Spooky Water Marbles!!

 Before we get started, I want to point out that all these water marbles were done around one or two a.m. Sunday morning. I didn't plan on doing any water marbles for Halloween, but what can I say? The "artistic" bug bit me, or it could be that I binged on Lindor Truffles and had tons of energy. Either way, my point is that these could have been ten times better. So, I apologize beforehand for all the bubbling and smearing, since I didn't let the polishes dry enough before applying topcoat.

 Ok, so now that we addressed the elephant in the room let's get started! This first one was inspired by pumpkins, hence all the pumpkin stickers. I initially only planned on doing one pumpkin on the index finger, but I got a little carried away. It's a little busy with all the dotting and stickers going on. Though the colors are spot on for Halloween. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed and Black Out.

The problem with nail art stickers is that I cannot just place a sticker on my nail and call it a day. I always seem to need to add to it to finish the look. Whenever I just put the sticker on, it looks like it's missing something. That's why I added the dots on the above water marble and I added a second sticker here to balance it out. Skulls have never really been my thing, but they are slowly growing on me. Here I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Deep Purple, Sun Kissed and Black Out.

I had this idea to do a Frankenstein design ever since the month of October started, yet I could never think of anything else to put on the other fingers. Water marble was the perfect thing to do. I added purple to get a little color in there, since the green and black by themselves looked pretty blah. My index finger is not indicative of a bad cleanup job, rather it was done on purpose to imitate the squarish head of Frankenstein. Yup, the line could have been straighter. Oh, and I added those little bolts to the sides of my nails. I always wanted to have a reason to paint something other than my nail! The colors I used are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Green with Envy, Deep Purple, Black Out and White On.

 I would have gone on doing water marbles all morning long, but then we had a thunderstorm coming through at the time and the light went out for a few minutes. I'm a total scared-y cat. I'm thinking that I want to do the Frankenstein water marble again for Thursday's pot luck, but then I'm also contemplating on using my Connect the Dots. I love that polish so much that I want to wear it all the time and I actually have to hide it from myself to keep me from wearing it 24/7! I have a few more designs I came up with before I did my water marbling, so stay tuned!  ^_^

Sally Hansen Water Marble Week: Blue Me Away!

 The grand finale of Sally Hansen Water Marble Week has now come to an end. *tear Even though this week's water marble theme has come to it's end, I still have so many other color themes I would like to do. There's purple, green, black and white, and so many other great color combinations, so I know I will end up doing this theme again in the future. For today, however, I will settle on showing you my blue themed water marble. I used White On, Blue Me Away! and Blue It with White On as a base.

 I haven't mentioned my nail polish usage in any of my posts, but I actually use A LOT of nail polish. I use about 10 drops of nail polish to be able to incorporate all the colors on one nail. It also allows room for error because if you mess up on one side, you can just  move to the opposite side and start over.

 This water marble didn't quite turn out how I wanted, but I was happy with the end result. Initially, I attempted to get the marbling to go in the same direction for all the nails, but I fudged up on two nails. You can see that the pinky and index have the "half flowers" going the opposite way from the rest of the nails. Although, this wasn't what I wanted, I was actually happy because instead of the "half flowers" I was going for, I was able to get "waves"! Or at least that's what it reminds me of. It's so bright and blue, that it makes me want to go swimming!

 Sun picture.

A closeup in the sun. 

Shade picture. 



 I don't know who invented water marbling, but props to them. This is a great way to achieve nail art without being an artist, which is always welcome in my book! I'm not great at freehand, so this technique is something that I am grateful for.

 Next week, I have decided to do a Lynderella week because, honestly, her polishes deserve a whole week of their own... aaand I'm dying to wear Connect the Dots again! Ok, so my decision might have something to do with my craving for Connect the Dots, but there are other great creations of hers that I would like to share. *psst there may or may not be a silver holo involved as well.

Sally Hansen Water Marble Week: Disco Ball

 I envinsioned today's manicure going a lot smoother, sadly that wasn't the case. I always start with my left hand and I had another fail! Once I got started on my right hand, I started getting carried away with creating lines and well, the final look ended up being more squiggly than half flowers. I wasn't satisfied at all with this, so I decided to add a layer of Disco Ball and it actually helped brighten up my mani.

