Homemade Marbled Paper with Shaving Cream

This is a craft that I'm surprised I haven't seen more people in bloggingland talking about. It really has it all.... fun, messy, easy for toddlers and preschoolers, and BEAUTIFUL results- even from little ones.

1. Fill a 9 x13 pan with a layer of shaving cream. Squirt a few colors of liquid tempera paint on top. (washable, and water based)2. Using a knife or stick, swirl the colors around.
3. Place a piece of white cardstock on top of the shaving cream and smush it down, making sure that every piece of the cardstock is thoroughly wet.
4. Pull the cardstock off and wipe the excess shaving cream off with a paper towel. (Try to do it thoroughly with the first wipe because the more wiping you do, the more muted the marbling.)
That's it! The paint stays on the paper even though the shaving cream is wiped off. It really feels magical!(We did this outdoors, and even though the paint is washable, I'm REALLY glad I did. It makes quite a mess. You should have seen the color of green that the bathwater turned when I dipped the girls in afterward! Also, it was a little odd having my little ones smell like freshly shaved men :-)Now that my marbled cardstock has dried and I've flattened it out under some heavy books, I'm planning to use it to make a few thank you notes from the girls that we have yet to send for Christmas gifts. I'm thinking that it would be neat too to try thinner pieces of paper and possibly use them for wrapping paper sometime too.
This post is part of Works for me Wednesday!