Technique: Shaving Cream Marbleizing - Part 1

Let's get a little bit messy, shall we? For this months blog hop technique it is best to stay close to a sink, because you will need some water at one point in time.This months blog hop was all about shaving cream and paper marbleizing. 

All the things you need:

- You will need some good old fashion shaving cream. Don't use gel or other forms, since they will not work with this technique

- You will also need some type of flat container that will keep you shaving cream put. I used a baking sheet with a small rim and covered it in aluminium foil. Depending on the sizes of paper you want to use, you can also use a paper or plastic plate.

- You need some tool to smooth out the shaving cream once sprayed inside the pan and a sturdy straw or a wooden skewer to mix your colors.

- I also used a squeegee that was at least 8 1/2" wide to fit over my whole sheet of paper. If you use smaller pieces of paper you can use a smaller squeegee. 

- Colors: Here you can use a lot of different mediums all depending on what you have in your stack. Re-inkers work perfect, so does acrylic paints (this is what I used here), powder inks, food colors and one of my fellow hopper even used alcohol inks (for these, you must cover your counter since they stain).

- Papers: You should use cardstock that is on the heavier side, because the moisture in the shaving cream will soak into the paper. Once the paper is too wet, you can't scrape the excess off anymore! I used 8 1/2" x 11" pieces of paper and a couple of quarter sized ones.

Let the messy part begin:

First you will have to spray a nice thick layer of shaving foam into you pan to cover almost the complete inside. Use a tool and flatten the foam to keep an nice even surface.

Next I took my colors and started dripping them here and there on top of the foam.  I added just a little of my metallic gold color in between the dots.

After my first run I prepared my pan with foam again and this time I swirled my colors all over the place.

No matter what "design" you come up with, the intensity of the marbleizing later comes from the amount of mixing you do. In next weeks part 2 I will show you the different outcomes of these starts.

Now comes the fun part. Use your skewer and start mixing the colors. 

In this example I left quite a bit of color untouched and I think especially with the acrylic colors I used, these leave a really bold impression later on the papers.

With the second run I mixed my colors a lot more so the color was really mixed well with the foam and the other colors.

Still you will get an awesome marbleizing effect on your paper.

The next step would be to take a piece of cardstock and place it on top of the foam and press it into the mixture. Use some pressure but not too much so the paper sinks in too deep. 

Carefully pull the paper away from the foam mixture and make sure the foam sticks to the paper. If you see plain paper, push this part lightly back into the foam and carefully continue to lift it out of the pan.


My first paper I placed on some old newspaper that I laid out on top of my counter. Not a good idea, since the newspaper absorbs some of the moister and it makes it really hard to remove the excess foam.

So the second one I did, I placed the paper directly on my counter top (we have an old one, if yours is more precious you might want to use a plastic mat). 

I know the paper looks funny when you pull it out of the foam, but let it rest for about 2 minutes before you remove the excess foam.
To remove the foam, grab your squeegee and place it on the top of your paper. Press down firmly and pull across the paper in one swoop. Don't stop or don't go over it in multiple attempts, otherwise you are left with streaks.
Let your paper dry completely! 

So what should you do with the excess that you scraped off? Well, the first time I washed it all off, then repeated the whole process, but that's a lot of wasted material...so...

I placed the access back in the pan and flatten it out. You could place you paper back in right away and the impression will be a softer and more even coloring.
In my case, my foam had a pretty consistent peachy color, so I added some more of my darker orange, some of the gold and I added some white paint. Since I used paint, the white acts just like the rest of the paints.
With this one I ended up with a peach paper with dark, white and gold marbles. 

Ones I used the same mixture 3-4 times I clean the foam out and started all over again. You will get a lot of different results all depending on the type of colors/ inks you use. Have fun experimenting and best of it all, once the paper is dry (if it is wrinkled, place it for a few days under some heavy books) it smells so good :-)

Stay tuned for next Friday to see the paper results I got with my different methods and have a more detailed look at the cards I made during the week.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this technique and if you have or if you are going to try this one.....It's fun !!!