Top o' the Saturday mornin' to yas! I am definitely starting to really regret not having built myself a small lead on this 31-Day Challenge, because it has left me without time to really get a grip on using my new camera, so I've temporarily reverted back to my little Samsung point-and-shoot until I can crank some nail art out and get ahead of the game. Today's prompt is Water Spotting, and it gave me a great excuse to pull a new FX polish out of my untrieds and create this purple and white look.
I also used a new product (to me) called Nail Art Ink, which is a thinned down acrylic paint with a very fluid texture. I was only able to find it in white, but I'm going to do some more shopping to see if I can find at least a black and hopefully some other colors.
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| L-R: Layla Meringue, China Glaze Loco-Motive, Barry M Orchid |
When I saw this prompt come up, I absolutely knew that the one thing I did *NOT* want to do was stick any of my fingers in a water cup to achieve the traditional "water spotted" method, which is similar to water marbling, but rather than creating a bulls-eye, you just add several drops of the same polish and then spritz a solvent over the top to create bubbles in the surface. The Layla Bubbles Effect polish creates the same look but with far less hassle.
I started with a coat of Orchid on all nails, topped with a coat of Loco-Motive, which I topped with SV to seal. I then applied a single, very, very thin layer of Meringue to my middle and ring fingers.
On my thumb and pinky, I used the white nail art ink to outline the nails and add a curved "highlight" on the top corner. On my index nail, I created large-ish dots of nail art ink, and then hollowed out the centers with a cotton swab soaked in isopropyl alcohol. The nail art ink dries super fast, so I had to do some serious scrubbing on some of them and unfortunately it affected the outline of the bubbles.
I had one additional technique that I could have used to cheat this prompt, because I have a Vivid Lacquer stamping plate with a water-spotted image, but I was fairly pleased with the FX polish and had some fun playing with my new ink instead.
If you want to see some actual water-spotted manicures, be sure to check out the inlinkz below.
Hope you're all having a great weekend, and I'll see ya tomorrow!