KIDS

"Everything man looks at closely is full of wonder."

Little kids, big bubbles ... Tom Noddy www.bubblemagic.com

The Container 
The first thing to say is ... don't give the kids a portable source of liquid and encourage them to run and play unless you actually want to see the soapy fluid spilled. Most bubble jars sold in stores are almost designed to spill bubbles the grand exception is the brilliant Bubble Tumbler originated by Little Kids Inc. I have no deal with the company ... it's just a nice product. Another idea, though, is to put the liquid into a container that is designed to resist spill ... like a doggy bowl. They have a wide bottom to make them stable, they can be inexpensive and the idea then becomes one of dipping the wand into the bowl and then running and playing with free hands, not with an open jar of liquid.

The Juice
 The bubble juice is important. You probably already know how to make good bubble juice ... any good orange juice squeezer will work. First you want to gather several good bubbles together, try to pick them when they're ripe ...
 
No ... I guess not. Then we'll probably have to mix some things together.

Try this:
 
16 parts water (tap water is probably fine)
  1 part Dawn dish soap (right now I like the blue "ultra, original scent", Joy is the current second choice)
  8 parts commercial bubble liquid sold in toy stores
 
16 to 1 (water to soap) means that if you use 1 gallon of water you would use 1 cup of dish soap. If you were only making a small amount you could make it 1 cup of water and to that you would add 1 tablespoon of dish soap, that's also 16 to 1. However much water you used, use half as much commercial bubble liquid.
 
You could replace this final ingredient with several less expensive alternatives but you would use different amounts depending on which you use. Instead of all of that commercial bubble liquid try adding small amounts of glycerin (sold at drug stores) or corn syrup.
 
I like to mix the detergent with the water after first heating the water, the theory is that it facilitates mixing and at the same time certain volatile ingredients (alcohol, perfumes) then evaporate away quickly and that eliminates the need for "aging" the mix.

Or try this:

Buy Mr. Bubbles

Not Mr Bubble, the bubble bath product. This was the best liquid for a long time and it's still a good one for mixing as with the formula above. But something happened to it when the Strombecker Corp. that bought up the company that originated it started going down. Now another company is producing it again.

Or try this:

But Gazillion Bubbles. It's expensive but good.
or try this:

Buy Jumbo Juice.

or try this:

Buy Extreme Bubbles

Big Bubbles 
You could make a big bubble ring or hoop out of a coat hanger or other material. It would be better if you covered that metal with cotton string. . It would hold more liquid and at the same time, insure that a dry spot wouldn't develop as you wave it through the air.

But here's my favorite simple device for blowing big bubbles:
 
You'll need:
 
2  drinking straws
cotton string (thicker is better than the thin kite string)
 
That's it!
 
Pull out a length of cotton string (maybe the length from the tip of your nose to the tip of your fingers when extended to the side) and then thread that string through both straws.
 
Now tie the ends of the string into a knot.
 
The straws become the handles of this bubble blowing device.
 
Holding a straw in each fist and holding those fists together, dip down into the bucket of bubble juice.
 
Keep your hands together when you lift them out of the bucket and THEN pull your hands apart.
 
You'll see a very large film formed on that closed loop. Now pull it through the air to form a bubble. If it's windy, you won't have to pull at all, just open it in the wind and the bubble will form and fly off.
 
Your kids will sometimes try to push, rather than pull, it and it will begin to form a bubble but their body is there where the bubble is forming and it'll pop on them right away.
 
 
The only difficult part of this could be the closing of the bubble and that's where the genius of this simple device is an improvement over the standard ring or hoop. There's no need to develop a knack for it once they understand, let the surface tension do the work ... encourage them to simply pulling their fists back together will close the bubble.

Tabletop bubbles

Upon seeing Bubble Magic in a nightclub or other grown-up venue, people will often exclaim, "oh, but the kids must LOVE this."
And, of course, children do love bubbles. But my skill with bubbles is less surprising to them … they hadn't spent so many years assuming that a bubble cube would be impossible. They can imagine bubbles the shape of a donut or bubbles that float straight up or bubbles within bubbles within bubbles or …
When grown-ups see these things they seem to be witnessing an overthrow of established laws. The effect is often one that frees their imagination. For kids there is seldom an imagination that is less than free.

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