Painting with marbles is a fun way for kids (kids of all ages, including you!) to create abstract art. Not only will your kids enjoy watching the designs they create by painting with marbles, but you will love framing their works of art and hanging them on the wall. You can also create unusual wrapping paper by painting with marbles. You can also create some wild greeting cards, party invitations and stationery. You can decorate the envelopes too!
To paint with marbles you will need paint and marbles. Any marbles will do. You can usually pick up a bag of marbles at any dollar store or in the toy section of Walmart. As for paint, all you need is a small amount of liquid tempera paint. Or you can use poster paint that you have thinned out with water. You will only need about 2 tablespoons of each color of paint. Leftover poster paints are really good for this project because all you have to do is add a bit of water to the little paint container and shake it or stir it. You may also want to experiment with some of my homemade paint recipes. I have a list of fun homemade paint recipes at the end of this article so be sure to check them out!
You will also need some small plastic cups or any small cup or bowl that you do not mind washing. And you will need a pan or platter with sides so you can roll the marbles around without losing them. And you will need paper. Practice by using any scrap computer paper and then you can experiment with different types of paper as you get better at this craft.
Start by pouring a bit of liquid paint into a small cup. Don’t worry about how thick or thin the paint is. A different consistency of paint will simply create a different design… there are no mistakes when you paint with marbles! Once your paint is in the cup, drop 3 or 4 marbles into the cup and swirl them around a bit until they are covered with paint.
Place a sheet of paper inside a cake pan or any platter with side. Then spoon out the marbles (using a small slotted spoon is a good idea) and drop the marbles onto the paper. Then tip the pan back and forth and side to side and let the marbles roll around. The marbles will make interesting trails of paint as they roll! When you are done with the design, just put the pan down and take out the marbles using your fingers or some small tongs. Then take the paper out of the tray and set it aside to dry. Or, you can put more marbles on the paper using a different color. You can do the next color right away for a swirled color look or you can let the first paint color dry then add another color.
To make greeting cards, simply use card stock instead of paper. Then you can let the marbles work their magic on the card stock and cut the card stock to size after the paint is dry. You can also place your envelopes in the pan and paint those too! Then just use a mailing label to write the mailing address on the envelope.
If you need to wrap a small gift, you can make your own gift wrap using any plain paper or even paper bags. You can also decorate tissue paper by painting with marbles. And don’t forget to make some funky book covers for your school books! If you need large decorative paper for a larger gift you can always paint with marbles on newspaper. The colors of the paint over the black and white print looks awesome. You may never need to buy gift wrap again!
Below are some easy homemade paint recipes that you can use to experiment with your new marble painting art. Or just make some of these paints for normal painting crafts:
