Shaving Cream Art Projects for Toddlers and Kids!

Is it any surprise that kids love to play in shaving cream? The glossy, fluffy foam in shaving cream art makes for a great sensory activity for kids from small toddlers to big kids! Plus, shaving cream art is  an easy and frugal craft project, especially for the summer months.

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The best shaving cream to use for shaving cream art is the basic shaving foam that, happily, is usually the cheapest stuff you’ll find at your drug store. You might even be able to find it at your dollar store! Look for an old-school can like Barbasol or Colgate. Some are scented, which adds an extra dimension to the creative experience!

Shaving cream art doesn’t make as big of a mess as you might imagine. At the same time, it’s a fun art project for kids to work on outdoors if the weather is nice enough! If you’re wanting to do a shaving cream art project indoors, a cookie sheet makes a nicely contained surface for kids to create their masterpieces!.Here are the basic materials you can use:

• Shaving Cream
• Cardboard, poster board or paper plates (this is a great way to repurpose old gift boxes!)
• Food coloring (optional)
• Cookie sheet, foil or pie tins (optional)
• Dry sand, rice, noodles, beans or other solids to mix in (optional)

There are a few different ways to have your kids create and explore their creative sides with shaving cream. Here are some ideas:

• Hand over the entire can of shaving cream:  Having kids push the button to see how much foam comes out, then watching it grow is a sweet way to help their little hands learn a little bit about pressure, force and mass. They can then spread the foam, pile it up and mash it down.
• Finger Paint with Shaving Cream: Spray food coloring in a bowl and mix in a drop of food coloring, then give the bowl to your kiddos and let them start working.
• Shaving Cream Sculptures: Mix in sand, rice, dry noodles, dry beans, pebbles or any other small, grainy item that can easily be coated with shaving cream. Have the kiddos pile it up, smooth it out, and create different shapes.
• Letter, Number and Shape Recognition: You can use your hands or a paintbrush to write numbers, letters and shapes in shaving cream on a cookie sheet, then easily “erase” them to practice different ones! It’s also a great way for kids to practice “handwriting” because they have more control over just their fingers than their fingers holding a pencil.

Cleaning up Shaving Cream Art: If the art project is a thin layer of shaving cream on paper or cardboard, you can let the artwork dry and see a cool final result. If the shaving cream art is on a cookie sheet (or a table, or hands, or faces) a dry towel is best to wipe away the foam. After that you can use warm, soapy water to rinse away the residue.

Now that I’ve started thinking about all the possibilities for shaving cream art projects, it has endless potential for both creative indulgence and teachable moments!

As with almost all crafty projects for kids, be sure your little ones are supervised while doing shaving cream art. the shaving cream doesn’t belong in their eyes or mouths.

Have your kiddos done any art projects with shaving cream?

Photo credit: Artfulblogger (our family didn’t make anything as gorgeous as those projects! I couldn’t resist sharing them with all of you!)