How to marble and embed with gel polish

I'm going to assume you've read my soak off gel tutorial and/or you already know the basics.  Start with one coat of colour and cure.

Add a second thin coat of colour - DO NOT CURE.

Draw a line down one side with your second colour, not too thin, not too thick.  Gel polish tends to run together so it's a bit of trial and error to get the right consistency.  Less is always better.  Do not cure yet!

Add your second stripe adjacent to the first one.  I used a holographic glitter in clear coat here.  Adding a line of glitter in gel marbles really looks sharp.  Do not cure still!

Take a liner brush and draw it through the polish from one side to the other horizontally.  Do this all the way down the nail.  I like to wipe the excess gel off my brush between strokes but you don't have to if you don't mind some of the colour at the edges.  The nice thing about gel polish is that you can go over your lines to define them or if you mess up you can wipe and start all over again.  Now you can cure it for 2 minutes.

Now I'm going to embed a fimo slice in the nail.  I dabbed a tiny bit of Gelish Structure Gel to the back of my fimo to help it stick. (Note I did not remove the sticky layer)

Add a healthy layer of Gelish Structure to the entire nail.  Top Coat will not work for this step as it is too thin and will run into your cuticles.  Structure can be applied thickly to cover imperfections.  Cure for 2 minutes.

When you work with gels you really need to be careful that you don't expose your brushes to UV light.  Gel brushes should always be left with a bit of gel in them to keep them soft so if they're ever exposed to UV light they are destroyed, nothing can save them.  Here's a great tip for protecting your brushes - keep them stored in a dollar store travel toothbrush holder!  It's a handy little container for me to keep all my tech tools in when I go visit a client.

After the Structure coat has cured, wipe off the sticky layer with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. 

Using a 240 grit file, smooth out any bumps, ridges or imperfections to make your nail even and smooth.  Do this using a light touch, you don't want to remove any colour.

Add your top coat and cure for 2 minutes.

Wipe off your sticky layer and you're done!

Just as a quick aside, I made those fimo cupcakes myself.  I had many failed attempts before I got the hang of it and I have to say - just buy the pre-made fimo canes!  It's time consuming, finicky and expensive to do it yourself.

Later
P