China Glaze Electric Nights Watermarble!

Good afternoon, readers! I recently bought the new neon collection by China Glaze called Electric Nights. They are bright, gorgeous, and I can't wait to show you a full swatch post soon. In the meantime, let's check out what I'm currently wearing on my nails right now: a watermarble using 5 of the new colors!

The Digit-al Dozen DOES Thankfulness, Day 3: Coffee!

Good morning, readers! Today, as part of our Thankfulness Week with The Digit-al Dozen, I am thankful for coffee! Even as I type this, I am sipping on a cup. In case you didn't guess from my post on monday, life here can be a bit hectic. Getting up at 5am to fit in some nail time wouldn't really be possible without my daily coffee. (Who am I kidding, sleeping in on some weekend days still requires coffee asap LOL!) For my nail art today, I've done a watermarble that reminds me of when I'm mixing my creamer into my coffee (or the pretty surface designs when you get coffee at a coffee shop). My accent nail is a cup of steaming coffee over Darling Diva Caffeine Junkie. Fitting, right?

The Digit-al Dozen DOES Decades, Day 2: Groovy Flower Power Watermarble Nail Art!

Press Sample

Affiliate Links

Good morning! Are you ready for day 2 of Decades Week with The Digit-al Dozen? Today's mani was inspired by the flower power, rainbow colored, 60s! It was really easy to make rainbow colored flowers by water marbling so that's exactly what I did!

Textured Watermarble Nail Art!

Press Sample

Hello, everyone! I've been toying with the idea of a textured watermarble mani for a month or two but wasn't happy with my results so far. Today, I saw that my friend Ashley from Smashley Sparkles posted a really awesome watermarble using one of the Zoya Magical Pixie Dusts (ultra texture!) as the base and I had to try it! My previous attempts weren't textured enough after the thin layer of polish caused by the watermarble, so using the most textured polish I had as a base seemed like the perfect solution! 

Watermarble Wednesday: A Review of Marbleous Nails Watermarble Kit!

Press Sample

Hello, readers! Let's talk about watermarbling! Have you tried it? Is it too hard? Is it too daunting to collect the supplies needed? This may be the right product for you! Marbleous Nails is an all-in-one watermarbling kit designed by a 13 year old named Veronica. She is too cute and I think she's come up with a genius idea for nail art lovers!

The kit comes in this cute box:

Inside the That's Cray kit I was sent:

Included in the kit:

Marbling cup with cover, roll of tape, qtips for clean up, toothpick for swirling and making the designs, base coat, 3 polish colors to marble with, top coat, and a cute freebie(mine was this bouncy ball that my kids were very excited about)! (Not pictured: the instruction booklet).

You pretty much just need to add water. Room temperature water in fact.

The instruction booklet is very helpful!

Here is my experience with the Marbleous Nails kit:

Step 1) Apply the base coat and let dry.

Step 2) Apply one of the colors as a base color and let dry. I like to go with the lightest color or a white base when watermarbling to keep the colors bright.

Step 3) Tape around the nails and cuticles. 

Step 4) Put drops of polish one at a time in the center of the water cup. They should spread out and make concentric circles of color. I like to do between 8-10 drops of color. Have all of your bottles open and do this quickly right after another. You will want to make the design before the polish has started to dry.

Step 5) Take the toothpick and make a design in the polish. I chose to do 4 swipes from the center outward to the edge of the cup, and then 4 swipes from the edge of the cup inward to the center (in between the outward swipes) to create this design.

I then dip my nail in the part of the design that I want and keep it under the surface of the water while I used another toothpick to swirl and grab the rest of the surface polish so pulling the finger out won't ruin the design already on the nail.

Step 6) I pulled my nail out of the water and it looked like this.

After I repeated the steps again for each nail, this is what it looked like. See why the tape is helpful??

After I pulled the tape off of each finger carefully, I'm only left with this much to clean up. That's where the qtips came in and my own polish remover. I also used my clean up brush and remover to get closer than the qtips.

And the finished result below. I added top coat before this picture. I do want to say, that the top coat included has the potential to smear your design if you don't apply carefully. I got a bit of drag on my thumb so make sure you have a big bead of topcoat on the brush and don't let the brush touch the nail surface. 

So what do you think of this kit? Is it something for you? I think it's perfect for beginning water marblers! 

You can purchase this kit from Marbleous Nails below for $22.50.

Marbleous Nails Website:  http://www.marbleousnails.com

Thanks so much for reading!

*The product in this post was sent for me to review with my honest opinion. 

Water Marble Wednesday: Essie Summer Skittlette!

Good morning, readers! It's been a long time since I've water marbled and I've been wanting to get back into trying it. I think the last water marble was the Christmas Tree design back in December. My friend, Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll does Water Marble Wednesday so this week I've joined in!

Since I am obsessed with "skittlette" nails lately, I thought it would be fun to do a skittlette mani with 2 accent nails that I water marbled. It's a win-win! You only have to deal with clean up on 2 nails per hand and I feel like it makes the water marble nails stand out more.

