How to: Water Marble Nails

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter

Before you read this post I must first warn you. This was initially meant to be a tutorial on how to create a great water marble nail look. On all nails. And not just the two I managed to do. There you go, you have been warned. 

Now read on!

I initially saw this nail art on the blog Another Bottle of Nail Polish?! (abbreviation ABOP) 

Loved it. 

Tried it. 

Failed at it.

The Materials

To start with, you will need whatever it usually takes to have a clean set of nails. For me, it usually consists of:

1.   A couple of nail files, 
2. Nail polish remover and cotton wool
3. Vaseline for moisturising your hands after washing/soaking them in water. If you ask me, one can never have enough vaseline for moisturising, hence both bottles. 

 

You will also need:

1. The nail polish colours that you wish to do this trick with. For me, those are the three in the middle - gold, nude, pink. I later decided to add black which isn't featured in the picture. 
2. Base coat - I used the top coat as a base coat
3. Base colour - featured extreme right. I used this white colour simply because I saw ABOP use a similar colour.
4. Top coat.

And lastly, you will require: 

1. A bowl - to conduct this little experiment in
2. Toothpicks - to help with the design/pattern
3. Cellotape - to protect your nails. Apparently this is an important step.

The Process

1. Start with a clean set of nails. 
2. Use a base coat and then your chosen base colour. 
3. Cellotape the areas surrounding your nail so as to protect your skin from the excess nail polish. 
4. Fill the bowl with water and start by adding just a drop of each nail polish colour.

[See pic below]

Don't worry about making the circular patterns yourself, it'll all happen el naturale baby.

5. Using a toothpick, draw a line across the nail polish that's set on the water. This forms a heart shape which makes my heart smile.

6. Now draw horizontal lines across the heart. You could also choose to draw more lines across that.

But whatever you do, don't get carried away with the drawings.

7. Dip your nails into the pattern and right into the water, making sure that you move all the excess nail polish that was left on the surface of the water to the sides before taking your nails out.

The Mistakes

Clearly I was having a little too much fun with it all. Not only did I forget to put the cellotape on one hand, but I started trying to make butterfly patterns out of the nail polish!

 

Ladies and gentlemen - the messy ugly look that I was not going for. 

THIS is the look I was trying to go for. Clearly there are a few tips I needed to have learned from ABOP before starting. And THIS is the video I watched that got me all excited about marble nails.

Now I have 2 nails with a water marble pattern. The rest are pink.

 

Hope you have better luck trying this out! 

Something tells me I may need a couple more practice shots before I do any other tutorial. 

P.S: Let's stay friends despite my ill tutorial.

That look is so last week

These are some of the outfits from last week.

Our work had a very important function on Friday - a function that was very exciting but draining at the same time. Pictured below is one of my lovely workmates. 

Hello Friend!

See that big grin on my face in the picture below? Well it's actually me just trying to mask the fear/anxiety I was feeling at the time. I had to make a presentation in front of professionals. Eeeek. Have I mentioned that I'm only an intern? Not complaining though.

On other [more pertinent] news:

Have I mentioned that I'm leaving for South Africa this coming Monday!! My heart soars with Joy! Joy with a capital J indeed.

Happy Tuesday

xo

Toning it Jewel

Monday was all about jewel tones. 

Happy Monday to you all

:)

Avatar-like nail tricks.

That's all you're getting. 

A picture. 

That also happens to be incomplete/misleading/bizarre.

Oh the joys of teasing

;)

But for real, can't wait to share this fun nail art trick with you tomorrow! It was sooo much fun!

Now I'm off to *snore*

Stripes.

 It's a bright and sunny day here in Nairobi. 

Bright and sunny enough to warrant a maxi dress.

 

Felt like there was no beginning and end to my waist so added a belt.. Necessary, don't you think?

 

Was trying to take a close-up of my eye make up but any closer and I'd probably break the lense with my dazed, cross-eyed look. 

 

 

Used purple to create a soft smokey eye. They say that purple really flatters brown eyes and I have to agree, I feel like my eye colour pops a lot more. 

Win!

Happy Saturday

xx

Button up

I bought this shirt about 3 weeks ago but completely forgot about it until last night. I don't think it cost more than Shs100. Boy do I love second-hand markets.

The fit is perfect but it was missing a button. A plain, boring button.

But fear not, plain and boring shall not feature for too long. Look what buttons I came across while going through my mama's button jar!

  lil' pretty gems

Decided to go with these as they came in 5, which is the number of buttons I'd need for the shirt. 

I'll be featuring the shirt on ze blog soon.

On Other News:

It's a Saturday and I'll have to go to work in a couple hours. 

I'm off to jump off the balcony.

Soccer has nothing to do with this post

No, really.. It doesn't. Just thought you should know. 

