Hello!

This week’s Make It Monday #277 Nail Polish Marbling is a fun one! Lizzie has great video on marbling paper using nail polish.

What a timely challenge – I am seeing marbled paper everywhere! I have been very tempted by a paper marbling kit I saw recently at my local craft store so I was so happy to try this technique.

This post is a little longer than normal but I wanted to share some tips I discovered doing this project.

So I pulled out my box of nail polish and got to work. I may have gone a little crazy with this one…

In the sun:

My first try was this purple piece. It worked okay but the paper seemed to take the water very quickly and it wrinkled some at the bottom where there wasn’t paint:

I found that the metallic paints didn’t work quite as well so I used matte colors, too.

Here are some photos of the bucket I used. It was from the local dollar store. I added probably 1.5 inches of water each time. You can do probably two cards before you need to add more water.

If your water gets too low, you run the risk of your paper picking up previous paints that may have settled on the bottom. That happened to one of my blue ones – it got a drop of pink on it but I didn’t mind.

I did put it in at angle (as mentioned on Lizzie’s video) to try and minimize air bubbles so the paint would stick. I pressed the paper almost all the way under the water. This let me see the paint wrap around the back so I could tell I was getting coverage.

You must work quickly. Several times my paint would set up and be kind of crusty before I could dip the paper. I took the tops off the paint before adding the paint to be speedier.

I added a generous amount of each color, too. My metallic paints would “bloom” as soon as they hit the water whereas the matte colors would remain in drops for a little longer. Then I took my toothpick and started spreading a little. I didn’t spread it every time if I like the design.

Bristol paper (100 lb smooth) worked best for me. It took the paint well and didn’t absorb as much water so there was little wrinkling.

Here is a look at the other backgrounds I made:

This one is so pretty in person – all those specks are glitter!!

Now on to the cards I made!

I created two and will make more but since I spent a lot of time on the background I didn’t have a lot of time left, lol!!

I used black card stock to die cut sentiments from my favorite PTI series – Big Basics. I tried colors on the card stock but it just got lost in the marbling.

That was so much fun, thanks Papertrey!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I am entering these cards in the challenges:
SSS Wednesday Blog Challenge For a Special Lady/Girl
Word Art Wednesday #272-273 Anything Goes