Create Your Own Marbled Paper

Yesterday you learned that many paper marblers add size to water to make the water thicker. This allows the paint to float on the top. Rather than floating paint on water, today you’ll paint on shaving cream to make your own marbled paper.

Supplies Needed:

Foam Shaving Cream
Paint
Paintbrush
Cardboard
Paper
Paper plate
Cover your work space. Ask an adult to spray a layer of shaving cream onto the paper plate. You want about a half an inch thick layer of shaving cream. Use your cardboard to level the layer of shaving cream.
Choose which colors to use. I used Crayola Kids Paint. You can use any kind of paint you want, but I wouldn’t recommend watercolors.

Paint on top of the shaving cream. Try not to press your brush into the shaving cream. It’s not important that your painting look nice. Just make sure you’ve included all the colors you want on your marbled paper.
Use the handle of your paint brush to swirl the colors together. You’ll need to wipe off the brush handle a few times because the shaving cream clings to it. This will cause the colors to mix together and get muddy.
When you’re happy with your swirled colors, press a piece of paper onto the shaving cream. If you don’t press down hard enough, the paper won’t pick up the paint evenly. It will look like the paper at the top of this picture:
When you press your paper onto the shaving cream, shaving cream will stick to it (of course). Use the clean side of your cardboard to scrape the shaving cream off of the paper. The paint will remain.
You can make two good prints from the same painted shaving cream.

I made prints with copy paper, construction paper, and posterboard. The paint stuck well to all three types of paper.

If you want to make larger sheets of marbled paper, layer the shaving cream onto a cookie sheet instead of a paper plate.

Write a letter to a pen pal on your marbled paper, create your own journal using marbled paper, or hang your marbled paper on you wall.

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

10544 / 50000 words. 21% done!
I’m pretty pleased with this word count.
Last year it took me 7 days to reach
10,000 words.