Printmaking for kids

How to Do Shaving Cream Marbling

September 1, 2022

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Our favorite marbled paper technique for kids is shaving cream marbling! So fun and easy, this is one of our top art activities for kids of all ages!

Updated September 2022

The best, easiest, and cheapest homemade marbled paper is done with shaving cream marbling.

Hands down.

This marbling technique is one of our all-time favorite art activities. Like raised salt painting and splatter painting, it’s an art activity that kids never tire of and that we’ve returned to again and again over the years.

We’ve done shaving cream marbling so many times, we’ve even come up with some helpful tips for success. And you can also check out our post of great ideas for shaving cream art and play.

First, here’s video showing the shaving cream marbling in progress. And scroll down for the step-by-step instructions and photos.

Shaving Cream Marbling

MATERIALS

Shaving FOAM*
Shallow baking dish, such as a pie plate or brownie pan
Liquid watercolor paint (or watered-down food coloring)
Droppers
Stir stick, like a chopstick or the bottom of a paint brush
Card stock**
A scraper, such as a square piece of cardboard

*We say “shaving cream” marbling, but you’ll want to buy shaving FOAM, not cream. We really like to use the Smartly brand from Target – it’s very cheap and smells like summer (rather than the typical shaving cream scent!)

**While you’d think watercolor paper would be best for this since it involves watercolor paint, you’ll actually get better results with a very smooth surface rather than the textured surface of watercolor paper. Use card stock if you have it or buy a sheet of white poster board and cut it down into small pieces.

Time needed: 1 hour.

INSTRUCTIONS

Create a layer of shaving cream
First, spray a layer of shaving cream to cover the bottom of your baking dish.
Add color
Then, add drops of liquid watercolor paint on top of the shaving cream. Feel free to add several colors!

Note: If you don’t have liquid watercolors, you can use watered-down food coloring. You can even do this project with other paints, such as tempera or liquid/craft acrylics, although the results will look a bit different.
Swirl the paint
Use a stick (a chopstick, the end of a paint brush, or even a dropper) to swirl the paint around for a marbled effect.
Press the cardstock onto the cream
Carefully press a piece of card stock into the paint-covered shaving cream.
Remove card from shaving cream
Carefully lift up the card stock off the shaving cream.

Then use a piece of cardboard to scrape off the shaving cream, revealing your beautifully marbled paper!
Repeat!
You’ll marble a few papers and then want to add more drops of liquid watercolor to swirl around and make even more! We kept adding different colors and seeing how they popped on the paper.

Note: We like to keep a bowl in the center of the table while we’re working. The shaving cream we scrape off of the newly marbled paper, gets re-scraped into the bowl. And later, when we’re finished with the activity, we use a rubber spatula to scrape the paint-y shaving cream into the trash before washing out the bowls and dishes.

Allow the papers to dry and then enjoy your newly marbled paper!

This classic Artful Parent art activity is so fun! We LOVE our marbled paper! We like to give these out as cards and there are so many ways to reuse the marbled paper for other crafts.