The Digit-al Dozen Does Monochrome: Blue Valentine

Hi everyone! It's another week of Digit-al Dozen challenges, and I'm pretty excited, because for the first time ever, I finished mine beforehand! Yeah organization! And I really enjoyed this theme so I'm happy with how my ideas turned out. Today though, I'm showing you what is probably my favourite of the bunch.

Blue Valentine

Monochromatic means one colour plus black and white. You'll see some days that I pushed the limits a bit by using cream instead of white, or using a glitter or holographic polish. But for the most part I really stuck to the prompt. Despite the limitations, I think it was a good prompt for inspiring some cool looks. But enough with that, more about this design!



About this look: This was actually the first mani that I did. Blue being my favourite colour, it was a given that I would turn to it first. I knew I wanted to do some roses, and I loved the idea of giving them a grunge look, following the techniques that I used in my Ethereal Dreamcatcher design. The rows of branches with thorns was inspired by an image I saw while doing a Google image search (sorry I don't have the original image to show). It was just one of those random things you find, and you think, "yes, that's it!"

Blue Valentine

To get this look: I started with a white base using Cult Nails Tempest. It really is a great two-coater white with no streaks, so it's perfect for nail art. Then I did a watercolour effect with a black polish (I used Cult Nails Fetish) and nail polish thinner. I painted the roses using OPI I Saw... U Saw... We Saw... Warsaw and OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, along with white and black polish to darken and lighten.

Blue Valentine

After the roses, I worked up the grunge effect, lightly dragging white and black polish where needed. Also I added the border. The tricky part was making sure not to take it too far, and not to mess up the roses I had already done.

Blue Valentine

The thorny branches were painted with a fine liner brush. The thorns were tricky - they didn't look pointy enough, but some slight touchups with white fixed that. ;)

Blue Valentine

Overall: I'm in love with this look. I wish I still had this on my nails!! I think it's a nice play on roses, and perfect for an anti-Valentine's Day look, if that's your sort of thing.

What do you think of this design? Have you tried a grunge effect like this before?

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