Green Marble

I missed the Tuesday post again - but I have a good excuse! I was up until 3am experimenting with my first water-marbling attempt...I need more practice, but it was pretty fun (and super-messy). I took a lot of pictures (more than I'm posting), so it's taken me awhile to get them all cropped and posted for you. I'll warn you though, this is just as much a "what not to do" post than a tutorial...

I watched a bunch of videos on water marbling before I started, and gathered a bunch of things for my experiment. I decided to use mostly greens and one yellow-green just so if I screwed up, it would at least be monochrome (I ended up using only four colors). Other things I got included a bowl of cool water, cotton buds, tape, an orange stick, and some tiny little iridescent rhinestones that Sparkly Nails sent me for review. And a strawberry soda, of course. 

Polishes Used

- OPI "Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow"

- Sinful Colors "Show Me The Way"

- Zoya "Tangy"

- Zoya "Bekka" 

By the way, have you *seen* the new Zoya winter colors? Between those and Nubar, I may go broke this month...but I digress. 

Anyway. I started by prepping my nails - file, buff and then put tape just under my nails in an attempt to keep the skin cleaner. I've since read that petroleum jelly works just fine, and it's probably easier to take off than tape. I'm going to try that next time - the tape is a pain to get off when you're done. 

I added one coat of base coat, and then decided to use "Bekka" as my main base color. I only did one coat since I planned to use it in the marbling as well. In hindsight, two coats of the base color would have been better. 

That taken care of, it was time for fun. I added a few drops each of "Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow", then "Show Me The Way", followed by "Tangy" and finally "Bekka". Each new color right in the center of the previous colors. 

I used an orange stick to sort of pull the center out to the edges and mingle the colors. The polish texture in the water is kind of like really thin plastic wrap - so you can manipulate it, but it's still somewhat fragile. In hindsight, I'd use a toothpick for mixing the colors.

I sort of wanted a striped design, so when I put my finger in, I laid it flat on top the outer edge of the polish, and pushed down into the water.

I held it there for a few seconds, and used a cotton bud to gently pull all the excess polish away. It was pretty easy, but later I "wrapped" the excess polish back over my nail on accident - be careful not to do that unless you mean to (it creates globs). After I had the excess polish out of the way, I pulled my nail out.

I had enough undisturbed polish to do one more with a similar design...

I'll spare you the long and messy details, but this is what one whole hand looked like after I finished with all the nails. I experimented with pulling the polish in toward the center, swirling it, etc.

At this point, I took the tape off - which was a huge hassle. Then I used the teeny little rhinestones to add just a little bling (and to cover up some little dings & dents). 

I used cotton buds to clean up my fingers afterwards, and my normal "orange stick in the shower" method of cleaning up my cuticles the next morning. 

And there you have it - whew! Obviously I need practice, but it's fun, and I plan to do some more very soon. 

Not sure what I'll do next week - pumpkins or leaves, perhaps? Until then, happy polishing!