When I grabbed these 2 of the Essie Summer 2013 collection, I knew they would look fab in a mani together. I'm glad I've finally gotten around to using them! They water marbled beautifully!

For the water marbled nails:

• I did one coat of China Glaze White on White.
• I painted Elmer's school glue around my nails and on my finger tips and let dry.
• I water marbled China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around, Essie The Girls Are Out, and Essie Naughty Nautical using my Flowery Water Marble tutorial technique.
• I went back in with 2 dotting tools and Milani Silver Stilettos to add some silver dot accents.
• One coat of HK Girl Top Coat to seal it in.
• Once completely dry, I ran my hands under warm water in the sink to loosen the glue+polish layer on my skin and gently scraped it off with an orange stick!
• I went in and got any remaining polish off the cuticles with acetone and a cleanup brush.

For the other nails:

• 2 coats of either Essie Naughty Nautical or The Girls Are Out.
• Milani Silver Stilettos and the big dotting tool to add one dot on each nail.
• HK Girl Top Coat to seal them in!

I love that the shimmer shows so much on the water marbled nails!

This is such an amazing color!

What do you think of my skittlette water marble mani? I can't tell you how much I loved it! So fun and took so much less time than a full water marbled mani. Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to head over and see what Danielle did today for her Water Marble Wednesday post!

http://rocknpolish.blogspot.com

Day 31: Recreate A Favorite Challenge!

Hello readers!! I finally finished the 31 day challenge!!! :) Today's theme was to recreate a favorite challenge and my facebook friends and I decided to recreate something someone else did on a challenge day. I chose to recreate Sarah at Chalkboard Nails ladybug design(used for polka dot day). You can see her post here. Check out the rest of her posts, too, her nail designs are amazing!

Here are my ladybug nails:

I used: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat

Color Club Red-ical Gypsy

Wet n Wild Ink Well, dotting tools, and a striper brush for the design.

Top coat of Out The Door.

What do you think? I love it! We are going to a pirate festival today and I thought the colors would fit right in. I am glad this challenge is over and I can start some more of my new untried nail polishes!

Thanks for reading!

Zebra Water Marble Nails + Tutorial!

This is my 4th attempt at water marbling. I really like how you can achieve different types of designs with the same technique! I've done the random swirling, actual swirls, and a star burst design. I was trying to get stripes in this design to make it look more like a zebra, but I don't have super long nails so this is how they turned out. I really like them, though! I'm going to show you how I did them in case you've never heard of water marbling!


First of all, paint all of your nails a white base color. During the marbling, the polish colors are much more sheer than if you were painting them on your nails and the white helps show the different colors. Next, I suggest you tape around your nail or cover your finger in vaseline to help with clean up later. I like taping better because I don't like the greasy feeling of vaseline but it's just a personal choice. I know the picture is crappy of the taping and I apologize. Not the best camera and it couldn't focus in the darker room. Basically, you do a straight piece of tape under your cuticles and a second piece that goes up one side of the finger, over the tip, and down to the other side.


Here, you can see my taped finger, shallow bowl filled with room temperature water, polishes, orange stick(or anything to clean up the excess polish in the bowl), and my dotting tool(to make designs in the polish. tooth picks work, too). I chose to use Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue and Chine Glaze Peri-wink-le for the alternate color rings.


Not the best picture, but this shows how you need to alternate drops from each polish bottle(do the drops as quickly as you can so it doesn't dry before you can put your finger in it). The drops spread out on the top of the water and make co-centric circles.


Do enough drops so it starts to look like this.


Now, you are ready to use your dotting tool to make designs in the polish. I was dragging from the outer bands to the center, and then vise versa to get the "V" designs. You can do any kind of designs in this step like swirls, etc.


This is how it looked before I put my finger in it.


Next, you dip your finger in the place that you want the design to show up on your nail. Try to put your nail face down onto the surface of the water and not pointing your finger tip downward so you don't mess up the design. Next, it's very important that you leave your finger just under the surface and use your orange stick to grab all of the left over polish on the surface of the water. I couldn't take a picture since it requires both hands for this step. Basically, just stick your orange stick in the water and twist and swirl it around your finger until the bowl looks clean of polish. Once you don't see other polish near your finger, you can lift your nail out of the water.


It should look like this. Now, you can see why I like to use the tape.


Once you peel off the tape, you are left with much less cleanup around your nails! I prefer to use qtips in acetone along the finger but not right next to the nail. For the edges around the nail, I use a small makeup brush(either an angled eyeliner brush, concealer, or lip brush) dipped into acetone. You are pretty much painting the acetone on your finger where the polish is and wiping it off. Works great and makes for a very clean look in the end. :)


I then did a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust glitter polish and a top coat of Seche Vite. What do you think? Have you tried water marbling before? I hope this was helpful and not too confusing. You can always go to YouTube and watch a tutorial on water marbling if you want to see it in action. Thanks for reading!