Blue Inspire Me!

Day 21 of the challenge is Inspired by a Color. Of course, I had to choose blue! Olivia actually came up with this design, based on a crackle glass bead necklace she inherited from my sis during a jewelry clean-out. (My girls love when Aunt Kristy sends them her jewelry cast-offs; my sis has really cool taste in accessories!) Here's the necklace:

Olivia picked my favorite shade of blue, and her idea was for me to do a jelly sandwich with my one crackle polish. I frankened a jelly with a random bottle of clear topcoat that came free with something or other and my Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night. The resulting color leaned a little more aqua than I wanted, and I will probably go back and jack it up with a dab of Maybelline Color Show Sapphire Siren. Anyway, I applied one coat of my jelly, which was a teeny bit streaky; I knew the crackle would cover it. I was glad I'd done test runs on a couple fingers, because I'd only used my Salon Perfect silver crackle once ever, and I found this blog post with really great detailed tips that helped me improve the bigger crackle effect I was going for. I applied one more coat of jelly; again, the crackle effect disguised any streakiness even though it was under the blue, and I did try to be a bit careful with application, too. This homemade blue jelly does self-level pretty well. No kudos to me; I just got lucky with my clear polish formula. I topped with a coat of Mmmn Nails blue-to-purple flakie, which is uber-subtle on this mani, but lent itself to the general crackle glass effect.

Olivia was pretty excited that I used her idea and that it turned out so well!