Let It Snow! Challenge - Hot Chocolate

Yay for the weekend! This week's theme in the Let It Snow! Challenge is "Hot Chocolate". Even though I haven't tried it since the 31 day challenge back in May, I knew I wanted to try a water marble for this theme.

It's not the best, and it has some bubbles but I see a definite improvement since my last attempt which was a hot mess. LOL.

Polishes Used:

-Sally Hansen - White On

-American Apparel - Raccoon

-Sinful Colors - Nirvana

-No Time

This mani reminds me of when you're swirling / mixing the cocoa and milk together to make the hot chocolate. Also, since it's February I added a little glittery heart sticker to stay in the Valentine's Day mood. Hot Chocolate is a good theme for today because it's been cold and snowy lately in Pittsburgh and Hot Chocolate is the perfect remedy!

So I clearly still have some issues with water marbling, so if anyone has any idea how to help avoid bubbles and any great tips for clean up, please let me know!!!

Check out what the other lovely ladies came up with for their Hot Chocolate themed nails!

31 Day Challenge - Day 20: Water Marbled

*Sigh* I hate water marbling, and this was probably my worst time ever. I considered re-doing it but it just feels like so much work and who knows if my next water marble would be better. So...I will get straight to the pictures.

Water Marbled:

Polishes Used:
-Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
-Sinful Colors - Neon Melon
-NYC - Side Walkers
-Out The Door TC

As you can see, nothing about this mani worked. In my mind neon yellow and grey would be OK, but the gray sort of just turned the neon from yellow to green, and IDK if if was beause the yellow is matte, but it didn't spread out well in the water at all. Oh wells.

If you're not already following Kelsie, Amanda, Erin and Jess, make sure to check out their WATER MARBLED NAILS here:

Kelsie - Kelsies Nail Files

Amanda - Nox Nails

Erin - Erins Beauty Bumbles

Jess - Nearly Natural Nails

And on a better note, because I don't want the water marble fail to be the last image in your head, my husband and I went to a wedding last weekend and here is a cute shot of the two of us :)

Valentine's Countdown - 6 days to go!!!

I actually did this mani last night but since I posted my mani's from the weekend I saved this one for today because I knew I wouldn't be able to do a new one today. I have tried water marbling before but never really liked it; recently I read a few tips online and this attempt came out much better than anticipated. I got lots of compliments on my nails today at work and even some of the GUYS said they liked this and thought it was cool; which is pretty good since I work with a bunch of engineers!

Probably should have cleaned these up a bit before I took the pictures but I was just so glad it was mostly successful that I took the photos right away. Two things that I tried differently on this water marble; 1. I picked polishes that were thin (runny?) so they spread a lot better in the water. 2. I used filtered water. We have really hard water here and I read online it works best with soft water so the filtered seemed to work well.

The colors I used for this mani were NYC White (as a base coat before the marbling), NYC Fushia Shock, Essie's Size Matters, Better Together and finally No Chips Ahead. With the two last mani's using No Chips Ahead instead of SV I have noticed that neither keep my nails from chipping, but that SV is sooo much faster so if I'm going to get chips regardless, might as well have my polish dry fast.

Even with calcium enriched base coat, and trying to remember to take my vitamins, my nails still seem very weak and once I even notice any growth they ususally break :-( No Fun! Any suggestions on helping to strengthen my nails???