Iron Craft Challenge #13 - homemade marbled paper

The Iron Craft Challenge #13, {Red, White, and Blue} was to create something with at least two of these colors. We did a homemade marbled technique on paper. It was a whole lot easier than I thought it would be. I love the look of special marbled paper that is often used inside book covers. We have several sheets now to use for bookmarks, cards, scrap-booking, or notebooks.

The inspiration came from here which lead to some instructions here! Some genius person came up with this easy method of using liquid starch. The layer of starch is so thick the paint can be swirled on the top. It's a bit tricky to get the right consistency of craft paint. Too watered down and it spreads too quickly, not watered down enough and your paint just sinks to the bottom of the starch. It's critical your pan is big enough for the paper to lay flat. I ended up cutting sheets in half to fit. Just lay the paper on top of the paint and starch for a few seconds, try not to move it too much, just make sure the underside of the paper is in the paint even around the edges. Then lift it out and rinse it in a pan with fresh water, gently shaking the paper to remove all the starch. It's like magic and very cool. My boys stopped their nerf gun battle to participate.

We tried all kinds of paper and even food snack boxes with white and brown on the inside. A black piece of construction paper made a huge mess. The black dye from the paper bled everywhere, but it ended up looking pretty cool when it dried.

You'll want to change your rinse water occasionally. There's really no need to change the starch. Just put a fresh layer of paint on the surface each time, swirl the way you want, and print the next sheet of paper.

Thanks for visiting,
rebecca