Shaving Cream & Food Coloring Art For Kids

Do you ever read Family Fun magazine?  I used to have a subscription, and loved seeing all the clever activities and crafts for kids.  This art project came from one of their issues many years ago.  My boys love this project so much that we've done it for years now. 

My four-year-old said he had never done this activity before (he has, but it's been a long time), so we got out the shaving cream and food coloring a few days ago.  This art project is always a hit with kids of any age, but it is a bit messy.  In fact, I think the Family Fun magazine had this as an outdoor project for summertime.  We've always done it inside, and it works.  You just have to be careful with all the food coloring.  Have you and your kids wear aprons and gloves if you're worried about getting messy.  We never do, but we should.  Our hands are always stained for a day or two after the project.  All part of the fun, though.

SUPPLIES

Shaving Cream (not gel, CREAM)

Cookie Tray (I use cheap ones from the dollar store)

Food Coloring(the we love using the neon colors)

Popsicle Sticks (for swirling the colors around)

Knife (for spreading the shaving cream)

Card Stock (For imprinting designs)

Paper Towels (for keeping the mess somewhat under control)

HOW TO

*Start by squirting some shaving cream on the cookie tray, and then spread it around just like you were frosting a cake.  It doesn't need to be deep, just a nice covering of the entire tray.

*Next, squirt drops of food coloring in the shaving cream.  You can do one color at a time, or multiple.  If you do multiple colors, drop them in different parts of the shaving cream.

(We were working on a valentine project in these pictures.  We usually don't just use one color.  The more, the merrier!)

*Swirl the food coloring with the popsicle stick.  If you're doing multiple colors, make sure to remind your kids to not over-swirl.  When they do, it just ends up looking brown because all the colors mix too much.  You want the colors to look swirled together with individual colors showing, not just a brown blob.

*Take the card stock and gently push it on to the colorful shaving cream.  You can do a big piece of card stock to get the entire cookie tray at once, or you can cut the card stock into smaller pieces and just do sections of the tray.  Play around with it and see what you like.  We like to do a lot of smaller sizes most often, but we do whole pages sometimes as well.

*Pull the card stock off of the shaving cream, and then lay the paper on a flat surface and and use a popsicle stick to scrape off any excess shaving cream.  You can kind of see the shaving cream on the card stock here.  That's what you will scrape off.

*Set the card stock aside and allow to dry a bit.  Don't worry if the card stock begins to curl while it dries.  Ours always do.  I just lay them under a heavy book when they're completely dry to flatten them out.

And that's it!  This is honestly one of the coolest art projects I've ever seen!  I never get tired of pulling the card stock off the shaving cream, and scraping it off to see the end product.  Beautiful every time!  

Here are a few of my four-year-old's masterpieces from the other day.

Stunning, right?  He was so proud of all of them!

This is the perfect activity for these cold wintry days when we're inside more often than not.

Oh, and we always have to use our fingers to play with the shaving cream when we're done with all of our pictures.  Way too much fun!

Happy swirling!

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