How-To Clean Paint Splatter Off Your Monitor, (And How To Protect It From Future Creative Mess)

By Lily – Dawn Fox Research Assistant

While painting I tend to lose sight of my surroundings and end up with paint everywhere. Normally I wouldn’t mind because I cover up my workspace. I’ve tried a few tutorials which ended with paint splatter on my monitor and on my phone screen. Here’s what I found when finding ways to clean my monitor and how to keep it clean in the future.

Removing Paint and Other Substances from Electronics

Cleaning up paint splatter is easy with the right materials. To clean the paint off your monitor you can use nail polish remover or 100% rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol), on a soft cloth. Microfiber cloths or scraps of softer fabrics will keep your monitor from getting scratched while cleaning. 

Apply the alcohol to the cloth, then use gentle circular motions with the cloth – the paint will start to soften and come off. If you’re worried about the alcohol harming your computer monitor, you can try diluting it with water. You can slowly add more alcohol to your mixture until you get the desired outcome.

Before and After

Keeping your Monitor Safe During Messy Projects

Now that everything is clean, let’s keep it that way! To prevent paint from getting on your monitor screen you can buy a cover for your monitor or you can make your own out of a few simple household products. There are issues with both options, the price of buying a cover and cleaning it in the same way you had to clean your monitor. With making your own, plastic wrap is also famously difficult to work with (because of the way it sticks to itself) but it is easily disposable and inexpensive.

DIY Monitor Cover

Cleaning paint off your monitor isn’t a difficult process but it is tedious and, I don’t know about you, but I can never find the rubbing alcohol when I need it. To prevent getting a mess all over your monitor while crafting, one of the best options is to create a disposable monitor cover that isn’t bank-breaking and is made out of on-hand materials. Making your own monitor cover is simple and you only need plastic wrap and a roll of 1 inch painters tape!  Let’s walk through the steps: 

1.   Rip off pieces of tape slightly larger than your monitor and lay them down sticky side up.  The idea is to build a “frame” with the tape.
2. Tear or cut off a piece of plastic wrap that is sized to fit the frame but ½ inch smaller.  You want the plastic wrap to stick to the tape but leave enough sticky surface left to stick to the monitor.
3. Carefully pick up your new monitor “shield” and place it over top of your screen so that the sticky tape comes in contact with the plastic frame of your monitor and gently push the tape down so it sticks.

Then, voila! No more paint splattered monitors.

Though difficult to work with, saran wrap is clear and cheap, meaning you can still use your monitor without the fuss of paint splatter – at least that’s my solution.

You can take a look at Dawn Fox’s preferred monitor cover here: (this is not an affiliate link and we do not get paid for this).

Its expensive but worth it to save your monitor.

Any other ideas on keeping your monitor clean while crafting? Leave us a comment and tell us your solutions!