Mani Monday: Marble Mani

Howdy kids :)

Over the weekend I came across a pin on Pinterest that changed my life. No, really. This little gem of a pin described how one could achieve marble nails WITHOUT using water (as is the general technique of water marble nails). I immediately knew I had to give this a try! This lady is a genius!

The awesome results:

I used x1 base coat of Sally Hansen Instant Strength, x1 coat of Colours Xtreme Nail Colour in Matte Sunshine Sky (the indigo colour), x1 coat of Colours Xtreme Nail Colour in Matte Baby Boom (the lilac colour) and x1 topcoat of Essence Studio Nails Better than Gel Nails Top Sealer. This mani is recreating a cheaper version of nail decals basically! 

You paint the nail polish onto the Ziploc bag in whatever design your ‘lil heart desires and wait for 2 hours or more for the nail polish to dry…once dry it should peel away fairly easily from the Ziploc bag. You then paint a thin layer of base coat onto your nails and work one nail at a time by painting on the base coat and then quickly but gently placing the peeled off nail polish onto the nail. One would complete this on all nails and apply a top coat nail polish as desired.

This would be an awesome mani to do when you are tight on time and can't be sitting pretty doing nothing for hours on end while your nails dry. Real life intervenes all the time and inevitably you have to be on the go and no-one wants smudged nails! With a little planning and say 20 minutes ( to actually paint the designs onto the Ziploc bag) you could save yourself all that hassle. You could paint the nail polish onto the Ziploc bag a couple hours before or the night before you want your mani done, let the Ziploc bag sit out and dry for a few hours or overnight (preferably). Once dry apply the nail "stickers" and you will only have to wait a maximum of an hour for the top coat to dry (especially if you use Essence Studio Nails Better than Gel Nails Top Sealer...it's AMAZING!).

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Two alternating base colour nail polishes ( I chose indigo and lilac)
• Top coat nail polish
• Toothpick
• Ziploc sandwich bag

Method:

1) Apply nail polish to Ziploc bag (before you think I’m crazy…just keep with it!). Paint the nail polish onto the Ziploc bag in a square / rectangle shape and with whatever design you want (making you sure the block of nail polish you paint is big enough to cover your entire nail). I painted some marble nails and some just plain polish as I wanted to achieve an alternating marble/plain effect on my nails. When painting on the nail polish, don’t paint a thin layer of nail polish, you need to paint the nail polish about medium to thick. Don’t worry as the nail polish will have plenty of undisturbed time to dry on the Ziploc bag.

2) For the marble designs, paint on desired number of stripes for polish, I painted 2 stripes of the indigo colour nail polish and painted 1 lilac stripe in the middle. I then with a toothpick gently dipped the toothpick into the polish I had just painted onto the Ziploc bag and I gently swept the toothpick through the 3 different stripes of nail polish thus gently dragging each colour into each other (thus achieving the marble effect). 

Please mind my extremely wrinkly and crinkly Ziploc bag…it was the last one I had!

3) Once you have painted on enough designs for your nails ( I would suggest to not do just 10 as the polish can tear and break when peeling off the Ziploc bag, so do maybe 15 or so)

4) Once the nail polish blocks are dry, you will need to work on one nail at a time when you are ready to apply them to your nails

5) Gently peel off all the nail polish "stickers" and keep them close at hand

See it can tear, so be careful!

6) Paint one nail at a time, in your chosen base coat, then gently and quickly take a nail polish "sticker" and place it onto your nail…gently but firmly press out any air bubbles and smooth the polish out over the nail, (the texture of the nail polish is akin is play dough!)

7) Gently start pressing away at the excess nail polish due to its texture it should easily fall away and leave a smooth edge around the nails, however if there is any excess nail polish left behind one can easily clean this up with a nail brush and nail polish remover

8) Repeat steps 6-7 until all nails have the nail polish “sticker” on it

9) Apply top coat over your nails and you’re ready to go!

10) Totes be amazed that Pinterest does provide useful information and is not just a time sucking vortex of procrastination :P 

11) There is a #11 because I just couldn’t leave you lovely beings without a ‘song’ this week which this mani reminded me of! Who is a Jenna Marbles (comedian) fan ?! Me, me, me! She kills it! On a Monday especially it’s enough to make you hate being a grownup (deadlines, work, stress)! Hence the Jenna Marbles song “I hate being a grown up” flew into my head (not only 'cos her surname is the same as this mani! :P)…'one time I grew into an adult and it really sucked, so I wanted to tell you all about it, Here we go, Weeeeeeeee…' la la la! Make sure you check out Jenna Marbles, she just cracks me up and makes Monday a brighter day! I am also a HUGE fan of Jeff Dunham and of course the great, Russel Peters!

Who’s your favourite comedian to brighten up your day ?

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather!  I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)