Some quick cards...

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was looking for a fun art project.  I had seen lots of tutorials for shaving cream print making, and thought it was a great idea for the boys and I to try.  We had the necessary items - shaving cream, liquid watercolor paints and watercolor paper.  I added a cookie sheet (to contain the shaving cream), a squeegee (to spread the shaving cream), and a metal skewer (to stir the colors), and set everything up on the dining room table.

And the boys weren't interested. 

So, I had a couple of choices.  I could cajole and guilt-trip the boys into some half-hearted effort or I could just play by myself.  This time I decided that if it was a project I wanted to try, then I would try it even without the boys.  I sprayed the whipping cream, added some drops of watercolor, and stirred it with the skewer.  Then I laid the watercolor paper on top, pressed lightly, and lifted it up.  On a second tray I squeegeed the excess shaving cream off and - wow!  What a cool result!

And you know what? Now the boys were hovering.  They wanted in.  So off we went.  We must have made 20 prints.  The boys would get about 2 prints out of each round of shaving cream, then take the cookie sheet to the sink, wash it off, dry it, and start over. By the time Dan got home, the house smelled soapy clean and paintings were all over the kitchen counter (and there was a small lake of water in front of the sink, but that was easily remedied).

Today I looked at that stack of paintings and decided that something needed to be done with them. We also needed to write thank you notes for Christmas gifts.  By cutting the prints into quarters and adhering them to the front of a half sheet of watercolor paper (folded in half to make cards), we had a large stack of cards in just a few minutes. The prints looked great on the white paper, but I'd like to take the rest of the sheets and mount them on black cards (with white paper mounted inside for the note writing space).

Our cards look great, they used materials we already had at home, and the boys felt proud of the art they created.  And no guilt trips were involved!

Interested in trying shaving cream print making yourself?  Here are a couple of tutorials:
How to paint marbled paper
Shaving cream painted leaves
I'd love to see if you try it!  Leave a me a comment with your results.