Black & White Water Marble

So I have seen all of these nail art contests, and I've wanted to enter some, but I was doing the Plasma thing, so I never did. 

But on Thursday, May 31, I saw BerryPolished.com's Black & White Mani contest.  I figured black & white would be easy to do.  The only thing was that the deadline was midnight on the next day, June 1.  So all day long at work, I daydreamed of what I would do.  Black & white glitter?  Nail stripers and dots?  Flowers?  Skulls?  Then it hit me...water marble!!

So what kind of water marble?  This one I had done before immediately came to mind:

Click HERE for the YouTube video I first saw with this technique.

Cool, right?  So, I started at 8:00 pm. And after about 3 hours of nail prep, base coat, white coat, marbling, dotting, then matte top coat, I ended up with this:

Not too shabby!  I may have over-done the dots, but I was having fun! :-)  So, anyway, I barely met the deadline, but got it entered.  Once I had sent my entry, I went ahead and clicked on the photo album to check out the competition's entries.  They're all great, and creative, and I'm glad I didn't look at them before I entered, or I may not have even tried.  But as I go along, what do you think one of the entries was?  Of course, it was a black and white water marble with dots!  What are the freakin' odds?!?

Ours are not exactly the same, of course, but still!!  My heart sunk, and I felt like people would think I had intentionally copied her.  How cheesey does that seem? 

Anyway, I had already entered, so I guess it's up to the judges at this point!  So from now on, I'll be checking the entries ahead of time the next time I enter a contest...I just hope I don't psyche myself out doing it! ;-)

UPDATE:  I won 2nd place!!  Wooo hooo!  :-D