31dc2013 Day Twelve

31dc2013 Day twelve: Stripes
   

     Normally I start my posts with a picture. Today i'm going to start off with a little disclaimer.  I had a very hard time with this, and not because I can't paint straight lines, just because I was lacking inspiration, motivation, or patience for that matter. Everything I tried came out looking like crap. First I was going to do some Steelers inspired stripes (my husband is a huge steelers fan), but that didn't work.

   See total crappola! This was my second attempt and still terrible. Then I thought maybe a blue purple brown stripe combo would work nice, but my hands we're being shakey and I couldnt concentrate. bleh.

     It looked wonky so I thought maybe adding some Julep melissa would finish it up. NOPE still terrible.

      Even fuzzy and far away I wasn't into it. After this I just took my polish off and went to bed. Messing up my nails that many times made me so frustrated this is all you get for the stripes challenge. SORRY! oh-well

    Steady hands to all!

31dc2013 Day Four

31dc2013 Day four: Green Nails

For this manicure I had the opposite problem from the orange and yellow nails. I have WAY too many greens to choose from. From my nail polish collection it's pretty easy to see what my favorite color is! I wanted to do something a little different from what I'm used to nail art wise. I know crackle polish is pretty old hat at this point, but I came across this Pure Ice "Vinyl Remix" duo and since I love and collect vinyl records I had to pick them up.

This polish duo is pretty interesting. It comes with a "magic base coat" which is a highly pigmented white polish that applies pretty easy for a white. Could be a one coater if you do a thicker coat. This dries pretty quickly too which makes it perfect for nail art!

I then did a stripe of the art in motion "dj spinner" which applies black and quickly crackles to reveal green inside the cracks.

Whats interesting about this polish that you can't see in this particular design, is that the crackle will bend, wiggle and swirl with the brush stokes you make using the top crackle polish.

After the middle stripe I used some striping polishes to do a variant of green lines. I then topped it all off with a glossy top coat to get rid of the crackle texture. Even though this is a design i've never done before and probably would not have if not for the 31 day challenge, I'm pretty happy with the overall outcome and plan on doing more stripey looks!

Steady hands to all!