The Shaving Cream Technique

The shaving cream technique is a great technique used in rubberstamping, scrapbooking, and other papercraft to create a wonderful soft swirling pattern on your paper. The project is easy to do, and alot of fun!

What you will need:

• A flat pan, cookiesheet, or a similar shallow, flat item to spread the shaving cream in.
• Some cardstock in a size that will fit well in your pan.
• Food coloring, paint or re-inkers: MicaMagic Stamp Pad Re-inkers - Many Colors
• Some shaving cream. The foamy white kind, not the gel kind.
• A toothpick, small brush, or other sharp pointy item.
• A spatula, scraper, butterknife, or card in which to scrape off the excess shaving cream.
• Tissues or papertowels.

Step 1

Take your flat pan and fill it with about an inch of shaving cream. Spread the shaving cream out even and smooth across the bottom of the pan. It doesnt have to be perfect, but mostly flat, like a cake.

Step 2

Use the food coloring or paint, or whatever it is you are going to use and drop some drops randomly around on the top of the shaving cream. I tend to use 2-3 colors, if you use too many colors it can look messy. Some people have told me that powder inks can work well too. You just need to drop little piles around on the shaving cream instead of the liquid.

Step 3

Now take your toothpick or other sharp object and begin to slowly swirl through your colors. Dont go too fast if you are using powder because you dont want to throw the powder around you want to swirl it in gently. You dont need to push down real deep, just keep your tool a bit below the surface and you will be fine. Keep swirling around until you reach the desired effect. The first couple of times people do this technique they tend to swirl too much and it becomes muddy looking.

Step 4

Now take your cardstock and place it flat onto the shaving cream. Push it down a bit and make sure all parts of the paper are covered. Now gently pull it up by one corner and lay it flat, shaving cream side up, onto the papertowels. I like to wait for about 5 minutes at this stage, just to let the ink soak in nicely. Your wait time can also affect how dark or light the imprint will turn out so feel free to experiment with this. Lighter color stocks tend to work better than darker colors.

Now take your scraper tool and carefully scrape off the excess shaving cream using long even strokes to remove. Small amounts of leftover shaving cream can be blotted off with a tissue. Let it dry a bit and you will have a beautiful looking pattern!

Tips:

• This makes a great crafting activity for children!
• You can reuse the remaining shaving cream, especially if you havent mixed the cream up too much. You can refresh the pan with a few more drops of coloring and if you want to try another color combination, you can add a bit more shaving cream to the top of the pan to get it completely white again.
• Have fun with the project and experiment.
• Bookmark this page so you can return again!