How To Make Bubble Paper

Making watercolor bubbles is a wonderful art activity for children: inexpensive, easy, and kids have a lot of fun creating and getting messy. Let’s look at how to make bubble paper with your kids.

You can make colored bubble paper prints a couple different ways. In the video below, you can see how he’s blowing bubbles in a bowl, and then adding a bit of liquid water color (of food coloring if you don’t have any liquid water color handy). later he places the paper gently on top of the bubbles, then repeats with a different color (or more of the same color).

I love seeing the process in action, so take a look here: it will make it so easy to understand how to do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=BZJVdURAjjs

You can also make these bubble paper prints by coloring your bubble solution first. You can add a bit of food coloring and gently stir to mix in the color wit the liquid.

Made from a basic bubble solution (like the one in our recipe), bubbles glisten and show off swirls of iridescent colors. Because of their spherical shape, bubbles refract light, or bend it, creating a color phenomenon similar to a rainbow.

An interesting fact about bubble solution is that it cannot be dyed with simple food coloring or paint to create bubbles of a uniform color, such as all red or all blue. Soap molecules are attracted to water and grease, but not to the chemical bonds in these kinds of dyes.

If you want to learn more about coloring soap bubbles, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_bubble Under the section “colored bubbles” you will find information about the science of coloring bubbles.

How to make watercolor bubbles

To create bubbly paper prints, follow these steps:

Ingredients:

Bubble Solution
Food coloring (of various colors)

Tools:

Pie plates (or other small shallow containers)
Paper
Straws

Directions:

Fill a pie plate half-full with bubble solution.
Add 2-5 drops of food coloring and stir very gently with a straw.
Insert the end of a straw into the solution and blow until the plate is overflowing with little bubbles.
- You will notice that the bubbles have a colored “hue” when they “foam” out of the solution.
- Be sure to remind your young children to blow through the straw, not to suck, as they might be accustomed!
Place a piece of paper onto the top of the bubble foam, letting the bubbles pop onto the paper.
Remove the paper from the bubble foam and set it to dry on a flat surface. While the print is drying, observe the shapes and colors with your child. You might find that the bubbles left non-spherical shapes on the paper. Ask your child why they think some of the bubbles made new shapes.
After your bubble print has dried, enjoy adding colors and drawings to it, or enjoy it by itself for its simple beauty.

How to use bubble paper

Once your bubble paper dries, you can use it in a few different ways:

let your child draw on it
use it for origami
write a letter to a friend
if you used larger paper, you can use as gift wrapping paper
cover a can with it and make it into a pencil holder
use a few of these papers to make a mini journal your child can use to gift to someone

As you can see, there are lots of uses for bubble paper made by your kids. Learning how to make bubble paper can prove to be worth your while for many reasons 😉

How To Make Bubble Paper – A Fun Art Activity