Homemade Marbled Paper

Looking for something new for the kids to try on a rainy day?  This week we had lots of fun making our very own pastel-colored shaving cream marbled paper.  

How to Make Shaving Cream Marbled Paper:

Materials Needed:

• Shaving cream  (The dollar store is great for this!)
• A shallow tray or cake pan
• Liquid watercolor paints or food coloring
• Eye dropper
• White paper
• Piece of straight cardboard or a squeegee

The first step is to cover the bottom of your tray/cake pan with shaving cream.  The kids had fun spraying the shaving cream, and once they had most of the bottom of the pan covered, we used a straight piece of cardboard to spread it out a bit more and smooth it out.

Next, use the eye dropper to drip the watercolors or food coloring onto the shaving cream.

Now for some fun!

Swirl the colors into the shaving cream.  You cold use a finger; mine chose to use the end of a paintbrush to do this.  (Be careful not to mix it too much, or the colors will become a grey blob.)

Once your colors are swirled, lay a piece of white paper on top and press down.

Carefully peel the paper off of the shaving cream.

Run the straight piece of cardboard or squeegee across the paper to remove the excess shaving cream.  You will have to do several sweeps to get it all off.

The color will remain on the paper!

Allow the paper to dry.  We set ours on metal baking racks and it was dry in a few hours.

Once it is completely dry, you have beautiful marbled paper!

We plan to use our paper to make pretty cards for family members this spring.

You could also use it as the background for another art project — using crayons to draw on it or cutting out magazine pictures to glue and making a collage.  Or, older kids might want to use it as stationery!

We found that you could make a second sheet of paper with the colors in the pan, but for best results (and more fun), it was better to start off with a fresh coat of shaving cream and color.

And, once you are finished making your paper, take that pan of colored shaving cream to the bathtub for fun, colorful bathtub paint!

What would you use the homemade marbled paper for?

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Wondering where to find liquid watercolors?  Read about our DIY Watercolors Paint!