Fall Water Marble

I will admit to being intimidated by water marbling. I've loved the look since I first started reading nail blogs and became aware of it. It just seemed like it would be too difficult and messy. However, Colette of My Simple Little Pleasures helped me get over my fear with her fantastic series of tutorial videos. I started with her Blues and Purples water marble tutorial, which illustrates the basic technique and dipping several fingers at a time. She has some more advanced designs on her Youtube channel that are beautiful, but I'm not quite ready for those. So, without further ado, my first water marble.

For this pattern, I used one coat of OPI Bling Dynasty, a brownish gold shimmer as a base. Then I used Bling Dynasty, CND Cedar,  a really old reddish brown I have hanging around (hence the old fashioned bottle in the picture), and Revlon Hot for Chocolate, a dark brown creme, for the water marble.


There are some flaws in the pattern that resulted from my inexperience with the technique, but I loved it anyway. In these fall colors, it reminds me a little of the marbled endpapers in the front of old books. I also learned a few valuable lessons:

1. Use a cup deep enough that your fingers won't easily hit the bottom of the cup and mess up your tips.
2. Nail polish melts styrofoam. I can't say for sure that it impacted the outcome of this manicure, but I have my suspicions. Paper cups will be used in future.
3. Now I know why Collette has tape around her fingers in all her tutorials. I mean intellectually, I understood why before, but now I know. Along with paper cups, tape will be used in future.