Craft Time: Watercolor Bubble Art

Last day of school for Nick and we celebrated the achievement with a doctor’s appointment for me and an orthodontist appointment for Nick.  Um, yay.

I figured if anything could soften the blow of our sub-par afternoon, it would be a little bit of art.  Last week, I spied a fun new technique over on Rubyellen’s blog, Cakies, using bubble solution and bubble wands.  If there’s one thing we have, it’s tons of bottles of bubble solution.  Two years ago, at an after-summer clearance, I stocked up on five-cents-a-bottle bubbles.  Totally my kind of sale.  And perfect for this quick art project.

The other thing I have a ton of?  Paint.  I happen to be partial to the Plaid brand, and bought of ton of it last year.  It’s inexpensive, lasts forever, and is super versatile.  Used right out of the bottle, it’s vibrant and thick, and perfect for an endless stream of kid painting projects.  We also water it down some and treat it like a watercolor-type of paint as well.  Today?  It was added to bubble solution.

I set the kids up in the backyard with water cups, paint brushes, thick white artist paper (we got our supplies at our local Walmart), paint, and bubbles.  They chose their own color schemes.  It cracked me up that the colors Nick chose happened to match his shirt.  Once the paint was mixed in with the bubble solution, they went to town, using the wand to blow paint filled bubbles onto their paper.  They also used the wands to flick paint onto the paper, creating a fun splatter effect.

The finished effect reminds me a lot of those spin art contraptions that were hot when we were kids — remember them? Be sure to cover your table or surrounding areas if you don’t want to see the splatter effect for days on end.

Hence the outdoor project.

Plaid makes this chunky glitter, which is new to me, and Nick used it to highlight some areas of his artwork.  Out of the bottle, it’s white with glitter flecks, but once it dries, the white disappears and you’re just left with the sparkle.  We also used it this weekend, making a crest for Madeline’s upcoming graduation.

Beyond making a new piece of artwork to frame or hang in your own mini art gallery, there are also many other ways you can use your art once it’s done… background for a scrapbooking page, cover a ho-hum notebook, or make it into a card (which is what we’re doing with it).

Now that summer is nearly in full swing, I’d love to hear all about YOUR fun summer kid-friendly ideas.  I’ll be featuring many more here over the summer, but I’m always on the look-out for new inspiration.  Share!  The three girls in the family all graduate this week, Madeline, Mystic’s daughter, and The Ex’s daughter (my stepdaughter), Danielle.  I can’t even believe that two of them head to college this Fall.  Yikes.

Looking for more crafty fun with your kids this summer?
We had fun beating the heat with shaving cream a few years ago (and oh how my little babies have grown, Madeline looks so tiny in those photos!)
And then you can use your leftover shaving cream and make some awesome marbled paper, which we did here.

Here’s a sneak peak for another painting project that we worked on for our reading room. Again, with Plaid paint, but this time using wooden letters. Details coming on June 25th.

*The fine folks at Plaid sent us a nice goody package for us to play with.  Thank you!

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