31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Animal Print Nails

For Day 13 of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge, I decided to do a snakeskin print (of sorts). This lovely little orange and black snake (my creative license version of a coral snake) is inching across all of my nails on my left hand. Ssssso pretty!

I used a holographic polish just on his little eyes, and it is so small you may not notice, but it really added some fun bling to his eyeballs. 

I started with a chartreuse color from China Glaze. This was three coats, which is ok, but I am so impatient I would have preferred 2 coats. 

The snake first took shape in black acrylic paint. The middle finger sort of looks like the ribbon that so many people wear for breast cancer awareness and other awareness ribbons. Some of my coworkers who cannot see as well thought this was a breast cancer awareness manicure at first. Ah well...

And here I have added most of the details. I started with a lighter orange, then topped it with a bright orange to make it really pop. Also, I like the little white dots for highlights. It almost makes it look aboriginal. 

I didn't want to make another snake on my right hand, since it was already taking me a long time to do this manicure. So I asked my hubby what I should paint on my right hand. He said, "A rat!" That was a great idea, so I made this stylized rat on my right hand. 

Here is the finished product. I topcoated this with Cult Nails Wicked Fast and I am noticing that it is slightly pulling at my art work leaving little streaks. I may have to switch back to Seche Vite topcoat for nail art. Too bad, because the top coat from Cult Nails really lasts well. 

Here's the right hand with the little rat. It had better watch its back, 'cause I think that snake is hungry!

Polishes I used in this manicure: Cult Nails Get It On basecoat, Cult Nails Wicked Fast topcoat, China Glaze Electric Pineapple, China Glaze 2NITE (for the eyeballs), and L.A. Colors Art Deco Red Glitter (to highlight the snake tongue). 

Tomorrow it is flowers! Halloween flowers.... moohoohahaha!

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Black and White Nails

These nails are inspired by Robin Moses. She did a video tutorial of this design a few weeks ago and I fell totally in love with it. I am a big fan of Japanese culture (check out my bento lunch blog sometime!) and this appealed to me right away for its impact and simplicity. Plus it is freakin' creepy! ZOMBIES a la manga artist Junji Ito. Check it out:

Right?! Amazing, huh??! The zombies turned out great, but part of the manicure that I did not expect to like so much are the other nails that I painted halfway with a really cool Forever 21 polish. We'll get to that in a second...

I started with a coat of LA Colors white polish. My Sally Hansen Insta-Dri white was all goopy, that's why I didn't use Whirlwind White. 

Isn't this the coolest glitter? Click on the picture to get a close look. I picked this up at Forever 21, not really understanding how awesome it was. I actually thought it had a black polish base with some sort of flakies in it, or confetti, not sure. Then when I used it in this manicure, I saw how cool it was. Tiny black glitter and larger round glitter suspended in a clear base. It is so awesome! Of course, it was a b*tch to remove, but that is the price we pay for glitter manis. 

Watching Robin's video, and using a few images I printed of Junji Ito's work on the internet, here are my versions of the zombies. I love this smiling girl. She's a freak!

My right hand turned out great too! (Sorry about the round shape of my thumbnail. I broke it doing housework before my mom and dad showed up for a visit. I will get it grown back out soon.) (Wow, what a boring explanation for a broken nail. I should have said that the zombies ate it! LOL)

Here they are together! I just love this manicure, and if I wasn't doing the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge, I would so wear this for a few days. But I can always redo it. It is totally appropriate for the holiday season. Black Friday Zombies, anyone?? 

Polishes used in this manicure: LA Colors 561 White, Love and Beauty Black polish (I HATE how Forever 21 polishes are named. Wow, it's an amazing multi-size black glitter, and the best name they can come up with is "Black"??), Essie All In One Basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat. 

Tomorrow is metallic nails! They should be fun. And I am trying to pick up a few bottles of Cult Nails Unicorn Puke right now (yes, I am up at 3am to do this) so WISH ME LUCK!