Wednesday, September 5, 2012

31dc2012 - day 5

Hey ladies (and gents!)

The theme for today's challenge is Blue.
I wasn't sure what to do for blue, there was nothing standing out, and so I sat down with my polishes and somehow decided to start painting an ikat print.

What is ikat? I don't really know. It's pretty hard to describe, and the name is weird, but it sure is a cute print!


Ikat is kinda leopard-print-like sometimes, kinda feathery maybe, kinda tribal... I don't know! It's a bunch of things and can be interpreted a lot of different ways.


I did mine kinda messy and feathery, with lots of colors marbled together and then outlined with black.


Here's a super closeup to try and show off all the colors hiding in the spots! And you can also see how I did this sort of brushstroke-y.


My thumb turned out to be my favorite!

Here are all the colors that came together to make this manicure:


Deborah Lippmann - On The Beach is the base color. I adore this shade! It is kinda jelly-like and takes 3 coats to cover, but the formula is wonderful so it is not a problem. So happy I got this color!

The spots were made with a bunch of strokes of different colors that I overlapped and mixed together for a marbley, feathered look. The colors are:
China Glaze - Dance Baby
Essence - Oh My Glitter!
Essence - 
China Glaze - Something Sweet
Essie - Turquoise & Caicos 

For the black, I used Color Club - Where's The Soiree?.

To get the feathered/brushstroke look, I used a very small brush that was pretty stiff to create small lines. I used very little polish at a time so the lines wouldn't come out thick or totally opaque.


Hilariously, my good friend Kayla Shevonne did ikat print for her blue day as well. We are doing the challenge together, but we aren't discussing our manicures beforehand. And this is the second time we've done something extremely similar! (My apples vs. her oranges.)
We have decided to continue to not discuss our ideas to see if we are telepathically connected and come up with any more similar manicures. Haha!


What do you guys think of the ikat print? Do you think it is cute or a bit too abstract?
I know I'm loving it!

12 comments:

  1. reminds me of the big dot things at the end of peacock feathers. and the name makes me think of the call peacocks make

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  2. LOVE IT! The colours are beautiful together

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  3. Beautiful manicure and I love these photos!

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  4. i so dig this print and you did a great job creating it!

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  5. this is so nice, love the colours!

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  6. It is too funny that both you and Kayla did the same print! Must be a newfie thing? haha! :D This looks awesome too by the way, I really like the ikat print but I'm nervous to try it myself.

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  7. I like the print, it's interesting and different! FYI, Urban Outfitters has a $5 dupe of On the Beach called Blue Icee. I did a comparison with the Lippmann and they're very close. On the Beach is more Jelly-ish, I would call BI a crelly.

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  8. Love this - not maybe an easy one for many to do. But I am going to give it the old college try! I don't have this base shade but can see doing Ikat on all kinds of shades. I know a bit about art history of Ikat - this would be close to what's called a double Ikat which right now is as you know, a hot look in print textiles.

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  9. I love Ikat! I've yet to do it on my own nails but I really should give it a try sometime. I also looove DL On the Beach... I think I might need it now.

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