You’ve probably seen a marbled manicure before – they’re all over Pinterest – but did you know that you can also use the same technique to give a marbled finish to nearly anything? True story! I decided to try marbling some dollar store ornaments, with varying degrees of success. Watch the video below to see my attempts (bloopers included!), or keep scrolling to read more and see the project in photos.
Project estimate:
- Nail polish, on hand or $1 and up
- Christmas ornaments, $1 and up
- Container for water, on hand
Total: $1 and up!
The process itself is pretty straightforward: Fill a container with water, then drizzle a few colors of polish over the surface and use a toothpick or skewer to swirl the colors together. Then you dunk the item you’re marbling into the water and the nail polish adheres to the surface – when you remove the item from the water it should have a marbled pattern on it.
Make sure you remove any leftover polish from the surface of the water between each item you marble!
Sounds simple, right? Well, as I found out, there was definitely some trial-and-error involved to get it to come out just right! Make sure you watch the video to see all of my fails, and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes. After multiple tries I finally got results that, while not all perfect, were good enough to hang on the tree.
Have you ever tried mail polish marbling before? Share any tips you may have in the comments below!
3 Comments
Debbie D. Dodd
Heather
I made ornaments one year using acrylic spray paint instead of nail polish. I sprayed the water with white paint, then color, then metallic and swirled it. I used the round ornaments and put a dowel in the hole as a ‘handle’ for dipping. I started with colored balls to add another layer of color to them.
You can see my results at http://www.mystudio3d.com/blog/index.blog/1773592/deck-the-halls/ (third item shown)
Marcy Singer
I’ve tried this numerous times with the same results as yours. It didn’t seem to matter what temperature the water was. In the end I got the best results by using only one color of nail polish and NOT using a skewer. I did some black on white coffee mugs and I really like the results. They don’t look ‘marbled’ but more of a water color, modern art kind of thing. The only way I was able to get a marbled effect was to spray Krylon acrylic on the surface of the water and quickly roll my item through the paint. I used silver on black and it turned out very well. Mark Montano’s idea
heather
@Marcy – thanks for the input. I love your idea of using just one color – that’s really intriguing!