Gelatin Plastic Butterflies

Unflavored gelatin is one of our favorite materials to create with.
You can make a sort of gelatin "plastic" when you mix an envelope with a small amount of water.
Let the gelatin dry for a few days, and it hardens up like plastic!
It reminds me of acetate sheets that teachers use on projectors
(do teachers still use those?)

Here's how we used our sheets to make gelatin plastic butterflies!



Mix your gelatin with boiling water until it dissolves
Here are more detailed instructions on making gelatin plastic
add any coloring you want while you're stirring
(we use food coloring)


 Pour your gelatin into any type of tray you wish
we've used plastic plates, baking sheets and plastic wrap, and these plastic trays from Discount School Supply.

The girls decided to add more colors and swirl them around
and
then dumped generous amounts of glitter on top

Here is the gelatin before it is dry


Here is the gelatin after it is dry
It took several days for this batch of gelatin to dry and it dried quite crinkly
(I'm blaming wet weather, it rained several days during the week)


While we were waiting for our gelatin to dry, the girls decorated clothespins with
paint, googly eyes, and pipe cleaner antennae


Miss C traced a heart cookie cutter to make wings,


then cut her hearts out (there was some free form wing cutting happening as well),


and glued her wings to the backs of her clothespins.


Here are the butterflies waiting for their wings to dry!


 We stuck them to our windows, 
I love the light shining through the wings!

See how you can see some of the Sharpie marker?
Drawing designs on the wings with Sharpie would show up really nicely!

 Have you made gelatin plastic yet?
If you'd like more inspiration why not

Photobucket
Let's connect!
  Dilly-Dali Art Dilly-Dali Art Dilly-Dali Art 
 Save this idea for later!

8 comments:

  1. Those are adorable! We will have try making some with the gelatin and food colouring that we won from you! :)

    All 3 kids had the spray bottles outside yesterday for their homemade perfume! What a great prize!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Homemade perfume!? What a great idea!

      Have fun using the gelatin :)

      Delete
  2. Ohhh - these look great I'm going to have to try this with the kids. Although I do have some acetate sheets from my teaching days ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by, Cerys! If I had acetate I'd use that, instant gratification! :)

      Delete
  3. Great idea! I've worked with gelatin prints, but never let it dry before. Cool!

    ReplyDelete
  4. amazing idea!

    doing this in the weekend too (trying)

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a wonderful idea, I just wonder, is the gelatin turning bad (moding etc) after some time? Or can we keep it like that forever? Thank you, viki

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've had a suncatcher we made out of gelatin for about 5 years now, no molding. The only thing we've had an issue with is the color fading

      Delete

Thank you for visiting Dilly-Dali Art! Please check back for a reply to your comment!