Splatter Nails...Inky Style!

Hello Dahlings!

Tonight I tried an experiment & other than being a wee bit messy it worked very well! Some of you may know that I'm a crafter & Stampin' Up! demonstrator and have been both for many years. My crafting adventures have lead to an array of art supplies being at hand. I've seen Splatter nails done by various bloggers & had the idea to use some of my art stuff on my nails.

I started with 2 coats of NYC Blackula. This inexpensive polish dries FAST...so fast that when I tried to smooth a spot a few seconds after I polished it, I left brush studder marks. Ugh!

 

I then suited up for the ride. I took a pair of Dollar store rubber gloves & cut the tips off all of the fingers. I then placed tape over the tip of each finger & ran it down the sides to the glove. A 2nd piece of tape across the base of each nail finished the job. If you decide to try this technique, covering up the skin of not only your fingers, but your hands too, is important. The ink is non-toxic & cleans up with acetone, but it takes what seems like forever. The less you get on your skin, the happier you will be with the results.

My 'brilliant' innovation was to take shimmer ink in misting bottles & spray them on my nails! These inks have a lovely iridecent shimmer to them & are smudge proof when dry & used on paper. The 2 brands I used are available in craft stores & on line where they sell the rubber stamping ink pads & other paper crafting inks. They come in lots of sparkly colors.

When I said 'wee bit messy' earlier, I may have understated it. lol The instructions on the bottles say hold the misting bottle 8 - 12" from the paper. This creates a wide mist zone that needs to be protected or it will have lil sparkly spots for eternity. In addition to rubberizing my hands & taping my fingers, I placed sheets of recycled packing paper over the table & did the actual misting inside of a box. I use the box for all of my small misting or spray painting projects so there's a lot of colors in there. lol You can use any box that is wide enough to fit your hand & deep enough to contain the mist. I think mine is 8" x 10" x 7"ish. After everything was protected I placed my hand inside of the box & aimed the nozzle at my nails. Some got more than others, but that was fine as I used 3 colors & nobody went without getting a color shower. I let the paint dry for about 5 minutes then cut the tape from the back & peeled it off. I then started my clean up. HOLY FREAKIN GUACAMOLE! It took longer to clean up than to do this technique. Once I got most of it off I added a coat of Seche Vite to seal it, let that cure, then scrubed my hands in hot soapy water & cleaned my skin again with acetone. This got most of it off. The rest should go away today in the shower when I wash my hair. I tested the SV earlier on samples I spritzed & let dry completely to make sure the TC didn't erase the color. If you've ever lost the color when applying TC to a fish egg mani or nail art gems, you know why I pre-tested the paint. Arrgh! moment averted by planning. Imagine that! LOL

It took a lot of set up & clean up, but I think it was worth the effort! I can't wait to see my nails in day light & I want to try this again using white as the polish base color with other colors & do the black again but use metallics like silver & gold together. Think of this technique as finger painting for grown ups!

Thanks for stopping by!
~ Inky