buttons and paint...: Tips, Tools & Techniques

Hello! Here's our regular feature where we share tips, tools & techniques that have caught our eye, things we have Pinned, and things we have tried. These are probably not going to change your life(!) but might make it a bit easier...

This year I am taking part in Daisy Yellow's ICAD (Index Card A Day) project where the challenge is to create a small piece of art onto an Index Card every day in June and July. "The challenge is about the DOING and not the KEEPING or PRESERVING or ARCHIVING. It is the process of creating each day that matters." - Daisy Yellow

There are optional daily prompts which I have been following, The prompt for today was Nail Polish and as I was cutting up pictures from beauty magazines, I remembered something I'd seen recently on Pinterest by Stamp Away With Me and it looked so cool I just had to give it a go! Here's how you go about it:

Put some cold water into a disposable shallow dish (or in my case, a Ready Meal container!).

1. Carefully put a few drops of different colour Nail Polish onto the surface of the water (I was aiming to use up some of my old gunky polishes but as you'll see later the gloopier ones don't work as well - something to bear in mind!)

2. Using a disposal tool (toothpick, chopstick or in my case plastic fork) swirl the colours together.

3. Place piece of watercolour paper onto the surface and then pick it off!

4. Leave to dry

Steps 1-3 need to be done fairly quickly as the nail polish sets in the cold water. The good news is, this makes it easy to peel off the excess from the top of the surface and repeat the process with new colour combinations.

A word of warning, this can get a little messy so make sure you have paper laid down and DEFINITELY use disposable tools:

And what to do with the results? Anything you want! Punch shapes for card making, use in scrapbooking / art journalling, make your own notecard / invites. The possibilities and colour combos are endless!

Here's my finished card for today - I kept it simple as it was about the playing with nail polish for me. I'm also enjoying a day off from work so thought the words were cheekily appropriate! If you are interested you can check out some of the great pieces on the Daisy Yellow ICAD flickr group.