Salad Spinner Art {Kid Craft}

So after much anticipation, I’m finally ready to share our Salad Spinner Art. It’s a crafty spin by using a kitchen item you probably have hiding in your cabinet. I’m guilty of not giving our salad spinner as much love as I should. It’s one of those “I must have it” items but yet, I really don’t need it. In fact, it’s been pretty much ignored for a year now so I decided just to move it to my craft collection {cause you know a craft person can’t throw stuff away!} So that is how this craft was born. Think spin art without the fancy equipment!

Here is what we used:

* Salad spinner
* Washable paint {this way if you want to use your salad spinner in the future for food, you can clean it properly}
* Construction paper
* Golf balls/beads
* Paper cutter/scissors

For the pictures of this tutorial, I used ping pong balls that I had on hand. However, later I added some random beads because the ping balls weren’t moving around as much as I wanted in the salad spinner. I would recommend something like golf balls or something similar in shape/weight. You could even turn this into a learning/science experiment to see what works best.

The ping pong balls did work, but they didn’t give the design I really wanted. Not that my son cared because it was still fun for him. Mama just wanted more of a wild design.

So first you need to trim down your paper so it fits inside your salad spinner. Make sure the piece of paper is small enough so the lid can still fit properly on the salad spinner.
Then squirt some paint on the paper and throw in your balls. Close the lid properly and get ready to spin away. However your salad spinner works, go for it! With ours I just had to pump the handle a few times and the device did the work for me.

If you need more paint to get a better design, add it and go again!

Once you are done spinning, take off the lid and remove your paper. Set aside to let it dry completely.

Then repeat as much as you want with other pieces of paper – experimenting with different size sheets & objects. Throw in a lesson of mixing colors while you’re at it!

When you are done with your spin art, wash your salad spinner immediately with warm, soapy water. Especially if you plan on using it for food ever again. {PLEASE be sure, if you do use it for food, it is properly CLEANED!}

Now what to do with your new spin art? Of course you can display proudly but you could also turn them into backgrounds for handmade cards. We made Marble Art Valentine Cards this past year and these spin art designs are basically the same concept. Check out that past tutorial to see what I’m talking about.