Dollhouse Miniature Nail Polish Marbling

Watch the video here

This week I decided to show you a really cool technique for marbling. A couple of years ago this was all the rage for a really awesome manicure. I watched a bunch of videos back then on doing nails this way but never got around to trying it out. For some reason I never made the connection to using this for minis at the time. Then a few days ago I was watching some of the older videos on one of my favorite crafting YouTube channels (Craft Klatch find her channelhere) and she had used this technique to color some beads and a napkin ring (here is the bead video) and that got me to thinking that this would work just as well for minis.

I decided that for this project that I was not going to buy anything at the store, only use what I have on hand. Now I may be at an advantage in that I may very well have more nail polish than even a lot of salons (LOL) but you really only need a couple of colors. I recommend working with 3 colors on an object. Three of something is almost always my go to number because according to my high school painting teacher that number is magical in art work and makes for a more appealing grouping of anything. I'm not sure if that is accurate or not but thanks to Miss Marsh I almost always put things in threes.

The other things you need for this project are the item to coat in marble, a container for water (I highly recommend a disposable cup for this), some warm or room temperature water and a way to hold on to your item to dip it and a way to let it dry. To solve the how to hold the items I decided to use my normal golf tees to hold them. I was afraid that the tacky stuff I normally use would not hold so I got out my glue gun. I just put a dab of hot glue on the top of the golf tee and placed the item onto the hot glue. I figured worst case scenario I might have to get out my heat gun to soften the glue. In the end the glue just pealed off of everything just fine. This is my new favorite way to hold things, the hot glue works way better and doesn't release at inopportune moments.

You will also need lots of paper towels and toothpicks.

A few things I learned in playing with this. Warm water works the best. Just do one dip at a time and then clean the top of water of all the film left before adding fresh polish. I found that lifting the film off with a toothpick then following with a paper towel worked the best.

Some nail polishes worked better than others. For some reason the fast drying brands didn't work very well for me, I'm not sure if it was the brand or the fast dry formula. The brand that worked the best were the LA Colors that I buy at Dollar Tree. I love those polishes anyway for all the fun colors and the fact that they are only $1 each is just a bonus.

If you care about your manicure wear some latex gloves to do this, I ended up with misc polish all over my nails and hands (I some on my elbow too and I have no idea how that happened.

I base coated my items with white paint before I did then for the video. That way there was no wood showing through.

After the paint is dry drop a few drops of your chosen nail polish colors on top of the water. Swirl with a toothpick and carefully dip your item into the water move it around carefully and remove. Set aside to dry. If you need to do a second dip (I only needed to do a second dip on the very largest piece) let the first coat dry completely before doing the second coat. Be sure to clean the top of the water before doing another coat or another piece.

Allow to dry and then top coat with a clear coat. I used some clear nail polish on all of mine and I love how they turned out. I ended up gluing the little egg shaped one to a black washer shaped bead and I love it so much.

When you are cleaning up and dumping the water please do whoever has to clean the sink a favor and be sure to wipe up any nail polish so it doesn't dry in the sink. This can make a big mess when you are cleaning up if you are not careful.

This technique should work well in any scale the possibilities are endless.

So a huge thank you to both whatever nail artist thought this up in the first place and also to Mona of Craft Klatch for making me think outside the nail polish bottle and into the craft room. 

the group of items I made with the technique

vase made from a wooden candle cup

made from a wooden block

wooden egg shape mounted on a washer type bead

Avon lipstick sample lid

wooden flower pot

cake stand (?) made from a button glued to the plastic part of a push-pin

another vase from a candle cup

small wooden bowl

larger wooden bowl