Stamp "Marbling"

I have a love/hate relationship with water marbling. Some of the first nail art I ever did was water marbling, and I loved it. But the prep of taping around my nails is a pain in the butt, as is cleanup whether or not one chooses to tape off areas. I've heard others say applying cuticle oil to the skin around the nail helps w/ cleanup, but I'd end up getting it on my nail, I'm sure. When I did my birthday/Xmas mash-up I stumbled onto the idea of applying lip balm around my nail and all over that section of my finger up to the knuckle. I still had cleanup to do right around the nail, but the rest of the marbling "leftovers" gooped up and pretty much just wiped off my finger!

My other issue with water marbling is that I seem to have a difficult time getting the drops of polish to spread effectively. I know all about room temperature water, distilled v. tap, how some polishes will work and others won't... I just keep having the first few rings spread beautifully, and the inner few NOT spreading. Maybe I need to drop from a little higher up?!?!

So, any-who, I decided to be a big, fat CHEATER for Day 20: Water Marble and use my BM-320 plate to stamp a marble-esque design. I just don't feel the love for this one. I didn't when I used it here, either. And what's up with the fact that I chose such a similar color scheme this time? Grrr.

This time around, it's Kleancolor Metallic Fuchsia over an unnamed freebie from SillyLily. It's a milky white (or pale, pale pink?) jelly polish with fuchsia and turquoise hexes and teenies and white shards. It's not my favorite, requiring 3 coats for the milkiness to disguise the stains on my nails sufficiently, but that's just a personal pref.

sunlight

My thumbnail isn't jagged; I think the dabbing to get glitter where I wanted it gunked up parts of the tip more than others.

flash (and horrendous glare on my thumb)

The combination of guilt over cheating and my unhappiness with this look makes me want to attempt real water marbling tonight. We'll see... I did end up wearing this for three days, because 1) I wasn't going anywhere that I cared who saw it, and 2) all my kids loved this one. Little weirdies.