What I can assure you though is that this post will have something to do with chewing gum. And the fact that I bought loads of it while at the shops a couple days ago.

 

Yeah.

I painted my nails pink recently. 

Makes me feel like such a girly girl which I'm loving at the moment.

 :)

I made the cover of a magazine called Health Digest when I was only 5 months old!! 

Eat that Gisele Bundchen.

This magazine just recently resurfaced after years of being in my mother's drawers.

This week I got my very first bunch of business cards from my office! 

Oh yeah.

I walk around with a bounce in my step waiting to introduce myself to, well, anyone really. At which point instead of saying my name I whip out my card.

BAM.

I WON THE LOTTERY!!

Well, not quite but I did feel like I won something pretty close.. 

Amanda from Barbie Girl was gracious enough to nominate me for this award!!!

 "This award is for bloggers who have less than 200 followers and are new to the world of blogging and have a FANTABULOUS blog that needs a little noticing!!"

Speech: 

I would like to thank my 13 followers for sticking around and the lovely people who stopped by leaving me with the 515 views I have thus far received on my blog (256 of which may very well be my own). More so I would like to thank Amanda for being such a sweetheart and nominating me! Makes me feel like a lil champ.

THANK YOU!!! 

Here is how to participate in this nomination/award giving fun!

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog

2. Link back to the blogger who awarded/nominated you

3. Copy and paste the blog award to your blog 

4. Reveal your top 5 blog picks!!

5. Drop by your top 5 picks and let them know you chose them by commenting on their blog!

I will be doing all this pretty soon.

Stay cool folks.

They call me office rebel

Yesterday was the first day I decided to wear heels to work. 

Boy did it feel great to be the designated 'rebel'. 

I just wish our floor was carpeted so that I don't have to click clack past my workmates desks..

office rebel indeed.

 

I hope you're having a great Thursday!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Amanda from Barbie Girl for the Liebster Blog Award!! 

Made my week :)

Will dedicate a full post to your awesomeness soon.

What I usually wear to work

 My office has a really relaxed atmosphere - so relaxed that we don't have any dress codes. I could literally rock up in my pajamas or bhati and no one would be fished. But don't be fooled, this is both a good and bad thing.

After going through Domestic Divinity's blog post of what she usually wears to work, I decided to document what I'd normally wear during the week.

Monday

 

Tuesday

Wednesday 

And then I got too bored with my outfits. 

How drab.

You see none of the girls at my office wears heels or dresses or even skirts which makes it a little awkward for me to want to be a little adventurous. But not anymore. 

I'm officially starting a revolution up here. 

 

(pictures courtesy of my 8yr old sister. Everyone else in my family believes they're to busy to snap a pic or two)

What do you usually wear to work?

Sunday Shmunday

Sunday is always family day here in Kenya. I mean, I don't mean to speak on behalf of 45million+ people but that's generally what tends to happen. We used to follow this rule religiously back when we were younger and you'd always know that on Sunday you'd be going for lunch or visiting relatives or something of that sort. It's not quite the same anymore though. In our family, Sunday has now become Do-whatever-you-need-to-do-to-get-you-through-another-week Day. Whether it's going to church, sleeping, watching Kardashian re-runs, studying for exams or working on one thing or another - it's really about filling your cup. 

So this Sunday I chose to spend it with my mama and lil sister - some girl time.

 This is what I wore:

 I need to find a new bag. This one's starting to come apart and it's getting harder to find anything in there.

We ended up spending the day with some family friends where I pretty much took it as an open invitation to try on her beautiful shoes. She has LOADS but these two caught my eye the most. 

 Don't Maasai sandals just make life a whole lot simpler? So comfy. 

Talk about colour! All the heels I own are a very safe colour - blacks, nudes, browns. I defo need some colour to spice things up. 

How do you usually spend your Sundays?

My friend is ENGAGED!!!!

I couldn't stop squealing with joy once I found out that one of my good friends is engaged!! Such exciting news I tell you :) She's been dating her fiance for about 3yrs now, it was definitely time for the question to be popped. I can't believe that my friend's getting married - seems like I've entered a new stage of life where it's soon to be all about weddings and babies!

Her beautiful ring

 

We were meeting at the movies and then she was to come home with me for a sleep over. 

This is what I wore: 

Red lips, black jeans and a striped sweater. 

I thought it was time that I introduce you all to my ice grill.

For whatever reason the camera would take ages to respond so by the time my brother takes the picture, my lip would be twitching uncontrollably which would then to lead to laughing shots like the one below. 

We went and watched Underworld which was quite a disappointment. Kate Beckinsale's character in the movie was so angry/bitter/spiteful that it was difficult to cheer her on as she fought for her vampire clan. 

After, my friend and I just got talking about life, weddings, ze honeymoon, work and all that stuff. She seems so happy which makes me happy.

Can't wait to attend that wedding!