31 Day Challenge (v.2!) Day 14: Flowers

Morning Ladies! Welcome to Day 14 of the 31 Day Challenge!

Today's theme is Flowers! I have to admit, I was very close to going with stamping (I LOVE stamping and sometimes I have to remind myself that there are other forms of nail art), but I decided to try something a bit different.

It's no secret that I love water marbling. I don't do it often since it can be time consuming, but it's one of my favorite types of nail art, and I always love the results so much that I'll wear a water marble for as long as I can get away with. I actually did this mani earlier than I normally do with challenge manis just so I could wear it for awhile.

I chose to use the standard flower water marble design for this mani, but I took my inspiration from something a little different. My favorite flower is the Orchid. Particularly Black Orchids. I think they are just the most amazing flower.  Here's a quick pic of one (Source: Orchid Care via Google Images):

Gorgeous right? I love the duochrome petals on these flowers, and really wanted to try to create something like it.

I started with a Base of Finger Paints Black Expressionism, my go to one coat black. Once that was nice and dry, I water marbled using Sally Hansen Black Tie, Orly Mysterious Curse and China Glaze Want My Bawdy (oh how I hate that name!).  I chose Black Tie for obvious reasons, and since there was no way anyone would see the design had I used the actual colors of the Orchid, I decided that Mysterious Curse and Want My Bawdy would look nice and give the design some much needed contrast. I did originally try this with Black Tie and Black, and although it looked kinda cool, there way no way to capture it on camera. It was pretty hard to see IRL and I'm sure I only was able to see the design since I knew exactly what I was looking for.

The downside to this design is that it is near impossible to truly capture it with my camera. Or any camera really. Trust me, I tried several. In the end I had to use 2 very bright lights shining directly on my nails and at very close range, which made my skin look strange and washed out in some pics, but hey...I'd rather you see the mani than stare at my skin color anyway! IRL these are much darker and mysterious and more closely resembles the petals of a black orchid. I wish I could show you guys but on camera it just looks like black with an itty bitty bit of random color. Maybe this wasn't my best idea.....

Enough of my babbling explanations of why this isn't as bright IRL and my photography woes! I give you.....Black Orchid Inspired Flower Water Marbled Nails!

IRL in Natural Light these are much more subtle, but for photo purposes I chose to light these babies up like crazy so you can see the design. Most of the time they look like a flower shaped oil slick on my nails, and I'm really enjoying the effect! I will say the Mysterious Curse was rough to marble with. It made a great ring, but dried very fast so I had to make sure I dropped my polish at lightening speed and created the design even faster. I had originally intended to do a different shaped petal design, but the polish wouldn't cooperate for that due to the quick dry time in the water, so I decided this worked too. I know it's hard to see, but trust me, it's there!

What do you think of dark water marbles like this? I love it, but I think I'll end up sticking with marbles that are easier to see!

Don't forget to check out all the Varnished Vixens' flower nails!

 Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints 
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles  

Be sure to check back Monday for Delicate Print. And of course I'll be spamming you guys with polish posts in between!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing! 

-Kimber

Spun Sugar Mani featuring Spoiled by Wet N Wild Distant Memory

Hi Ladies! Happy Wednesday!

Today I have a Spun Sugar Mani to share with you guys. WARNING! Bad pics, dry hands, and wonky nail shape ahead!  I wore this mani before the nail break that took my nails down to the quick, and I was still trying to find the right shape and balance for this length. My nails just didn't want to cooperate and kept flaring out at the edges. I've also been doing alot of cleaning and pulling weeds, so my hands are pretty darn dry and I keep getting stabbed with thorny weeds, so ignore the scratches and little stabs to my fingertips and cuticles please! :) We have these weeds out here that are so sharp and pointy that they will stab you through gloves! Evil! Anyway, I'm very self conscious about my hands at the moment, and really wanna cry over how dry and ragged my cuticles became almost overnight. But, until I can get a maid and a gardener, I'm stuck mucking up my hands. Waaaaaaaaah. I'm a whiner today.

For this mani I chose a base of Spoiled by Wet N Wild Distant Memory, a bright Neon Teal. I tried to capture this color as accurately as possible, but IRL it's much more vibrant and the teal is almost blinding. It's a really pretty color and I have some plans for this baby! After my base color was dry, I took my Finger Paints Black Expressionism and blobbed some down on a piece of wax paper. I let it sit for a few minutes, letting it get nice and tacky and gooey. Then I took my dotting tool, dipped it into the polish blob, and pulled the polish up from the wax paper in a string. Then I draped the polish string over my nail and repeated the process until I was satisfied with how it looked, and finally added a good coat of SV (it bubbled a little due to the space between the nail and the spun sugar...boo!). Sounds simple right? Wrong! It's messy! And getting that string of polish up onto the nail is much harder than it sounds! You should've seen the mess I made! Since my time was limited and I hadn't realized how time consuming this mani was going to be, I kept the spun sugar effect light. I think it looks kind of like raised tiger stripes on most nails. I do really like this effect and am hoping to have a chunk of time soon to play around with and create a mani with more of the spun sugar effect. Until then, have a look at what I managed to create!

Details:
1 coat Seche Recondition
1 coat Instant Artificials Base Coat
2 coats Spoiled Distant Memory
Spun Sugar Effect with Finger Paints Black Expressionism
1 thick coat Seche Vite

Please forgive my zombie hands in some pics and lobster hands in others. My camera doesn't like Teal at all. Pesky camera!! ;)

Isn't that a really cool effect? I don't think it's too bad for my first try, but I really do want to perfect this. I love how it looks without top coat and saturated with polish strings. I think maybe next time I'll load up the nails with the strings and skip the top coat. It will have to wait until I have a bit more length though. I'm not sure if I can make it work on my itty bitty super nubbins! (you'll meet those tomorrow. They've grown a bit since I had to take them all the way down, but they're still super duper right at the nail bed nubbins. I'll be honest, I hated them and wanted to cry...until I applied Julep Chloe...now I love them. But that's another post!

Distant Memory, although a lovely color, had it's issues. First off, the brush was the worst Spoiled brush I have ever encountered. It looked like a little mop that was pulled out of a garbage disposal. I couldn't get a clean line to save my life! The formula was also pretty thick and gloppy. Combine that with fast dry time and application was not pleasant. Thank god for SV! The color is gorgeous, but I think I'll swap out brushes next time I use my spoileds. I hear the brushes from Sinful Colors fit the Spoiled bottles.

Hope you're all having a happy "hump day" and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber