Rainbow Paper Butterflies

Check out these rainbow butterflies! I. Am. In. LOVE! They remind me of oil on water. Or like a bubble exploded on them. I see iridescent anything and I’m in. I was skeptical before I tried this, but it WORKS! (It’s actually called thin-film interference if you want to learn more about how and why.) I’ve been doing some experimenting, and I’ve come up with some tips that I think will help you get some good results. A lot of it is trial and error, but it’s also a very forgiving project. It’s very easy to start over if it’s not working the way you want it to.

The supply list for this project is very short. Are you ready for this?

Cardstock (plain or textured)

Clear nail polish

Shallow plate/bowl of water

That’s really all you need except for a drying station of some sort. A layer of paper towels works well. I was amazed by how quickly these dried.

The first time I tried this, I used pieces of black construction paper I’d cut into rectangles by hand. It was the first thing I found in my stash, and I wanted to see what the texture would look like. I got some beautiful results! But I really wanted to try cardstock for the thickness. Since I was wanted to cut out butterflies (instead of rectangles) the second time, I dug a little deeper until I found my cardstock so that I could use my machine to cut it. I accidentally grabbed blue first, but even after I found the black I decided I wanted to see what the blue would look like. I also came across some textured cover stock that is lovely and thick. I had to also try construction paper butterflies, but it turns out I just really don’t enjoy cutting things out by hand unless I absolutely have to. I only got two cut out before I gave up.

So yeah… for almost all of my butterflies, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out them out. I happened to have some butterfly designs that I’d bought from the Silhouette store, but otherwise I would have found some images online and used those. Construction paper is thin enough that a cutting machine just tears it up, in my experience. Of course, scissors also work perfectly well no matter what kind of paper you’re using. Side note: don’t feel like you have to cut out your shapes from the start. You could always start with rectangles and cut them into shapes after they’ve dried.

For the clear nail polish, I grabbed whatever I had. I have kind of an odd assortment of base and top coats. I don’t know of any particular brand that works best, but I will say that I did not have the best results with the most expensive top coat. Maybe because it’s thicker? The others just seemed to spread out more.

We have wide, shallow salad bowls that worked perfectly for this. You could use a plate, but you should probably make sure it’s deep enough that you have a little room to get your fingers underneath the paper. Similarly, I would make sure that your bowl is big enough that you have room all around the paper you’re dipping.

To start, fill your dish with an inch or so of water. Make sure you have an area nearby for drying your paper. Be ready to go with the nail polish, because you have to work fast. In fact, I think they key here really is speed.

When you’re all set, take your paper and put it under the water. I press it down a little hoping that it will stick to the bottom of the bowl for even just a second, and I had good luck with this. Then take a drop of nail polish—seriously, just one will do—and drop it into the water. Do you see the film forming? It should happen after just a second. It’s like magic!

This is where you really need to work fast. As soon as you see the film, make sure your paper is positioned completely under it and then just lift it out. The film should be on your paper! Sometimes I had to move the paper around under the film to make sure that my butterflies were completely covered. (Sometimes I missed, and that’s okay too!) 

Here’s a quick video my daughter put together to show you how I do this.

You could actually reverse the steps here—make your film first and then stick the paper under the water to capture it. You can see here where one time I ended up with a whole lot of film and covered two butterflies at once. Whatever you prefer!

Because my butterflies are a little intricate, there was some film between the antennas and wings. While it was still wet, it was easy enough to peel it away with my fingers. For anything that I couldn’t get to or just didn’t feel like messing with right away, I used scissors to trim away once it was dry.

The best thing about this is that anything can be undone. For pretty much anything that could go wrong, you can wipe the film off and start over. If there’s film left on the water, you can scoop it out with your fingers. Same thing if you drop the polish and it doesn’t spread like it should for some reason. If you don’t like the way the film looks on your paper, wipe it off. If your water just won’t come clean, dump it and start over. I made about 40 butterflies this time and changed the water three or four times.

My thoughts on the materials… I much preferred the card/cover stock over the construction paper. I ended up liking the blue a lot more than I thought I would (it’s my daughter’s favorite!). The smoothness of the cardstock and the texture of the cover stock do seem to catch the light a little differently, but I don’t know that I prefer one over the other. They’re both beautiful. I say try whatever you have! My favorite nail polish ended up being a Zoya brand base coat. I had a tiny bottle of it that I tried as sort of an afterthought. The film was very thin and just seemed to spread out really well for me. I also had good results with a Sally Hansen top coat though. I think I was getting better In general as I went along, so it may be more technique than materials. Once again, I say try whatever you have. You don’t need a lot—just a drop per piece of paper you want to color.

I hope you have as much fun with this as I did!