Well, my original post got eaten somehow. Here’s some burgundy nails with black and white marbling for a gray Monday in Japan.
The burgundy base is made of Essie Clutch Me If You Can (or just mix creme red with a couple drops of black) plus two drops of yellow to warm the color up a bit. Finally, I added some silverish holo glitter into the mix. I used China Glaze Visit Me In Prizm, but any glitter will do.
To do the marbling, I used the same technique as in the Halloween Marbling Tutorial.
1) Paint the base color and let dry well.
2) Apply a slightly thick layer of clear polish (not quick dry!)
3) Paint on stripes for marbling on the wet clear polish. In this case, I painted the stripes in a white/black/white/black pattern.
4) Drag your pin or thumbtack through the stripes, making an “x” in the design. I painted the stripes from right to left, so I dragged the pin through the design left to right. See the Halloween Marbling tutorial for pictures.
5) While the stripes are still tacky, dab on some clear polish or a topcoat to flatten out the design and fill in any gaps.
You could add a jewel or rhinestone over the marbling for even more sparkly pizzaz. Have fun!
Very nice! This looks like a professional did this design!
What kind of nail tips do you use? They look really nice
For nail art, I use el-cheapo dollar store tips, five sets for around a buck. I’m actually in Japan, so the tips are a little different from the US- they are a much smaller size and packaged on a stem, not loose. See my Color Tutorial for a picture of the tips that I’m usually using. But aside from nail art and the occasional broken nail that needs to blend in, it’s my own nails.
For getting a perfect polish job, I keep my cuticles really moisturized (oil at night, cream during the day) and when I polish my nails, I paint some cream or oil on my cuticles- very close to the nail bed but not on it- with a very fine brush. This allows me to just wipe off any stray polish that gets around my nail after polishing. Just make sure your actual nails don’t have any oil or cream on them. It sounds like a lot of work to apply cream/oil around the nail, but it really doesn’t take much time and works better than cleaning polish smudges with remover afterwards, especially for dark colors.
Thanks!
Hey, Just wanted to say I found your site when looking for inspiration. I tried this tutorial, since it’s the first time I’ve ever tried anything like this, it didn’t become perfect. You can look on my blog on the pics, but unfortunately I don’t write in English so you probably won’t understand what I’ve written. But the pics you can see:)