Water Marbling- It Has Been A While

Hi everyone, hope your week is going well.  In my previous post I showed a quick swatch of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  Perfect base for water marbling.  I went with a purple's theme this time.  I really like water marbling but usually don't have time for it.  Hence only one hand was done and I was off to something else.

Either way I am sharing the one hand with you.

Colors used:
Sinful Colors Snow Me White base and marbling
Zoya Perrie- OMG!! I have never used this before..I have to go check my pictures and see. 
China Glaze C-C-Courage
Sinful Colors Let's Talk

Sorry no clean up. Like I said sometimes it is off to something else.

Happy Memorial Day- A Little Late

I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend. Here is a photo of the mani I sported for Memorial Day.

Wet N Wild French White Creme
Sally Hansen Cherry Red
Sally Hansen Blue It
Wet N Wild Psycho

This was the first time I tried sponging and it is quite fun. Thank goodness not as messy as water marbling. The great thing is if you mess up you can just sponge back over it with your base color. The glitter bottle just happened to be on the table for a project my daughter was doing. I didn't use it for the mani at all.

Iced Out Raspberry Ice

So it isn't iced out in diamonds but there is a little bling factor with the glitter. Naming my posts is such a pain sometimes. This mani was inspired by a mani that I saw on a forum I belong to. The mani was pretty simple but she had drawn the thiniest line of contrasting polish color along the tip of her nail. When I say thin I mean very thin, a lot less than a french mani. It was such a nice look and very basic but that thin line gave it just the right amount of "oomph" (that is a word I am sure) to give it a second look. I couldn't do my lines quite as thin and uniform so I went with a second line of glitter. I like this mani a lot. Hope you like it too.

I used Orly Raspberry Ice as the base color and LA Colors Art Deco Pens in white and silver glitter for the tips.

Milani Tricky Treat + Flair

My feelings about the Milani Tricky Treat are definitely on the "trick" side now seeing that it has been less than 36 hours and it already chipping. Perfect time to dibble dabble with new toys. I am not much of an artist but I did get a dotting tool that has a fine tipped brushed. It reminds me of my Sonia Kashuk Bent Eyliner Brush.

After unsuccessfully trying the dotting tool I flipped it and decided to see what kind of freehand design I could come up with. Trust me when I say I am no artist but it is fun to pretend sometimes. Then when it is time to look at my creation I am brought rudely back to reality. Oh well, nothing beats a failure like a try and sometimes it is just really fun trying.

Here is my creation.

I am open to "you should've", "I would've", and "try this" types of feedback. Input is always welcome here.

Sorry, I forgot to mention Wet N Wild Black Creme is the black polish I used.

Ruby Kisses Red Romance

This isn't a brand I am familiar with or have heard much about in the other nail blogs I read but I came across it at a local beauty supply store. Always looking for some new brands to try I snatched up a few and this is the first one I have tried. Ruby Kisses Red Romance. I must admit I do like the name. This is 3 layers I think.

The first layer was quite opaque, the second didn't have enough sparkle, so I tried a third layer. No problem with application other than my impatience and not wanting to wait for each layer to completely dry.

I wasn't to sure about the glitter. There is a mix of rectangular pieces and small circular pieces. The circle pieces were fine but the rectangular pieces were a little to sparse making it look a little odd at first (I say at first because this polish did grow on me).

Since I have been a little bored with my manis lately (just polish, no Konad or designs) I stepped out of the box and tried these LA Colors Art Deco pens. My daughter is great with them. The first and only other time I tried them was disastrous so I let them be.

What do you think. Not horrible. Not great, but not horrible. Doing my right hand was torture and that is why you don't see any pics of it!! Here is the final result as they seemed to dark so I thought the white would give it a little pop.

Should I have gone that far? White stripe or no white stripe, which way do you like better?

Will I Ever Get This Water Marbling Right

This is my third attempt to water marble my nails. The first try went pretty good (see here), but then the second attempt I just ditched all together. It just would not work. Here I wanted to do something Valentine-sie so I started with red white and pink. For whatever reason the red I was using was drying to fast on the water so I went with to shades of pink. Here is the result.

Could be better, much better, but it is a learning process. I will reiterate a few things I said in my previous blog post. Water temperature matters, you may have to test it a little to see what works best for the polish you will be using. Use Vaseline around your nails and on your fingers for easier cleanup. This time around I found that 2-3 drops of polish instead of 1 buys you a little more time to swirl the polish around before it becomes a film on the surface. And last but not least work quickly. Oh, and 1 more that I don't remember if I mentioned before or not, don't do this on your bare nails. In trying to do it I have found that having a colored base makes all of your other colors stand out much more giving a more vibrant and distinct design on each nail.

For the record the colors used for this were China Glaze Fly, China Glaze Pink Underground, and Revlon White on White.

Thanks for looking :-)

Water Marbling FTW

I can see myself attempting to to do this a lot more I love it. It is an unique piece of artwork on each nail. Can you feel my excitement. I'll just post the pictures and get on with the rambling afterwords. I do tend to ramble.

MY FIRST (actually first through tenth) WATER MARBLING ATTEMPT

Can I ramble now. I had fun doing this. It wasn't hard, not easy but not hard. I would say watch a few YouTube videos and give it a whirl.

My 2 CENTS:

• USE VASELINE on the skin around your nails and all up and down your fingers. It makes wiping the film off so much easier.
• WATER TEMPERATURE is crucial. To warm or to cold will make the polish dry to quickly on the water and you won't be able to marble properly. I had the perfect temperature stopped to watch a movie and came back using the same water. It was to cold and the polish dried to quickly on the water surface making it impossible to marble.
• FLAT TOOTHPICKS worked better for me than round. I wasn't sure which to get so I bought both. When marbling I found that the flat toothpick cut through the polish better. It also helped scrape excess polish off of the skin easier than the round.

I am soooo doing this again.

Oh and for this I had on:
Orly Green With Envy painted on all of my nail as base.
Sally Hansen Cherry Red used to marble.
Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow used to marble.
Kleancolor Black used to marble.

I know you don't see red or yellow but because the of the base coat I used they show up purple and light green. My daughter said it looks like a peacock!! FABULOUS!!!