Water Marble!

My own nails are far too short right now to pull off a proper water marble, and since I can't do traditional acrylic extensions right now with my pregnancy, I decided to make a set of falsies to wear.

I do this from time to time and I can actually get some decent wear time out of them if I'm careful. :)

These are quite a bit longer than I'm used to, but I'll see how long I can handle them before I need to file them down. So far so good!

I started with a white base on the nails. For this, I used China Glaze White on White. Just one coat, which I let dry most of the way. For the marble, I alternated Rimmel Posh Pink, OPI Rumple's Wiggin & Butter London Slapper. Slapper wanted to spread out a lot, so I had to be careful with it. First few tries weren't great (I have those on my right hand, lol) but they weren't bad. Once I mastered the swirl, oh man...

I'm officially in love with doing water marble now. *__* I finished these off with a coat of Model's Own Indian Ocean (pictured) which really made them pop. I love this polish so very much. 

One of the biggest tips I can give those who want to do water marble is this: use hot/warm water and clean the water once every few nails with clear polish. I also dumped my water after five nails and started over. Living in Florida and not having a water softener, I have fairly mineral water so I also had to wait for it to settle just a bit before I began (the few little spots are from trying to early). 

I plan on doing a set of water marble with art for St. Paddy's Day, so stay tuned for that! I'm also going to start selling these on my Etsy when I get the supplies I need. :)

NOTD: Mystery Polka

Julep Mystery Color topped with OPI Polka.com

Well, my Gelish gels didn't last. :( They're a little TOO easily soaked off and just one day of work had them popping off. :/ So back to little nails I go!

It's also probably better now that I've gotten a position at a local medical training institute as a student services coordinator. Typing + long nails = disaster. I'm going to part-time at the salon, though, so I'll still be there. :)

This mani is done with the blue Julep mystery color I picked up in the Secret Store a few weeks ago. It's a very pretty blue/teal frost. I really wish it had a name, lol. I also picked up OPI Polka.com last week and wanted to try it out so very badly. So, voila, this mani! Very festive for the state fair tomorrow, don't you think?

OPI Germany Collection Swatches!

This is the first big collection that's come out since I became a nail tech and you can better believe I took advantage of my professional status to get my hands on all 12 colors this morning!

I'm usually not a fan of all of the colors in a collection, but I really do love everything in this one, some more than others. It helps I got a nice deal on the full set + display and sample card through Salon Centric. :)

Even the display is pretty nifty looking:

I have this display set up behind my station. :)

The set came with the sample placard, which I have up at the front to spark interest in it. 

This is the first time I've bought a professional display like this so I had no idea I had to paint it myself, lol!

Now, THE SWATCHES!