My first attempt at marbling. Eeek!

This week I tried marbling for the first time. Follow me for this journey....

It's the week of Christmas and I've seen so many candy cane striped nails online, but I wanted something a little different. I thought a peppermint type marbling would look really neat. I needed some guidance, and found this YouTube video to guide me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0e81_n30y4

First, I got my work area ready. I flipped over the top of a shoe box and put all my supplies on it. I cut a paper cup in half and filled it about half way with room temperature bottled water, got my polishes together (which I'll list below) and unscrewed the tops of each, and grabbed a pencil and a roll of scotch tape.



I painted my nails in 2 coats of Sally Hansen You-Gurt Style. It's very sheer, but I wanted some type of base.



Next, I put in a drop of Finger Paints in Paper Mache. I followed that by a drop of Sally Hansen's Resilient Red. I continued doing this until there were several rings of red and white polish. Here's a pic of my mess up. I ended up getting rid of this water and starting again. I found it easier to actually touch the surface of the water with the brush rather than just letting the polish drip in.



I took my pencil and anchored the polish to the side and used a up-down up-down type motion to create a striped look.

I taped around my nails with scotch tape. Much easier for cleaning up.

I dipped 2-3 fingers in at a time. The tricky part is that they all need to hit the water at the same time. So I did that as best as I could, then gathered up all the excess polish with the tip of my pencil and then lifted my nails out of the water.

I repeated the process of putting in rings of polish, swirling, and dipping my nails in until I was done. I ended with my Essie to dry for top coat. This is my end result...



So there you have it. Not too bad for my first time! I did notice that the red bled into the white on some nails and it gave the impression of Valentine's Day instead of Christmas, but overall, I think the technique is neat and there are so many possibilities of polish combos. Practice makes perfect, right?

The next time I try this, I'll try to document the process a little better, but that you tube video tutorial at the top of the post is spot on.

How was your first time marbling--success or epic fail?

xoxo
j