52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - Zig Zag + Dark and Grungy

Oh my goodness, it's the last mani of the 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge! I can't believe it has been a whole year since it started, and I really can't believe that I managed to finish! I have another challenge coming up with the wonderful Nail Tarts, so things won't be changing much around here. This one is going to be totally awesome, and I am just so excited for it, so stay tuned. For this week's challenge, the prompts are zig zag and dark and grungy. I grew up in the 90s, so grungy is not hard for me lol. Although, I was determined to use and unswatched polish in the manicure, so that added a little bit of a challenge. I'm still trying to get rid of my neverending pile of untried polish!

I wound up using The New Black Elephant Hide for my base. It is from their Safari collection and is a black base filled with gold glitters. After that, I used my Loki's Nail Vinyls to create the zigs (not so much zag here lol), and painted over them using another untried polish, OPI Just Spotted The Lizard. I have had this polish forever and have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. This seemed lime the perfect chance.

It's a little dark, grunge, AND glam haha. Here is what The New Black Elephant Hide looks like on it's own. I used two coats here with one coat of Out The Door topcoat.

Thank you so much for checking out my very last 52 Week Pick n Mix post. This challenge has been an absolute blast and I really enjoy seeing what my fellow Nail Tarts come up with each week for the prompts! Make sure you check out what everyone did for this week!

An InLinkz Link-up

Ocean Nailart - Lunchtime Nail Fun!

Last Friday, I had offered to do my coworker, Angela's, nails during our lunch break. She gave me her favorite colors (blues/greens), and the theme - ocean. I packed up a selection of about twenty of my most ocean-y blues and greens, some great glitters, white, and a sandy shade to be used for any stamping. I also packed up a bunch of plates that had ocean/beach-y images on them. At lunch, we sat down, I busted out my selection of polish (a embarrassing quantity of blues and greens for someone to own...and that wasn't even ALL of them), and the plates. Then, I had her pick her favorites. She got to see how I feel whenever I try to sit down for a manicure. So many choices! So much glitter! So much shiny distraction! It's a wonder I ever get anything done once I sit down in my nail nook lol.

Pardon the quality of these photos. I took them with my phone under some crazy office florescent light. :)

Once she settled on her favorite couple of colors, I helped her narrow it down by which ones looked best together, and we settled on Zoya Tallulah and Black Poppy Turquoise (it's nameless but pretty so it's forgiven). Since I didn't want to make too much of a mess, I used my Loki's Nailvinyls aprons on her (she was amazed by those), and then I did a gradient using the two colors we had picked. While that dried, I had her pick out her favorite couple of images (also hard because I brought so many plates!). She settled on a wave-like pattern from Mash-50 and the fish and starfish images off of MoYou Sailor plate 10. I also set aside Mash-39 because I decided she needed mermaid nails too, and painted the tips of each of her thumbs using Rainbow Honey Aqua Crystalline. I stamped the images on using Wet n Wild A Latte Love, then we let that dry and I did peeled off the aprons and did some cleanup. After that, I slapped on some Seche Vite and we were all done. I am so stoked on how these came out, and Angela totally deserves to be treated to this kind of thing more often, so maybe I will try to make that happen. ;)

Angela took these photos with her phone later that day. They are slightly blurry, but show off the sparkle on the thumbs really well!

      

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I appreciate all of you who come to look and read so much!

Dr. Who Galaxy Nails

A while back, I ordered some nail vinyls from Loki's Nail Vinyls, and when Tara saw that I had ordered Tardis decals, she threw in a small strip of gold daleks. Eeeep! So, this mani has been on my mind for a while, and I finally had the chance to execute it. Yay!

My idea was to do a galaxy manicure and have the Tardis "chasing" a couple of daleks. So, I went to work creating my galaxy nails. The galaxies had to be purple-based of course - duh!! :P I used OPI Lincoln Park in the Dark and then sponged on my "galaxies" using Julep Margaret, Butter London Petrol, Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac, Sinful Colors Cinderella, and Pure Ice SuperStar!. I added one coat of Maybelline Precious for stars. Here is how they turned out. Pretty sweet, right? I totally love them. I loved them so much, I was terrified I would somehow manage to screw up my vinyls and ruin the mani, so I photographed them first. haha

Luckily, the application of my vinyls was just fine. Look at how cute the little daleks are! Ahhhh! I painted over top of the vinyls to add some extra detail using my smallest brush, along with my black nail art pen from Sally Hansen.

Oh, here is what OPI Lincoln Park in the Dark looks like on it's own. It is super rich and opaque. It only needed one coat.

Thank you so much for coming by today! You guys, I wish I was rich so I could buy all of the things I want. Tara came out with another cool set of vinyls that I really want. And the whole ramen plan isn't going to work. It turns out you can't have ramen when you are trying to follow the South Beach diet. :P Have a great day everyone!