Sort of Marbled Paper

I love browsing through past posts on other creative mamas' blogs. You never know what you're going to find. Recently, I found this fun and inexpensive art project over at Sweet Sweet Life that's perfect for kids and moms alike. Even though the directions are very easy and I could outline them here, I highly recommend checking out Sweet Sweet Life's original post on making Marbled Paper-- you'll smile at this mama's way of describing the process and love the finished paper her girls made. Really Beautiful!

I usually categorize projects in terms of my son's sleep time: I did this project in one short nap (I didn't want to upset my little guy who would have wanted to press his hands into the shaving cream and then lick them). I knew from the start that the "gel food coloring" I bought was not ideal because it just kind of glopped instead of swirled. I never understand why we need to improve on certain products--what's wrong with good old fashioned food coloring? Why gel? When you have a sleeping baby and limited time, you just don't spend too much time caring about these things. Let the food coloring glop, I say! Let's just see what we get.


This is what I got:

What to do with card stock smeared with shaving cream food coloring? Make thank you cards of course! I just used a paper cutter to cut each sheet in half lengthwise and then in half again. Then I used photo mounting squares to affix each one to blank note cards--the kind you buy inexpensively in a big pack. You could take an extra minute to fold your own card stock like my mom would using this handy little tool or this handy, slightly bigger one.

Between having a baby, cancer, and all of the regular gift-giving holidays, we've written a lot of thank you cards this year. I've been feeling a little burned out on the while process and I admit it's tempting to just send off a quick email. Making these cards was fun, even if they didn't quite turn out to look like marbled paper, and I'm enjoying writing personalized notes to my friends and family again.

As a side note, I've since found this company that makes all natural food colorings I'm really excited about using them for baking and my next attempt at marbling paper. There are no synthetic dyes--plus, the colors are far prettier!

If you have ideas for making your own cards or stationary, let us know!