Bubble Art

Okay, peeps.

Double post night! Woohoo!

Now. This would be a super exciting event, if this post were about a really successful something or other.

But it’s most definitely not.

In fact, while I try to look at the bright side regarding any and all projects, even the kinda sorta failures, I must issue a public service announcement for this bubble art:

DO NOT TRY AT HOME.

I mean…yeah, sure, the result (this was mine) is pretty cool, but in the world of cost/benefit analysis, this was NOT WORTH IT. And pretty much just led to a blast radius of household angst, ha.

Okay.

So.

First off, I gotta say: the online posts LIED.

They made a lot of things sound much easier and less messy than any sort of reality.

Also: the instructions in the online posts didn’t even yield great results for all that pain and mess, so we had to go rogue to even come up with anything useable.

However.

Heeeeere was the example that sparked my interest, and I think mine (above) came pretty close, right??? (Lie to me, if you must.)

But back to the initial failures.

The general concept of this project is to mix bubbles or dish soap with water and paint in a cup. Then blow bubbles with a straw, and once you have them forming out the top of your cup, you turn your paper upside down over the top of the bubbles to make an imprint. 

Sounds doable, yes??

Welp.

First fail: the online posts said to use card stock paper and that just didn’t work. There’s too much moisture and the paper kept collapsing or rippling or full-on disintegrating, which…nope.

Second fail: the paint mixture just didn’t produce enough color within the bubbles to make a strong imprint. Ugh.

So…we had to try the whole thing over again with food coloring this time, plus canvases instead of card stock, and…well, at least we started yielding results.

In the canvas below, the bottom left imprint is from the food coloring; the faint top right imprint is from the paint. See what I mean???



All that trouble-shooting aside, plus a bunch of wasted setup and cleanup of the cups with the paint mixture in exchange for the food coloring mixture, and…we still had the massive problem of the bubbles spilling up and over.

Which, yeah, sure, is kind of the point, but not to this excessive degree. Boooo.



Plus: I’m pretty sure Chicklet accidentally inhaled one sip before she remembered we were doing a project, so there’s that whole problem, ha.



Still…we hit a decent stride where we learned the correct amount of restraint in achieving our bubbles and the messes were plentiful but manageable, and I thought we would stay in that zone. (Foreshadowing alert, here.)

Chicklet even produced some really unique circle imprints multiple times and I thought we were reallllly in a groove.







Until we ended up with a massive spill and bubble blast explosion of food coloring that was so vast it sort of paralyzed me for a moment. Like, I gasped and just didn’t even know what to do.

Poor Chica ended up covered in purple dye (even splotches on her face and arms and alllllll over her pajamas), and it was just a DISASTER.



These pictures doesn’t do the situation a lick of justice; it was an EPIC mess. And I say that as a Mama who’s tackled many a messy craft or cooking challenge or kiddo party. It was…UGH.

So basically, I had a kiddo sobbing, a ginormous mess to clean up before permanent purple stains destroyed my hardwood floors and kitchen table, and it was just MASS CHAOS.

It took me a loooooong time to clean up and regroup and we just had to throw in the towel at that point and call this project a thumbs down, which I really don’t love to do.

But it happens. :(

At least I got one good canvas out the ordeal. A cautionary tale to remember the whole thing, ha.

Later that afternoon, I tried to give the whole thing some thought and decide if there might be ways to mitigate the pain and mess.

Of course, moving the whole thing outside would be a start, but even then, I’m not sure that it would be viable.

You’d probably need to do it on grass to keep from staining any patios or concrete, and then cups would be on uneven surfaces and tipping over, and…ugh. Fail 2.0.

If (and only IF) I’m brave enough to give any sort of bubble art another go, I think I’ll try a vastly different method of blowing bubbles (definitely outside), but…I’ll need some time to recover from this one, first.

So…there you have it: proof that all is not always happy and sunny and successful in our project world. 

You win some, you lose some, but I’m sure there’s some lesson to be learned in making the creative attempt, amiright???

More mañana about our overall summer intentions.

Until then…over and out, peeps.