick with a pointy end and start to lightly mix up the colors (shown left) on the surface of the shaving cream. This will help create the pattern to you final product.
Step 5: Place a piece of cardstock paper in the shaving cream and press lightly all around.
Step 6: Peel off the paper from the shaving cream.
Step 7: Place your paper in an empty pan or baking sheet and use a ruler to scrape off the shaving cream in one directional swipe (from bottom up or top down). Keep doing this until there is no more shaving cream on your paper. Discard the used shaving cream from the ruler or pan in the trash so you have a fresh "pan" for the next paper.
The girls found it so fun they actually started doing new versions of their colors by dumping out their original shaving cream so having at least 2 bottles on hand really helps as kids love to try new things and they love variety. We spent a good two hours working on these and had so much fun!
Here's one that I did and I really mixed up the colors well by using the pointy end of the sticks. The final result is on the right. I love the colorful swirls!
You can see all the pretty colors up close here. Set the finish cards on top of paper towels to dry. It really doesn't take long. The finished cards can be laminated to make notebook covers or pretty stationery or even framed for art in a room! The possibilities are endless.
I have some video of the process in my DIY Marbling Highlight in my Instagram Stories.
