Butterfly Marble

 I still really love water marbling and have resolved to do it more often! For this I was participating in a challenge to try dried water marbling, where a design is marbled on water and then allowed to dry completely before putting it on the nail. It's fun! It's a lot more controlled than the marbling I'm used to, though I do miss the anticipation and unknown factor of regular marbling.

 I love doing high-contrast marbles, so I decided to go with navy, seafoam green, and yellow. I first painted all of my nails in a base of OPI Alpine Snow to help all of the colors pop. In the marble itself I used Sally Hansen Nightwatch (a great navy blue), ORLY Gumdrop (the seafoam green), and Morgan Taylor Ahead of the Game (yellow). These worked great for marbling and stayed distinct without blending together, plus they spread nicely and I was able to get quite a few repetitions in.

 Once the water marble was dry enough to hold its shape, I transferred it to wax paper and gave it more time to dry. Because it was holding pretty well, I got the idea to try punching out some shapes! I had found cute little mini shape punches at Joann's earlier last year and originally was going to use them as a stencil, but they were perfect for this! I used a little clear polish and transferred the marbling and the butterflies to my nails.

 I really like the idea of dry water marbling or decal water marbling. It's nice to be able to utilize more of the polish in each design, and I'm excited to try new shapes and designs via cutting rather than blocking off with tape on the nail. Woo!

Colors Used:

OPI Alpine Snow

Sally Hansen Nightwatch

ORLY Gumdrop 

Morgan Taylor Ahead of the Game