Day 4: Water marble

My first water marble post!

Here goes nothing ;)

I had never done a water marble before, and, from the sounds of others' trials and tribulations with it, I didn't really think I'd ever do one.  I mean, I have plenty of ideas for freehand nail art.

But I'm so glad this challenge forced me to try it, because what fun!

I decided to start very simply before hassling with room temperature distilled ionized straight from Mount Olympus water.   I just used average tap water in an average paper dixie cup.

In case I messed up, I chose cheap, opaque polishes. Wet n Wild Red, NYC French White Tip, and Sinful Envy.

Then I used an unfolded safety pin and dragged it around to make a design... then took a deep breath and made my first dip...

Whooooooooooaaaa!! How cool is that?? It totally worked! I'm not sure I can express how excited I was. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Then I repeated the process with the two other fingers on that hand, with good results.

(By the way, I don't regret not taping.  It looks a hot mess, but it all came off for me rather easily with an acetone soaked Q-tip while it was still wet.)

For my thumb, I decided to be brave and I tried red, green, and a metallic silver color.  First I dropped the colors...

Off to a good start...

Then I swirled them, dipped my thumb in....

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, I missed.  hahahaha.  The pattern looked so good in the water! Not sure how I ended up with an almost all red thumb nail.  Oops.  But it was bound to happen sooner or later :) 

So I re-dipped it, with the red, green, and white again.  Unfortunately I swirled it a bit too much, so it is more mixed than the other fingers, but it's still ok.  I allowed it to stay on my hands ;)

Oh! Cool science! I accidentally dropped one drop of silver from too high up, and it sunk about half way down and stayed suspended there as a sphere! Whoa! You can kind of see it in the above picture.  

Final product: 

Epilogue:

The next day, la-di-da, just minding my own business, I looked down, and my ring finger was missing a corner! *sniff*

This manicure was definitely an attention getter, and inspired me to try more marbling in the future! I can't pick a favorite nail of this manicure, but I can pick a least favorite. ;) Do you like water marbles?



The other bloggers doing this challenge are:

Claire Gallaugher - Purple Fairy Dust All Things Beautiful

Emma Hoop - Manicurity

Kerrie Black- PhishPosh and Polish

Bee Justice - Bee Polished

Zoe Garner - Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Felicia Banuelos- Confessions of a Nail Polish Junkie

Lisa Armstrong-Waite - Happy Nails

Julie Rivard - Tales of Knit and Nails

Alyssa Dees - No Junk Nail

Arielle Stephenson - Only Always Soccermom 

Merry Christmas!

Maria