Activities & Days Out / 10 February, 2019 / Nanny Anita

Easy-to-Make Marbled Hearts Valentine’s Day Cards

One of the final Valentine’s crafts I wanted to do with the little ones was to make marbled heart gift tags for some special goodies that they are taking in on their last day before the half term holidays.  I love marbling, it can be messy, but the results are always so pretty, and I have very happy memories from doing it at school in Art club.  Plus it is not a technique I have used with them before.

After school, while my youngest charge was at a ballet lesson, my eldest charge and I went off to make our hearts.  We decided to do the whole thing in the bathroom, because as I said this craft can (and in our case did) get very messy.  Marbling paints will stain fabric, so it is best to do it in an area where all the surfaces can be wiped down.  I realise that marbling paints are quite specalised and rather expensive, so I have done some research and found an alternative to using them, but as I haven’t done this process myself I do not know what the results will be.

To make your own marbled hearts you will need:

• Marbling paints OR food colouring and oil
• Card stock (normal paper will work just fine but will look slightly greasy)
• Scissors
• Water
• Toothpick
• Pencil
• Tray

Method 

1. Draw and cut out your hearts on some paper.

Carefully cutting out his hearts

2. Fill your tray with some water; not too much, but enough to cover the bottom of the tray.

3. If you are using marbling paints then give the bottles a shake and drip some paint into the water. If you are using the food colouring and oil, you will need to mix ½ tbsp of oil with a tsp of food colouring.  Then you will need to mix it really well, ideally if you can shake it then do that. It should look like you are mixing oil and vinegar for a salad dressing. Once it is all mixed use a dropper to add some mixture to the water.

This is where our major paint disaster happened; our black paint wasn’t coming out, so I gave it a bit too hard of a squeeze, and the entire contents of the bottle ended up coming out in one big gush! Which covered a lot of the bathroom in black paint. Thankfully, because it was in the bathroom, I could wash all the surfaces down.

After we had accidentally the entire contents of the black paint into the mix!

4. When you have added all your colours, use a toothpick to carefully mix the colours to create that marble effect.

5. Gently place your hearts down onto the surface of the water and let it sit there for 30 secs, then peel it out and place it on some paper to dry.

Once they are fully dried, my eldest charge will add them to his friend’s bag of chocolate bark that we are making later in the week.

Even my youngest charge wanted to get in on the action