Marble runs a really close second (to all things gold) in my list of home decor obsessions. The sad part about it is that it’s about as expensive to come by as gold is, plus I can’t exactly carve it myself, though that would make me one killer DIY’er if I could. Instead, I stick with the nail polish budget version (literally), and make my own DIY marble dipped vessels.
I thought about using marbled shelf liner paper for this project but I wanted to be able to get a sleek, seamless look, so I created my own color recipe to make a real faux marble pattern with polishes! A lot of people have done similar projects with the bright, neon colors, but I feel like you can’t go wrong with mixing a bit of traditional marble in with your decor, no?
Gray and black nail polish (you can just buy the cheap regular kind!)
White ceramic vessels (I used these)
Plastic bowl
Warm water
Plastic fork or utensil (for stirring)
Plastic cups (for practice first!)
(don’t mind the pink in here, this is my all purpose painting bowl!)
This entire process is super simple, you just have to keep in mind to move quickly, because the nail polish will start to dry in the water and it won’t stick to your vessel evenly like you’re looking for with marble. Essentially it will leave weird bubbles and funky overlap where you don’t want it, so you can practice on cheap plastic cups first to get a feel for it!
To get the right color consistency, I used three parts grey nail polish (about three drops of polish), to one part black polish (one drop), then quickly gave it a stir with the end of a plastic utensil, and dipped the vessel in at about a 45 degree angle, making a twisting motion with my hand so that it swirled all the around the vase. Let it set by flipping the vessel upside down until it’s dry to the touch.
You’ll have to repeat this process one by one for each vessel, and you can remove any excess dried nail polish in between coats by swirling the plastic utensil around the bowl to scoop the bad part out.
I kind of want to do this to everything now, but I’m refraining. It’s kind of a running theme of mine every time I try something new that I love. I should just go ahead and get a shirt made that says “#idontknowwhentostop”, but that could probably get easily misconstrued now that I think about it…
styling sources: Rejuvenation lamp // CB2 marble hexagon serving board // Moorea Seal punched pouch // Moorea Seal gold bangle
