Tomorrow is Mother’s Day! It’s always nice to put a homemade touch on gifts for Mom. This year, you can combine your love for Mom and a super easy and cool science lesson when you and your child make Marble Art Cards!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Two large plates
- Shaving cream
- 2 or more colors of liquid food coloring
- White paper or card stock
- Dropper (optional)
- Scissors
- Spoon
- Toothpick
- Craft stick (optional)
- Paper towels
- Spray bottle with water in it
Before you get started, please note that this project is fun, but can be a bit messy, so think about protecting your work surface in case of shaving cream or food coloring mishaps!
Place two plates side by side. Cut two letter sized pieces of paper or card stock in half and then fold each of those halves in half to create four cards. Put shaving cream on each plate and spread it out to create a layer approximately half an inch thick that is big enough for the front of your paper card to lay on.
Add several drops of each color of food coloring onto each plate, spread out across the shaving cream. Next, use your toothpick to swirl the colors around however you’d like, creating a marbled pattern. Use your spray bottle to pray 5-10 pumps of water onto your shaving cream and then let everything sit for around a minute.
Place a card, front side facing down, onto your shaving cream/food coloring pattern and press it lightly, covering the whole card with shaving cream. Carefully remove your card and scrape off the excess shaving cream with your craft stick or paper towels. Repeat this process for each card, then let your masterpieces dry until they are ready to give to Mom!
This is a fun and beautiful art project, but what is the science behind it? Shaving cream is made of a soap and water mixture, with a gas that turns it into a foam when it is sprayed out of the bottle. Soap molecules have both water-loving and water-repellant qualities. Food coloring is made from water or alcohol. When you drop the food coloring onto your shaving cream, it doesn’t get absorbed into the cream because it is interacting with the water-repellant side of the soap. Paper is made from wood pulp, which has water-loving properties. When you put your paper on top of your shaving cream and food coloring pattern, the dye moves from the water-repellant shaving cream to get absorbed by the water-loving paper!
As always, get as creative as you want, and above all, have lots of fun learning together!
We’ll see you right back here next Saturday for another STEAM Saturday activity! Scroll through the rest of our website to learn how Critchlow Adkins is Building Brighter Futures for the children and families we serve!
