31 Day Challenge: Day Thirteen ~ Animal Print

When I saw "Animal Print" all I could think of was tiger stripe, cheetah spot, or zebra stripe. I could have used the excuse to use my new MoYou plate with the tiger on it, but I really didn't want to do tiger, cheetah or zebra. I wanted to do something different. But what? Well looking at what Chalkboard Nails did a couple years ago gave me wonderful inspiration! She did a beautiful blue rainforest frog with black spots. Not wanting to do the exact thing she did I googled images of tropical fish. There are a lot of gorgeous fish out there but this one caught my eye.

The consensus seems to be it is either a Koran Angelfish of a Juvenile Emperor Angelfish. Both are very similar, just the Emperor's stripes tend to be more circular, more like a fingerprint. The electric blue edging is what attracted me to it. Here is my take on it:

I love it. I think if I ever do this again I'll make the black stripes thicker but that's about it. NYC "Skyline Blue", Sinful Colors "Endless Blue", and Stripe Rite in Black and White. To make the tips brighter I first sponged Wet n Wild "White Creme" then "Endless Blue" on top to make it more electric. Almost like a mini gradient. Here's a pic of the nails and the fish all in one.

Polishing All Day...

Yeah, real life sucks and keeps getting in the way of polishing. I mean, I've been going weeks with naked nails. Can you believe that? NAKED! Anyway, in hopes of breaking this downward spiral I had to get something on my nails. Flipping thru my stamping plate binder I caught on BM 301. Rays of sunshine. Hmm, I wonder if I could do a rising and setting sun. Maybe even try a double stamp, yellow and orange rays. So starting with a base of New York Color "Skyline Blue" with a gradient half way up on the thumb and pinky in Orly "Blue Collar" and barely at the base on the index and ring. I left the middle with no gradient because that one should be the noon nail. I also stamped on the middle finger half way up the nail, then switched the stamp over and stamped on the bottom half to get the rays going up and down from the sun. I used a small mystery bottle orange to stamp with first then Sally Hansen "Lightening" just over that. Some stamped better than others, but otherwise I'm rather proud of my double stamping. "Lightening" was used again for the sun. A couple coats of China Glaze "Ice Cap" adds a golden shimmer over the whole nail.

Fuzzy Coat

I saw this in the store the other day. Now you guys know my thoughts on the "textured" fad right now like liquid sand, but this seemed different. There isn't any information on it on the posters in the stores, but this picture was shown:

Photo from ConfusingCourtney

Looking at that photo I thought the Fuzzy texture would be soft. Maybe some company has finally figured out how to do nail polish and flocking powder in one! I was so excited thinking of velvet nails. Well...no. Its still a cool polish, but not for any of the reasons I thought it would be. As cool as it is, I'm still vaguely disappointed in it. See more pic's after the jump.