Throwback Thursday! Water Marbling

I have never done a Throwback Thursday before, and I have been meaning to do this post for a few weeks.  I took a ton of pictures of my nails with my lousy cell phone camera before starting this blog, but when I did water marbling on my nails a few years ago, my mother took pictures of my hands with her good camera so I could immortalize my design.  You can see how far my nails, cuticles, and technique have come since that time:

I have only ever done water marbling once.  I didn't even get the technique down perfectly.  You are supposed to paint on a layer of white before water marbling.  Anyway, I will go through how I did this.  I know I followed the instructions somebody on Youtube gave.  I don't know who.  Cutepolish, maybe?

For the nails that I didn't water marble, I applied Sally Hansen Espresso.  For my marbled ring fingernails, I used Sally Hansen Espresso and Essie Oui Madame.  I made sure the water in my cup was room temperature and I put scotch tape around my nails that would be marbled to minimize the cleaning up I would have to do.  I dropped some drops of the polish into the surface of the water and swirled them with a toothpick and then put my nail in the part of the design that I wanted on my nails.  I then blew on the surface of the water for 10 seconds to dry the rest of the polish and I used the toothpick and swirled the dried excess polish around it and then removed it from the water.  Then I took my finger out of the water, removed the messy tape, and used a Q-Tip dipped in polish remover to clean up my cuticles a bit.  I don't think I applied a top coat.

If you guys want, I could post the cell phone pictures I have of many, many designs that I did before starting the blog.  I wouldn't do tutorials for them, but you could have a look at the designs for some inspiration.  Tell me in the comments if you'd be interested in seeing them!  And, of course, I would be glad to answer any questions you had about colors I used in the manicures!

Earthy with Triangles

Okay guys, I am sure you can notice that I am not the most creative person when it comes to titles.  I am the same way with college essays.  Haha!  So, I actually have a few manicures piled up so I can blog even when I am too busy to paint my nails, which hasn't really been happening lately. =)  I was planning on posting this one later, but I love it so much and am super excited about it.  I currently have this on my nails:

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I then painted two coats of each color onto my nails.  On my ring fingers and thumbs I used Essie Mink Muffs; on my pointers I used Sally Hansen Espresso; Essie Da Bush (I LOVE that name!) on my middle fingers; and Essie Borrowed & Blue on my pinkies.  I love earthy color combinations.  Color combinations can really make a manicure interesting, even if the designs aren't too complicated.  I really like simple, striking manicures.

After putting on all of my colors, I applied a coat of Seche Vite so the tape wouldn't pull up my color.  For the little triangles at my cuticles, I used Essie Wicked (one of my favorite polishes.)  To create the triangles, I took two thin strips of scotch tape and overlapped the ends so they formed a narrow "V" shape.  I then put the hollow of the "V" where I wanted the dark red triangles to be.  Once I painted on my color, I quickly removed the tape.  To finish off the manicure, I applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  There are a lot of bubbles in the manicure because I need a new bottle of Dries Instantly.  Mine is really thick and gloopy.  It is too bad that you can only use half of the bottle before throwing it out.  I am loving the length of my nails at the moment.  I can't have them too long because then they drive me crazy.  I have been putting up with them well this time, though.  =)   I hope you like this manicure!  

Color Combinations

I took a long time for me to pick out this color combination, but I love it!  I decided to make a nail polish swatch book.  It was super fun and it made choosing color combinations easier than going through all my nail polish bottles.

I first used L'Oreal Now You Sea Me and painted on two coats.  Then I painted on a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  When that was dry I applied squares of masking tape to my nails where I wanted the base color to show through.  I then painted Sally Hansen Espresso over top and immediately removed the tape.  Once all that was dry I applied 2 mm light pink studs from Born Pretty Store with some Dries Instantly.  I finished it off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.