Day 27 of Crumpets 31 DC - Inspired By Me

I am so sorry for going missing the last couple of day.  Although I completed almost all of the final manis this weekend, I have been sick the last two days and just have not had the energy to post.  Still feeling under the weather, but on the mend.  Needless to say, this is going to be a post heavy day, as I hope to catch up with all my missed posts.

Day 27 was "Inspired by You".  I decided I would get a head start on an idea I have to try and recreate semiprecious stones in manicures.  I have this thing about stones, and have made semiprecious stone jewelry for awhile.  It seems natural that my stone obsession should show up in my nail obsession.  Oh, and get ready, I broke a nail and decided to trim everything down to nubbins instead of trying to patch it.  Needed a new start and all.  Here's what I came up with.

Look at those little nubbins.  They are opals, of course.  The first ring my husband ever gave me was an opal ring, and I love how opals are filled with fire, flashing sparks of different colors from their depths.  I feel like I did a pretty good job capturing this effect with several layers of different flakies I have in my stash.  Here's how I did it.

I started out with two coats of OPI I Don't Give a Rotterdamn.  I took a couple of pics, but couldn't get an accurate color representation, no matter what I tried, so I googled and found that I wasn't the only one.  Most of the swatches pull blue, just like mine, but I found a great representation at The Daily Varnish HERE.  Rotterdamn is a lovely pale grey with a glass fleck..  It made the perfect base for my opals.   Next I added one coat each of:

• Confetti Ice Ice Baby - A clear coat with blue sparkle
• Revlon Moon Candy Universe - A clear coat mylar flakie with pink and gold flashes.
• Revlon Moon Candy Moon Dust - A clear coat mylar flakie with blue and green flashes.
• Color Club Snow Flakes - A clear coat flakie with green and copper red flashes.

The Revlon Moon Candies were a bit difficult to manage, with lots of fishing and placing on the nails, but they were perfect for this as they gave depth and texture, whereas the Confetti and Color Club applied like butter and gave flash without any texture.  I think the use of all the different flakies is what made this successful.  Here is a few pics to give you an idea of the effect.
 

Finally, I tried to make it look like jewelry and added a frame with Orly Solid Gold.  Don't know if I liked the framed effect, but it is what it is.  One last pic then check the other lovely manis.