Amazing Art Made With Milk
Categories: Art, Kids | 27 comments
I did an art/science project with my 2 year old today and I just had to share. You probably already have the ingredients in your kitchen right now to do it yourself. We were completely mesmerized by this – I heard lots of “wows” from my son. I love it when art and science collide.
Here is all you need: Vitamin D milk, food coloring and dish soap.
What to do: Pour in a little milk into the bottom of a shallow dish
With food coloring, put in drops of different colors in the milk
Then take dish soap and put a small drop in the middle of the food coloring.
You should immediately see the milk react and begin to disperse the food coloring in a colorful display. It’s like a tiny living ocean of color.
Originally I came across the idea via Household Hacker. Here is their explanation of how it works:
Food coloring is less dense than the milk itself – so it remains suspended within the fat molecules of the milk the soap breaks up the fat and lets it spread across the surface of the milk. As they break and expand, they create movement in the milk, and pull the coloring along for the ride.
I don’t know who had more fun, me or my toddler!
So beautiful and intriguing how it all works. I hope you go try it for yourself!
Comments (27)
LOVE IT..thanks for sharing. We will for sure try it!
thank you for this fabulous and easy craft idea! i’m tending four little ones tomorrow along with my two year old, so i needed something like this. loving this blog!
How fun and pretty! I was just thinking that…my toddler would love it! Except she’d want to put her fingers in it, and then we’d get into a fight about not putting her fingers in it!
That’s great Marta, glad you could use the idea – hope it goes well!
Sarah Jane – I wondered how my 2 year old would do, but he did very well…we did it three times and he was a good boy. BUT, on another day it may have been a different story. We did it outside, that way it’s not big deal if there’s mess. :)
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This is a wonderful and inexpensive idea!! And the artwork looks beautiful!
Thank you for sharing this! I could see me and my husband doing this for hours and taking a million photos. How fun!!!
love this idea. the result reminds me of an abalone shell :)
I’m glad you all enjoyed the idea!
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HELP!!!!! I am in love with it! I want to frame the milk art and hang it on my wall, but I have no clue about how to do this :-/ Any ideas/thoughts girls?
Many thanks X-)
Hi Michelle! The only way I can think to capture it and frame it would be to take a great hi-res photo and then blow it up and get it printed somewhere. I think that would be the best bet!
thanks for sharing,it looks beautiful i will do it with my grand daughter she’ll love it.just a question you say to use vitamin D milk…. is it not plain old cows milk??
Hi Lorraine! The fattier the milk, the better so just make sure it’s not skim or non-fat.
Hi! Thanks for the tip! I will try that :) I will let you know how it came out ;) Btw, I love your website, very helpful and creative!
Oh my word this looks like so much fun…and I bet my daughter will think so too! ;-) Definitely planning to give this one a go over the weekend. Thanks for sharing! xo Ez
You are welcome Ez! I hope you do try it, it’s so fun and inspiring.
I wonder if you could lay a piece of paper over it and capture a design. But, Would it be stable, mold-wise? Better to snap a digital pic, I guess.
Great great idea!
Wow, really cool. Have you seen The Tree of Life? This reminds me of some of the images from that film…maybe this doesn’t make sense at all!
No I haven’t seen that movie, sounds interesting!
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This is fantastic! I love, love, the photos of your dancing milk art. So stunning – never would have guessed what it was.
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there’s a mother’s face on the lower-right and a fetus on a womb on the upper left ont he last part of the video. Stop the video at timestamp 00:27
Hey, Thanks for the putting this up. We saw it over at flutterflutter.ca and gave it a go ourselves over the weekend. Great fun. We also did some mixes with water and tried some out in vegetable oil as well. The vege oil got a bit nasty though :)