I ordered some boots from Zappos recently and when the large box arrived at my doorstop, my first thought after “Thank god, some boots that don’t make me look like a stripper” was “Jack’s going to love making marble art!”
It had been years since I rolled marbles through paint to make Pollock-esque artwork but leave it to good ol’ Pinterest to remind you about a good idea. The Zappos box arriving just hours after pinning was a wonderful coincidence and we immediately got to work on getting messy. We made all sorts of color combinations, discovered the difference between using one marble or four, saw how two colors sometimes mixed and made another. With the exception of that one projectile marble, we all had an absolute blast and now have tons of art to frame and use as wrapping paper.
Of course, we are in 100% Halloween mode over here so with the help of paint in different shades of orange and some black construction paper, Jackson now has Marble Art Pumpkins hanging on his door. This project was so easy, I almost don’t want to post a tutorial but just in case:
Marble Art Pumpkins
Materials:
– white paper
– box (large enough to fit paper)
– 3 shades of orange paint
– marbles
– black construction paper
– glue
Instructions:
1. Squeeze drops of paint all over paper. Repeat with all colors. (You can experiment here with allowing your child to place one color in each corner, more vs. less paint, or lines instead of dots. All the outcomes will be slightly different and awesome. There’s really no way you can screw this up!)
2. Grab some marbles and place them in the box. (Preferably not from your husband’s heirloom stash. The paint should wash off but you never know.)
3. Have your child go to town, shaking the marbles in the box until they decide their artwork is complete. Allow to dry completely.
4. Work on more art while orange paper is drying. Just think, the more they shake that box, the longer their nap will be! 🙂
5. Depending on the age of the child, have them cut or cut out yourself a set of jack-o-lantern eyes and a mouth. Allow them to spread the glue on the back and place wherever they so desire. Resist temptation to realign eyes or place mouth right side up.
Our pumpkins are rather large but remember you could also do this project on a smaller scale and string them up as garland or line a bulletin board with them. Hope you have a great and messy time!
