Sunday 29 December 2013

How I Water Marble

How to do Water Marble Nails



So for my last post of 2013 I thought I would do a step by step photo guide on how I water marble my nails. The reason for this is I know a lot of people struggle and give up. I'm no expert on water marbling, and there are lots of videos showing how to, but when I first tried I also failed miserably, but wouldn't give up until I had managed to do at least one water marble design on my nails! So this post is on how I do it. I did find at times it was the nail polish I was using. There are lots of polish that will work, and the best tip I can give anyone is when you take the lid off the polish, if it drips quickly off the brush, then it should work well in the water. Obviously fast drying nail polish is a no no for water marbling. As this will be a somewhat heavy photo post, lets start...
I will be showing you three different patterns, using three different brands of polish, that I find work well.


I use a paper party cup, an orange stick for drawing designs, bottled water at room temperature, cotton buds for cleaning excess polish from the water, and as I did my nails yesterday I painted three swatch nails with one coat of white polish. If I was doing this on my nails I would do the same. I fill the cup to about an inch from the top.


 Polish I'm using is La Femme, Beauty UK and Collection 2000.


Just wanted to show how I would tape my fingers with masking tape, if I was doing this on my nails. It saves on the clean up after!
La Femme White and Fluorescent Pink.


Drip the polish a drop at a time into the water, until you are happy with the rings of polish.


For a flower/petal design, start from the outside edge and gently draw into the middle ring of polish. Left to middle, right to middle bottom to middle, top to middle, then at a diagonal. Bit like drawing a star.

Find the part of the design you like and dunk your nail in. You can see the cotton bud at the back where I cleaned the excess polish from the surface of the water while still holding your nail under.


The finished nail :)

Beauty UK Purple and Yellow.


Again drip polish a drop at a time into the water.


For this design you draw from the middle to the top, and the middle to the bottom. Then alternately left and right. You can dip your nail into the pattern this way, but I chose to turn the cup.

Dunk nail into water, clean excess from the surface, then slowly lift out.


The finished nail :)

Collection 2000 Black, Red and Silver.


Drop by drop again.


For this one I just drew from the left side to the right, creates a peacock type of pattern. Oh one thing I forgot to mention, I clean off the orange stick, sometimes after every time i draw in the polish, as you need a sharp point to create a crisp clean line.


I dunked the nail nearly the outer edge of the design, clean up excess and voila .. On my own nails I take the tape off my finger once I've taken it out the water.


The finished nail :)




Here are all the nails and polish together. When I topcoat coat these, or any of my manicures, I always use La Femme Clear polish first. This is the only polish I have found that doesn't smear or smudge and polish, even from stamping designs! Then I use Sally Hansen 30 Second Insta-Dri topcoat.


I hope this helps, it's not really much harder than it may look, but does take a bit longer to do.

So till next year stay safe and much love :)


Saturday 28 December 2013

Last Manicure of 2013

Last Nail Art of the year


Well hello all, I hope I find you well and you had a wonderful Christmas. It was a mad house here, but a thoroughly enjoyable day, and everyone got spoilt this year!!
Apart from also getting clothes and perfume I was lucky enough to get some new nail polish, and was nice to get some after being on a no buy for so long! Ok, so it was only from Poundland, but the thought was still there and the price doesn't bother me in the slightest. I also got another fibreglass nail repair kit too :)


Then I went shopping on Boxing day and treated myself to the new Jess nail polish also in Poundland :) I also got the two polishes I'm using for this manicure.

Left to right: Joy, Dancing Queen, Atomic, Playmate, Breathless, Sunset, French White and Midnight.

Will be using all these next year, and I can't wait :) 
But back to the last manicure for 2013. With a somewhat busy New Year coming up, and also a time I most remember my Mum, so this will also be my New Year Nails. Just thinking as I'm writing lol, this post is all about £1 polish from Poundland. But you can't pass on a bargain....
Pretty by Quest have recently released a new selection of nail polish, textured, glitter, feather and more. The two I'm using today are the Gel Effect, and Metallic. I only have the pink gel effect polish, as it was the colour that just said 'buy me' lol. This is two coats and a top coat..



With flash

Natural daylight
Winter Sunshine
How awesome is this pink! The natural daylight is more close to the colour as I look at it on my nails. I don't normally leave my nails plainly painted, but I could so easily with this colour and gel effect. For £1 you really can't go wrong. I may just have to get the red and purple as they are so cheap!! The next polish is the Black Metallic polish by Pretty. Although this says on the bottle its a metallic polish, it doesn't really look it. It's more of a black polish with holographic glitter in it. But I don't mind, as its an awesome polish and a very cheap holographic one at that!!
I wanted to do a firework/bang design, and as I have done fireworks using striping tape, I was aiming for something different. So out came the sellotape! I cut squares of tape, then cut those into triangles and stuck the on the base of my nail like so...





Then working on one nail at a time, I painted the tip of my nail with the Black Metallic. As you will see from the photos its more a holographic polish than metallic. While the polish was still wet I removed the sellotape.

Flash

Winter Sun
This is without a topcoat. I'm so glad my camera was able to catch the sparkle. Now with a topcoat. I always use La Femme Clear polish first, as I have found this to be the best for not smudging polish. Then Sally Hansen 30 second Insta-dri.

Flash

Winter Sun
Love this design, and the sparkle from the Pretty Black polish. Such an awesome manicure from two cheap and just as awesome polishes.
Have you got any of the Pretty polishes? What do you think of them?
Well that's all for this year! I know I have said this before, but thank you to you all for stopping by to have a read, and to those following me. I'm looking forward to another year of blogging and more awesome manicures :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!!!!

Much love :)


Friday 27 December 2013

End of the Year Review



This is a first for me and I wasn't expecting to do a end of year blog post, but I wanted to look back at some of my favourite nail designs I did throughout the year. Even though I only starting blogging at the end of April, I will include photos of my manicures from the beginning of 2013. So lets start... I apologise for some of my photos lol....

January

Layla Holographic- Ultra Violet
Stained Glass Window
Eyeshadow nails with freehand stripes
Freehand Fairy Wings
 February


Rainbow nails with black scribble water marble
Matte vs gloss
March


Two toned pink 
Freehand tropical flowers
Newspaper nails

April

Rock chick nails

One stroke flowers
Splat stamping

Although I was doing my nails way before I started blogging and only posting photos to facebook, I didn't occur to me what was in the background when I was taking the photo's, as I was only concentrating on my nails lol, as you will see with the following bunch of my favourite manicures, as from this point in the year I had started my blog :) and was more aware of having a nicer background!!

May

Freehand flowers
Animal Print

June

Patchwork Nails
Puzzle nails

July

Flower water marble
Nail sticker and matte

Freehand roses

August

Oldy worldy nails

Lace tip nails

September

Metallic polish stamping
Barry M gelly stamping
Water Decals

October

Rainbow Flames
Breast Cancer Awareness
Glow in the dark Frankenstein 

November

Remembrance Day Nails
Children in need nails
Dr Who Nails
F1 Nails

December

Winter scene

Freehand Reindeer

Present nails
Christmas Bling
I hope you enjoyed looking through these photo's, just a selection of my fav's throughout this year. Looking forward to see what 2014 holds for me and my family.
Thank you to everyone for your support and comments and to you all I say this:


Stay safe and much love :)