Consolidating some of my river finds revealed this fun collection of soap-bubble wands all found within the Falls of the Ohio State Park. This is many years worth of walking the riverbank and sampling choice bits of plastic and other displaced objects. All the bubble wands I’ve found thus far are made of plastic. Most of these wands were sold inside plastic bottles filled with prepared soap-bubble solution.
Simply dip the wand into the soap bottle. Remove the wand allowing a film to form over the loop. Then gently blow air through the soap film and bubbles should result. With this found wand lot however, the bubbles probably wouldn’t be very big or long-lasting. The soap-bubble wands you can fashion at home with common materials (along with creating your own bubble mix) can produce spectacular results. These wands were more than likely lost by kids playing near the river. I’m frequently amazed by the variety of design solutions intended for such a throw away item. I mean who holds on to these wands to reuse once the bottle is empty? I did find some novelty items in the mix. Check these examples out.
Here are two mini soap-bubble nuptial wands. These are usually in tiny plastic bottles left on the guests’ tables. Blowing bubbles on the newlyweds frequently substitutes for the traditional rice throwing send off.
I also found these two soap-bubble pipes. Personally, I’ve never had much luck making bubbles with pipes.
This novelty didn’t look good in the frame, but it is one of the nicer soap bottle with wand items I’ve found. This fake ice cream cone also has that black river patina suggesting it was out floating around for years before I came across it on these fable Falls shores.
I have a couple of wands that aren’t soap-bubble wands, but since they are wands nevertheless…I keep them in the collection. The Star Wand is more than likely from a princess costume or magician’s outfit. The other wand is perhaps more of a plastic scepter. Originally, the handle lit up with a colored light. Again, more disposable plastic items. I’ll keep walking the riverbank a little while longer and I’ll bet I find a few more of these objects to add to the river collection.
Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog 