Marbleized art

So I have been keeping an eye out for used bottles of nail polish at garage sales when I hit the jackpot:

This bucket contains all of these partial bottles of nail polish in SO many colors.  The main ones I am missing are yellow and green.  Lots of blues, pinks, reds whites and pinks.  Even a bright orange!

I have seen this project many times and many ways on Pinterest but here is one of my favorite bloggers, Little Green Notebook using this process to make a switchplate.  So I used this as the inspiration:

After covering the countertop with plastic, I used a disposable foil pan that I happened to have in the back of my cabinet.  I added about one inch of water and then started pouring in colors.  I used spare screws to swirl things around once all of the colors were added.

I found that there is definitely a difference between some nail polishes.  Some floated right on top, some spread out, and some sunk right to the bottom.  Once you get a good coating on the water, it is easier to control the added colors.

You do have to act fairly quickly or the polish starts to set up and won't swirl easily.  Once it is the way you want it, just lay your paper (I used watercolor paper) on top of the colors.  It will stick immediately.  Then lift the paper out and let dry.  After each one, you have to clean out the leftover color still floating on top - I just used one of the screws to scoop it all up.

Here are some of my combinations:

I don't think these look as good as some of the ones I have seen online but I definitely learned a lot and I think I could do a better job the next time.