Cheery Mani

Challenge Day 13 calls for a cheer-yourself-up mani. I've been itching to use both my Zoya Robyn and the spring images on BM-302. I couldn't decide between the bunny and the full-nail image of birds, snails and...what are those? "Suessian" trees? So I went with both in a skittle mani.

Obviously, Robyn is my base color, except for Kleancolor Metallic Fuchsia on my pinky. (It's much more metallic IRL, and so beautfiul!) I stamped with Konad Special White, and then used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening, and the fuchsia for the dots, stripes, and flower on the bunny nail. I couldn't figure out how to incorporate the accent/art colors into the full-nail stamp image, which is really the only thing I didn't like about this look.

Lilac Skittlette

Day 5 is purple. I had a delicious, el cheapo (dollar store!) Donna Michelle unnamed creme waiting to be used and I wanted to try a skittlette mani. I stamped with Wet 'n' Wild Wild Card on index and middle with...I have no idea now what that image is! I used a thinned-down striping brush and Wild Card (doesn't show up much in this pic), Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Disturbia and Sinful Colors Snow Me White on my ring finger, a violet Born Pretty Store jewel on my pinky, and a dot-and-drag hibiscus and dots accent in Snow Me White on my thumb. I really like how this came out!

Beware: User Error!

Day 12: Stripes
Let me clarify a few things straight off:
     1) The utter and complete ickiness of this main is completely due to my inexperience and not a reflection of polish quality.
     2) I wanted to do this nail art challenge to break myself out of the mold of just imitating others' good ideas, but I have found the added benefit: I am learning SO much about what does and doesn't work in nail art!
     3) I'm trying to stick w/ the 31 Day Challenge and do only Christmas/winter nail art for all of December, so sometimes I have to really s-t-r-e-t-c-h to encompass both of those ideas.

I was so excited to receive in the mail Floam from Ninja Polish--my first from them!

 
 I desperately wanted to use it right away, so I convinced myself that I could use it as a base for striped "wrapping paper" nails. Really, I should have used a base color, then just one coat of Floam, because to get as much opacity as I wanted, I had to use 3 coats of my precious Floam. This is a thicker polish, plus there's the sandy texture of the glitter...

I was not about to try freehanding stripes—not up for that yet! I couldn't find a stamping image that had stripes I was happy with, so I told myself that plaid is just stripes in two directions! Hence, Mash plate 39 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep. I will only subject the world to one pic of this awful mani:

I wasn't as careful as I should have been with the Floam application, so I had teeny glitters all around my nail that clung to my skin no matter what methods I resorted to in order to clean them up. The beauty of the Floam was hidden by the stamping, and even with two coats of top coat, the surface was visibly bumpy. I could lie and tell myself it's reminiscent of some funky, imported, textured wrapping paper from World Market, but...not so much. Oh well, another lesson learned.