Marbling with Saran Wrap

Here's another design that a friend posted on my wall. This is a good one for anyone that has wanted to try water marbling, but doesn't want the hassle of taping your fingers and swirling polish on the water's surface.

This picture is not mine...I'm not sure who to credit it to.

I didn't take a picture of my supplies because you can use just about any polish colors that you'd like.

What you'll need:

• clear polish
• two contrasting colored polishes
• saran wrap a.k.a. cling wrap
• scissors
• paper towel

-Prep work-
Before you start painting your nails I suggest getting your saran wrap ready. You will need a small, scrunched up piece for each nail. It's best to do this first because the saran wrap will lift any wet polish off of your nails.

 Start off by painting your nails with your clear polish.

Now, decide which color is going to be the base color. I chose to use Sally Hansen's "Blue Me Away!" as the base color. Paint all of your nails with your first color and allow them to dry completely.

The next part has to be done one nail at a time. You're going to paint your second color over the first one. I used Sally Hansen's "Lightening". You need to work quick here. Right after you paint a nail, take a piece of your pre-cut saran wrap and blot your nail just a couple of times.

Pre-blotting

Post-blotting

I know that it looks strange and not so great here...but it gets better. (This is the second time I've tried this design - I was less than pleased with the first attempt a few weeks ago.) Repeat the process of painting and blotting for each of your nails. Let that second color dry for a little bit, then paint on your clear top coat.

Voila! Marbled nails sans water.

This is a little bit messy to do. I used a few Q-Tips and acetone to clean up around each of my nails.

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Follow P.I.L

Guess what! You can now follow Paint It Lovely by e-mail. I realize that a lot of people don't use Google email or Blogger - so this is more for you folks.

There's a handy little section to the right of the blog. Type your email into that box and you'll be notified when the blog is updated. Yay!

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French with a Twist(er)

Earlier this week I was watching That 70's Show (love that show!) on NetFlix; in the episode I was watching Leo mentioned the game Twister. I thought this would be a fun twist on a french tip manicure, or it would look cute as a full nail design. The nice thing about it is that it's soooo easy!

For this design you are going to need:

• clear coat (for the base and top coats)
• white polish
• red polish
• blue polish
• yellow polish
• green polish
• toothpicks (one for each color if possible) or a dotting tool
• a palette (paper plate, piece of paper, etc.)

The polishes I used were:

• Finger Paints "Paper Mache"
• Santee "Neon Sapphire"
• Wet n' Wild "Sage in the City"
• CQ "Rouge"
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Lightening"

First things first - paint on that clear base coat. This will help protect your nails from staining.

Next, paint all of your nails white. Depending on your polish it may take more than one coat. I did two so that the polish was opaque (not see through).

The toothpicks I used are pointy on one end and blunt on the other. The blunt end makes a perfect dotting tool. If your toothpicks aren't make like this here is a secret. Dip the tip of the toothpick in a polish, then let it dry. Do this a couple of times until you get a bead of polish built up to the size you would like your dots to be.

I decided to do only a couple dots at a time of each color - that way the dots looked more random and layered. However, you could do all the blue dots at once, then the red, and so on. Also, I only did the tips of my nails. It was cute, but feel free to get creative!

Use your scrap paper or paper plate as a palette for your nail polish. I would only put a little bit on of each color at a time. That way it doesn't dry out and a bunch of polish goes to waste.  Like I said before, I alternated colors. The following pictures show how the look progressed. You can use any order of colors though.

That's it! It's simple, and it's quick! Paint on your top coat and you're good to go!

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