So We Missed National Bubble Week....

Warning - photo heavy post!!!!
Apparently there is a National Bubble Week. It's in March in case you want to plan ahead ;) Now this activity came with a small price tag, but I promise if you use your tools correctly you won't have to go to the hospital.
I love reading blogs. One of the genre's of blogs I read are moms who do great activities with their kids for cheep. Most often these moms are home school moms. Such a creative bunch! I LOVE reading them and trying the activities. One of the moms I read posted about making bubbles. So here's my shout out to Valerie at Frugal Family Fun. She does AMAZING things with her kiddos! I am always checking to see what's new in her world.
Here's what we did We took a few of dowl rods and cut them in half (they were just too long for our little hands at full length). After they were cut I painted the halves the same color to make a set. I only used extra paint I had at the house already. Remember this is supposed to be a frugal activity. Actually it really didn't cost me anything per wand to do.


In case you don't know me - I love pattens and order to things. These pictures are so up my alley because of the repetition. I could look at them all day. I also LOVE colors - lots of colors! No wonder I have about every color of paint handy for projects like this.

Here's where the tricky part comes in. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE SCISSORS FOR THIS!!! Use a nail or thumb tack. After my hospital visit I switched to a thumb tack and it was perfect. You want to use the thumb tack to drill a pilot hole in one end of the dowl rod. Then you'll screw an eye hook into that pilot hole. See - aren't those eye hooks beautiful!

The next step was the string. You want to use a cotton twine. Something that soaks up a lot of bubble stuff. I got to thinking about it and if I had yarn at the house I could have used that. You will need 2 strings per wand. Make sure one string is twice the length of the other string. Tie the short string to each eye hook on the dowl rod. On the long string add a larger washer or several small ones so that it will keep the string from winding up. That was our mistake. Still works though. After you've added the washers tie the long strings to the eye hooks. Your wand is complete.
Now for the soap. I followed the trail on Valerie's post for bubble formulas. But I went with Bubble Mania. I also added a bit of salt as recommended by several moms. I think that was the magic touch. It's amazing what you can create with dawn detergent and glycerin. I made sure that I made enough so that I could send little starter sets home with the families we played with that day. It's no fun to have wands but no soap.

And then the wild rumpus started. Funny thing. Every one started out hesitant until the giggles started. Didn't your momma ever tell you that giggles were infectious?

Everyone played along. H showed us how to blow bubbles with our hands. It's a talent!


S watched in amazement (except when one of the kids accidentally stepped on her).
Even the moms played for a bit :)

It was just a fun afternoon that I wanted to end this post with pictures. After we played bubbles we went to the splash park and had popsicles. Everyone went home rinsed off and refreshed. Maybe this year we'll do it on National Bubble Week :) Also - as a bonus. I had an extra jar of bubble stuff ad A gave it to the neighbor kid. The mom tells me that the 5yo loved the bubbles, but the teenagers played with it for HOURS! This really is family fun!