Salad Spinner Spin Art Tutorial

Salad Spinner Spin ArtA list of things that I always buy whenever I see them at any garage sale: Spirographs, Legos, comic books, vinyl record albums, Scrabble games, and salad spinners.

You can never have too many Spirographs or Legos, I craft with comic books, records, and Scrabble tiles, and you can use the lowly plastic salad spinner, however beat up or unworthy-looking of touching an actual salad, to make one of the coolest kinds of gimmick artwork around:

Spin art basically rules. Here’s how to work it:

You will need:

  • Second-hand salad spinner (with food-grade paints or a REALLY thorough wash strategy, you can use your regular salad spinner for this, but I like to have a beat-up scavenged salad spinner on hand so that I can use weird paints if I want)
  • Small strips of clear tape (I use Scotch tape or whatever brand is cheapest at the store—you want something that’s not too sticky, so the cheap brands are actually the best here)
  • Paper cut to fit the bottom of your salad spinner (I cut Bristol board to 4”x6”; this is also a good project for Artist Trading Cards)
  • Liquid paints in squeeze tubes or eyedrop-type applicators (the girls and I usually use acrylic or tempera paints directly from their squeeze tubes; you can also put your paints in old mustard bottle-type containers, and you can always thin your paints down if they’re too thick—they should be the consistency of regular tempera paint, or even thinner)

Acrylic Paints for Spin Art1. Using four or five strips of tape doubled over into a loop and fixed to the backside of your paper, affix your paper to the bottom of the salad spinner.

2. Drop as many drops of paint, big or small, onto the front of your paper. Experiment for different effects.

3. Put the lid on the salad spinner and give it a good, hard spin.

4. Repeat with more paint, or remove your paper, take the tape off of the back, and lay it out to dry.

As an alternate method, if you choose a very thin paper, such as typing paper, you can actually press the entire sheet of paper down into the salad spinner for your spin art, and then lay the paper flat to dry and uncrumple.

Spin ArtSpin art has a lot of applications, aside from its awesomeness. I used these for the girls’ birthday party invitations this year, and for Christmas I have an idea that involves freezer paper stencil silhouettes of my daughters.

What could you spin that would be awesome?

3 thoughts on “Salad Spinner Spin Art Tutorial”

  1. Pingback: Salad Spinner Spin Art Tutorial - Zidee.com

  2. Pingback: Inspiration: Whimsical Wednesdays « Rhubarbsky

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