Crafty parents help their kids make...enormous bubbles!

photo credit: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com
photo credit: tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com

I'm going to let you in on a secret: my favorite craft activity ever -- okay, so far -- with my kids is making bubble wands to create ginormous bubbles. We made three wands and spent an entire afternoon in the backyard perfecting our techniques...and we all came up with different ways of making these magical, color-filled works of art. It was neat, plain and simple. It also killed an area of our lawn, but that's another story. Tips to avoid that mess in a second.

Back to enormous bubbles.

I first saw this idea on the crafty blog, Tatertots & Jello. After a quick trip to the hardware store for wooden dowels, eye screws, flat washers and cotton string, we spent about 10 minutes making the wands. The instructions and photos on Tattertots & Jello guided us through the process.

For reference, we used 36" long dowels that were 5/8" in diameter. The eye screws were 1" and the washers were 3/16".

Homemade bubble mix is easy to make as well, using dish soap, purified water and liquid glycerin (we used vegetable glycerin, which we found on soap.com). Instructions here.

When you're choosing your dish soap, go for one that is environmentally friendly since it will have less of an impact on your lawn. Also, you can use water hose and rinse over the area of lawn where the kids made bubbles. Otherwise, be prepared to find a patch of dried out grass the next day. Or? Make the bubbles on the driveway, which we ended up doing too. Plus passers-by get a kick out of seeing the crazy bubbles!

photo credit: charlene prince birkeland
photo credit: charlene prince birkeland