Saturday 3 January 2015

31DC-D3 - Water Spotting

Hey y'all!

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.

Purple and white bubble nail art manicure.

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.

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.

Purple and white bubble nail art manicure.

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.

Purple and white bubble nail art manicure.

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. 

Purple and white bubble nail art manicure.

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!