Magnolia's Paint & Bubbles Studio mixes up creative fun

Paint & Bubbles Studio gives children and adults in the Greater Magnolia area a judgment-free space in which to create, owner Rachel Alarid said.

“One of our big goals of the studio is to keep everything fun, to let them create and enjoy in that process,” Alarid said. “They’re not getting a grade on anything, and there’s not any judgment on what they create.”

[caption id="attachment_203672" align="alignright" width="460"] Paint & Bubbles Studio is open throughout the week for open studio hours, available to children of all ages. Stations are set up around the studio featuring different materials with which children can create art pieces.[/caption]

Alarid opened the art studio in June as an extension of her love for art. While her educational background is in accounting, Alarid said she has always enjoyed creating new things.

“If there was something I wanted to make, I would just look it up and try to figure out how to make it,” she said. “I kind of carried that over with my kids and loved to teach them how to make things and loved to set out art projects for them at home. And this kind of became an extension of that.”

Alarid offered themed art camps throughout the summer. Since the start of the school year, the studio has added events, classes and open studio hours. Open studio time features eight stations with different types of materials that children rotate through.

“When you give [children] that opportunity, it’s amazing to see what they come up with when they just start letting their imaginations run wild,” Alarid said.

The studio also hosts monthly ladies’ craft nights, coffee and crafts events, tween craft nights, birthday parties and after-school art classes.

“We like to start all of our classes and our camps off with what I call ‘an invitation to create,’” Alarid said. “[It is] kind of a warmup where we put out some materials, and there’s no instruction to it.”

Individuals can work in a variety of mediums at the studio—from watercolor and oil pastels to glue and paper—which Alarid said makes Paint & Bubbles stand out from other local art studios.

“[The kids] generally love to be here and don’t want to leave,” she said.