Bubble Painting

Confession time:  I am just now mailing our Christmas thank you's.

Mike and I helped the boys write them several weeks ago, but never finished the artwork to go on the front.

Having a day off from school, Presidents' Day was a good time to finish them up.  I wanted the boys to help give the cards some character, so we did some bubble painting.  This is an easy art project that I learned while teaching and I've seen it around blogland as well.

Here's my take on bubble painting.

You will need:

liquid dish soap
paint (tempera paint, or acrylic work well, food coloring will be fainter, but works also)
water
straws
paper or plastic cups
white or pale colored paper
something to cover your table with (it can get messy)

Take each color of paint you want to use and put a good squeeze in a paper or plastic cup.  Dilute with water to thin it.  Add a squeeze of dish soap.  Use straw to stir the mixture.  Then, use the straw to blow bubbles in the mixture until they over fill up the cup. 

Quickly place paper on top of the bubbles to make your bubble print.  Repeat until the paper is covered in bubble prints.

When I first mixed my water, paint and soap, I had too much water and the bubble prints were too faint.  I then added more paint until the prints were bolder.  I used plain white copy paper for our prints and it curled and warped a bit.  This was fine for our project, because I cut up the sheets into small hearts after they were dry.  Use cardstock if you want to avoid the warping.

There were lots of giggles during this project.  I think my kids enjoyed blowing bubbles in their cups without getting into trouble.  Unlike when they do this at the dinner table with their milk or juice...

Now our cards are ready to mail.  Better late than never!