MSMD Monday: Magnetic Gradient

Hello!!

For today's Monkey-See-Monkey-Do Monday, I wanted to try my hand at a magnetic gradient look, after seeing the beauty on Dressed Up Digits. I had been hoping that my new China Glaze Magnetix II collection would be here in time, but no such luck!

When I first started this blog, I did a post trying to use magnetic polishes in interesting ways. Please don't look for it--the only reason it still exists is that I promised myself I'd never take down a post just because in retrospect it embarrasses me. Not saying I'm some great artist now, but I was a true beginner-beginner then. And one of the things I found repeatedly frustrating about working with magnetic polishes is you have to be fast to get the magnet to work right.

So when I saw that post and read the trick--applying a non-fast-drying topcoat will re-wet the polish--I was highly excited! So here is my first attempt to try out the technique:

I used China Glaze Attraction as my base color, and did a gradient with it and Instant Chemistry over that (both are magnetic polishes). I put on a non-fast-drying topcoat (apparently any will do), and then used my magnet on the nail (one nail at a time). Then I quickly threw some Seche Vite over the top, as I've been told that you want to freeze your magnet design into place as quickly as possible in order to keep it from getting any blurrier than possible.

And Voila! It worked! I used the star magnet because although I have the worst time using it, it's my favorite, and I thought it might look a bit night-sky like.  The magnet image worked seamlessly over both colors, and was just as crisp initially as when I've used a single color. Unfortunately, I did it last night and couldn't take a picture until a short while ago, so it did blur out some more than I would have liked in that time.

I love this technique--pretty darned easy to do, with great results. You definitely will be seeing more fun stuff with this! I did learn a couple of things from this first try...I think I will use less of the non-fast-drying topcoat next time; I kinda glopped it on and I think that made it harder for the Seche Vite to work quickly. Which I think led to a little more blurring with time.

Thanks for reading, and please check out the other bloggers who participated in MSMD Monday, below. :)

M.