Water Marble Strips Take 2

It's been awhile since I've used dry water marble strips for a mani.  Check out my previous post.  I made the water marble sheets yesterday and allowed them to dry overnight.  24 hours of drying time seemed to be the perfect amount.  The nail polish separated from the plastic with ease.  The colors used are Sally Hansen Black out, China glaze shower together, cross iron and trendsetter.  They had a nice contrast next to one another.

I cut the sheets into triangular strips.  I wanted the strips to look like they were made of tiny stripes.   The strips were placed over a base coat of shower together. My only regret is matching the blue on the strips to the background color.  It ends up making the strips look too short for the nails when the blue stripe lines up at the base of the nail.  An example being my middle finger. Otherwise, i really like the color combo and the way it turned out.

Rainbow nails

Rebecca is hosting a contest that combines a few of her favorite things.  I chose to incorporate gradients and dots in mine.

This is a little more busy than what I usually do, but I it's always good to try new things.

1. Pointer: sinful colors Ruby Ruby with multiple orange dots and two sizes of red hex glitter
2. Middle finger: OPI rising star and take the stage stripes with gold hex and bar glitter
3. Fourth finger: Sheets from dry water marble (previous post)
4. Pinky: Too many shades of blue and purple to count applied with a dotting tool (notice the dots of Cult nails clairvoyant)

Time for the macro shots...

The blue polish instantly stained my cuticles.

Glitter!

Water marble strips

I've expressed my love for dry water marble before.  I had a few dry sheets around that were made about two weeks ago.  The polishes were a mix of sally hansen and china glaze.  

 I wanted to try some nail art with them so I cut the sheet into thin strips. 

The base is sally hansen green with envy and going green.  About 2/3rds of the nail was painted with green with envy.  I let it dry for about 5 minutes.  Long enough that my finger wouldn't leave prints on the nail polish when I touched it.

I then took the strips and placed them on my nails (polish side down).  I pressed down on the strip and peeled the plastic right off.  It was complete with a coat of seche.

Dry water marble

I first learned about dry water marbling several months ago from Cathy at More nail polish.  I like this technique because it uses a lot less nail polish and you have more control about the design that ends up on your nail.  The other advantage is that you can make the water marble, place it on plastic and keep it for several weeks before you use it.  It works best if you let the plastic sheets dry for several days before applying them to nails.  

When it's time to apply them to my nails,  I will fist hold the dry sheet up to my hand and trace individual nails on the plastic side.  This way you can cut them to fit your nails well. A lot of people paint their nails with a white base but I find that it's helpful to use one of the colors in the marble as a base.  That way if the marble doesn't fit your nail perfectly, the base just looks like part of it.  In my experience china glaze and sally hansen polishes work the best for marbling.

This manicure wasn't cleaned up well but it's still fun to look at.  I haven't managed to completely prevent bubbles from forming on the plastic.

I made these sheets several months ago.  They were kept in a plastic bag but began to chip after about a month.  It's probably best to use them within a few weeks but obviously it's not necessary. 

This is one of the polish chips.  I had to take a picture because it looked so pretty!