DIY Marbled Paper Activity

• 1 plastic spatula

• 2 or 3 food colouring

• Some shaving cream

• 1 piece of white paper (preferably thicker card paper)

• 1 tray

• 1 toothpick

1. Spray some shaving cream on a tray and spread it all around

2. Add a few drops of each food colouring at random on to the shaving cream

3. Use a tooth pick to make random beautiful patterns on the shaving cream (you'll see nice colourful swirls)

4. Place the paper on top of the shaving cream and gently tap on it

5. Peel the paper off

6. Use the spatula to scrape off the excess cream to see the beautiful marbled effects on the paper!

Shaving cream is made of a mixture of soap and water with a gas that can turn liquid into foam when you spray it out of the bottle. Parts of soap are water-loving and parts of soap are water-repelling. Food dyes are water-loving and will only interact with the water-loving parts of soap, avoiding the water-repelling parts of soap. That is why you can still see the colour swirls when you move your toothpick around the cream.

Paper is made up of wood pulp which is water loving and so the water-loving food dye will spread easily onto the paper when you transfer it from the cream, and you can remove the excess cream easily with a spatula (because of its water-repelling components).

Keep to 2 to 3 colours for a nicer finish!