 I used Wet Cement, Mint Sorbet and Lacey Lilac over a white base. I tried to darken the colors by adding double drops of each polish, but that ended up in a huge disaster! I did the double drop with the teal mani and I think that worked out well, since it was only one color being darkened. It was way too much polish, though for this water marble and everything kind of just merged into one big glop of polish. I had to settle for a pastel look, which I like, but I just wish it had been a tad darker.

 Shade picture.

Sun picture. 

Here's a picture of my pre-cleanup on my left hand. I think my biggest issue with clean up is that I tend to get it all the way down my fingers. This problem could be easily fixed, if I would just tape further down, but no I refuse to think I'm messy everytime I start a water marble. 

  My final water marble for the week will be blue themed, and I really hope that it turns out better than this one. I will also tape further down this time, to avoid the mess on my fingers. So yea, in conclusion, cleanup can be a B if you let it, but with proper taping it can be avoided. Lol I haven't used "in conclusion" in years... just felt like using it. ^_^



Sally Hansen Water Marble Week: Sunkissed

 The third water marble for this week turned out to be the best one I have ever done. I used Green with Envy, Mellow Yellow and Sunkissed with a white base. I think I'm getting the hang of it, but I'm still far from being good at it. The most difficult part to me is getting the design to be as closely as possible for each nail. Although, the whole point, to me, of water marble is to get random designs, I like consistency. So, I might starting taking pictures of the polish in the water before I dip my nail to use as a guide for the rest of the nails.

Shade picture. I really loved how my index finger came out. I wish I knew how I did this lol.

Sun picture. Here you can really see the green polish. It's such a pretty color.

I decided to add some oomph to this mani with Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure. Click on the picture to see the flakes!

 I was so happy with this water marble! I only wished I was able to rock it for more than a day. Now that I have started blogging, it seems like my manicures are only on my hands for a day and sometimes just hours. Still, I love it and I'm sure I'll have tons of time later to redo some of my favorite ones... Right??

Sally Hansen Water Marble Week: The Real Teal

 Today's post features Xtreme Wears in Black Out, Celeb City and The Real Teal. I have never done a base color other than white, but this color scheme makes me want to try it. Since I used white I had to use two drops of black each time I dropped polish in, and I should have used two of the silver as well. The only thing is I'm not sure how well the teal will show up if I used, say a black base.

 In the shade.

In the sun. My index finger's nail isn't bent like it seems, it's just that I didn't think I had enough silver so I tried to go in with the polish's brush and add some more sparkle. I wish I hadn't though, because while it did look shiny, it made the look messy.

Fail. This was the first hand I tried doing and well, I'll let the picture speak for itself.

 I also fudged up by using a top coat other than Seche Vite on this. Other top coats smear the colors into each other if they aren't quite dry, but Seche Vite is great for nail art because it gives you quick dry time without the muss. 

Sally Hansen Water Marble Week: Bubblegum Goodness

 This week I will finally be able to do my water marble themed week! For those of you who are not familiar with water marbling, I'll give you a brief description. Water marbling consists of dropping nail polish into a container filled with water. Once, that is done, you then draw a design and then dip your finger to get the design onto your nail. If you would like more information on this and to see a true artist at work, I suggest going over to Simple Little Pleasure's YouTube channel. She has really great videos that explain everything from how to get started, to how to make many different designs with the water marbling technique.

 The thing I hate most about water marbling, is that there is tons of nail polish being wasted. This is where Sally Hansen comes in. Sally Hansen has a line called Xtreme Wears that are super affordable, have a great formula, AND have a huge selection of colors. Aside from all those great things about this polish, I have to say that they are great for water marbling because they don't dry as fast as others and they are really well pigmented.

 I am not great at water marbling so the design for all week will be the same. The only thing that will vary will be the color scheme. Even though the design will be the same, which is what I call a half flower, they will actually be different because no two nails will ever be the same when water mabling. For this scheme, I used two coats of Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud and I alternated drops of polish between Bubblegum Pink, Fuschia Power and Lavender Cloud. (Lavender Cloud was actually on sale for 2.19 when I bought it!)

In the sun.

Shade.

A closeup. I still haven't been able to figure out how to avoid bubbling, which you can see big time on the index finger. Still, I was pleased with the final outcome.

 Even though water marbling is a PITA when it comes to cleanup, the effect is totally awesome!