Bubble Solutions?

Hi,

I've been looking for some small experiments to do to occupy my time while I wait until I have enough money to afford the distillation set I want to do more interesting things. While browsing around online I came across bubble solutions and realized there's quite a bit involved. Bubble artist Keith Johnson has a pretty basic page about the construction of bubble mixes located http://homepage.mac.com/keithmjohnson/soapbubbler.com/page2/page8/page8.html. He also has a page listing a lot of patents involving bubble mixes at http://homepage.mac.com/keithmjohnson/soapbubbler.com/page16/page17/page17.html.

I'm curious what could be changed around to improve upon this. What would happen if you used a non-water solvent like alcohol or DMSO? Are there any easily synthesizable polymers or surfacants that might be useful? What interesting properties could be given to bubbles (I saw one patent which talked about bubbles bursting into strings)?

I think there's a lot of stuff that could be done here and I'm hoping it can occupy my time for a while. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, how hard is it to make Hydroxyethyl cellulose? I found a paper titled "Homogenous Synthesis of Hydroxyethylcellulose in NaOH/Urea Aqueous Solution" that sounds pretty easy, but I've only read that abstract so far.