Challenge Accpeted - Part 6

Happy weekend! I hope everybody is enjoying theirs. It's been cloudy all day but no rain in Rio Rancho. It rained cats and dogs up by the mountains this afternoon, but nothing out on the mesa. I was up by the mountains because my bestie, Wendi, got her nose pierced and it looks great! A couple days ago she mentioned she was thinking about it, and then another friend and I egged her on and she decided to do it today. She did so good - not even a squee nor a tear did Ms W shed!

Today I give you the weekly Polish Hoarder Disorder challenge - Color Accent. We are to use black, gray and white with one accent color of our choice. I had a hard time with this one. I wasn't feeling very inspired all week and though I ended up submitting two looks, the first wasn't my strongest work.  Here's a LINK to the challenge gallery.  There's a lot of great entries this week!

This is my first entry.  The hubs and I sat down at lunch one afternoon and he had this really great idea.  Have the white as the base color to be the daylight sky.  The gray would be twilight and black would be the night sky.  The accent (ring) finger would have a setting sun with rays of light shining up.  It looked great in my head.  It looked great on the sketch.  On the finger?  Notsomuch.

In this one, you can see  I added just a touch of holo glitter at the very tip of the ring finger - it's supposed to be the stars.  If you click to make the image bigger, you can see the "stars" better.

Here's what I used.  Pure Ice Black Rage, Finger Paints Easel Come, Easel Go, Finger Paints Papier Mache, Sinful Colors Let's Meet and a couple different brushes. 

In theory, the idea was good.  I don't know if I was just feeling so uninspired that it didn't come out right or if I just lack the skills in execution, or what.  Either way - meh!

Now, the second look I like much better.  It was rather slow at work on Friday and I was by myself.  So, while surfing the internets, I decided to look for black and white nail art designs.  I came across a couple good ideas and then I found my inspiration.

I did all my nails black except for the accent finger (again, the ring finger) - that one was white.  On the white I used my dotting tool and made silver (aka: gray) eyes and whiskers and a red nose.  Then I painted on a red bow: my splash of color.  This came out much better than the first submission and I'm quite happy with it.  It's cute. 

This is my submission photo.  I was really hoping for sun today for a no-flash outdoors picture, but there was no sun to be seen all day!  You still get an outdoors picture, just not sunny.

Here's what I used for this one.  Pure Ice Black Rage, Finger Paints Papier Mache, Finger Paints Easel Come, Easel Go, China Glaze Vertical Rush, a striping brush and a dotting tool.

I realized from this challenge that I don't like all white fingernails.  They're distracting.  Way more distracting than black fingernails.  However, black is a bigger PIA to clean up.  Oh, and so is that sparkly silver polish.  I did what I could, but you can still see it on my fingers in that second picture.  And one more thing - I waited longer than usual to put topcoat over the design because I didn't want the red to drag.  Well, even though I waited, it still drug the red a little.  A little side note about Pure Ice Black Rage: in the direct, bright sun, this isn't just your run-of-the-mill black creme.  It has little tiny sparkles, almost holo particles.  I've only seen it once or twice, but it's so pretty.  OK - one more picture...just for fun.

Finally I can rest with a design I'm happy with.  I can't believe this one was so difficult for me!  I had a dream early this morning that I had painted over my black fingers with pink polish - but I didn't remember doing it.  And then when I went to touch it, the pink came off in big flakes.  WTH?!  I guess I need to let go of this for a little while.  LOL

Coming up in the next week or so, you can expect some recipes (including strawberry cake, serloin and potatoes and pork chops) and some more nail art.  And beginning August 4th, the bestie and I will be posting in Workout Wednesdays - our struggles through an intense 30-day workout program.  FUN!  Speaking of the bestie...take a look at my banner!  She made that for me!  I love how it combines all 3 of the things I post about in the blog (family, recipes and polish) and she included a skull, too - makes me think of her. :)

Well, I'm off to watch Taking Chance.  My co-worker told me she cried from beginning to end - just great!  Good thing the hubs is out playing with his bestie tonight.  But that's not until I put the frosting on the strawberry cake - yum!!!

Listening to: Heads Will Roll by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Mood: Inspired