Guess Who's Back...

...back again...Dee is back!...Tell a friend....guess who's back guess who's back...LOL

For those of you who haven't fallen away and moved on to bigger and better things, let me apologize for neglecting my blog.  2011 was crazy.  So much to do so little time.  Priorities took over and unfortunately my blog became a victim to my hectic schedule.  Anywho, it wasn't just my blog that I was neglecting, but my nails were being neglected too....at least from a polish perspective.  While I cannot promise regular daily postings, or even weekly postings, I will say that I will try to post more often this year (at least when inspiration strikes).  Though I haven't posted in practically a year, I have been following my fellow polish bloggers.  One blogger in particular that I'm a fan of is Colette and her blog My Simple Little Pleasures, and her specialty is water-marble manis.  Watching her tutorials inspired me to try it for myself.  So last night, I threw caution to the wind and tried it for myself.

Here are my results:

Not to shabby for my first attempt, huh?? (BTW please excuse my mummy cuticles.  I got lazy.  LOL)  If there's anyone who doesn't know about the water-marbling technique, my description is that it's a throwback to kindergarten art class with the tub of water, sprinkling paint in the water, taking a stick to swirl the colors and then taking some paper and dipping it in the tub...but instead of paint and paper, you use your nails and polish.  Check out Colette's blog and tutorials here for a better idea.  I used 4 polishes (1) OPI "Alpine Snow" (base color & in water marbling) (2) OPI "Rumples Wiggin'' (3) Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear "Pacific Blue" (4) Wet n Wild "On a Trip".

Overall I love the result, although I didn't love the process at the beginning.  You have to use room-temp filtered water, and I STRESS temperature of the water is key.  Too cold and the polish will freeze up and  not spread along the top of the water.  You'll have little droplets of polish at the bottom of the cup.  I forget the reason for using filtered water, but since that's what Colette says, her word is good enough for me.  It's a lot of trial and error - what polishes work on their own, do they play well with other polishes in the water, making the pattern and working fast enough so that the polish doesn't set up before you finish working on the pattern.  Once that happens, the polish becomes like the skin that develops when you make pudding.  It's RUINED!  I was frustrated at certain points.  It's a messy process and when I wasn't succeeding, I felt like I was wasting polish.  

BUT..I figure with more practice I'll get the hang of it, waste less polish, and also experiment with cheaper polish.  Note also, water-marbling doesn't seem to work with polishes that set really fast i.e. (Sally Hansen Fast Dry polish)....I could be wrong though....I'm off to practice some more!!  J/K I'm going to bed now.  Night night.  Sorry for the long rant/post :)