31DC2013 Day 14- Floral print

Today's manicure is very simple and modest, since I made this going into the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. We spend the day in quiet prayer and fast. As such I didn't want to have anything too bold or colorful (it's traditional to wear white). So I went with a simple french manicure and a stamp.

I hope any of my observant Jewish readers had an easy fast and a meaningful day of prayer! I could have scheduled this post like I did before, but I decided that I wasn't inclined to have something even automatically today.

Tomorrow returns to normal, but we're headed into chaos again soon- Sukkot! The convention again! Lots of adventure ahead :)

To see who else participated in the challenge today, click the jump!

31DC2013 Day 13- Animal print

I have a confession to make- I don't like animal print. Not leopard, not zebra, not anything. Hanna, on the other hand, had a field day and ended up doing skittles with a different animal print on each nail, so she goes first!

From left to right: Tree frog, turtle shell, Nemo (her pet dog, and she actually used fur he shed as flocking powder. Hannah is kind of nuts), and peacock feather. All freehanded.

I decided to forgo the traditional style of animal print and made myself calico claws.

I started with an off-white base, and then sponged random combinations of calico-like colors onto my nails, and then I went over it with a paintbrush dipped in acetone to achieve a fur-like look. Topped off with a matte top coat and viola! Calico nails.

These were inspired by my family's calico cats:

This was Chanla- our first cat. Unfortunately she passed away, but she left us with her daughter.

This is Tipsy. Who got her name from being a very cross-eyed and clumsy kitten, even more so than most kittens. She used to trip over her own feet regularly. Now she is a grown up and much more sedate lady, she's about middle-aged by cat lifespans. Still as gorgeous as ever, though!

For links to other blogs participating in today's challenge, click the jump!

31DC2013 Day 12- Stripes

Stripes can only mean one thing for me- braided nails!

This almost became disastrous, because I initially attempted to do it with texture polish. While the look was nice, it got SO CLUMPY. I ended up wasting close to an hour trying to get texture to work, before giving up and doing this. I may try again some time but only with tips, not a full nail. Less space for thickness to accumlate.

On to Hannah nails! Hanna decided to combine her rainbow day with her stripes day. Her photography keeps getting better and better, too- these are the crispest photos I've gotten from her so far! We'll make a blogger out of her yet :)

She also did a purple thumb, to catch up with purple day :D

To see who else has participated in today's challenge, click the jump!

31DC2013 Day 11- Polka Dots

Today was interesting, because I can think of a hundred people who could make a more creative dotticure than I can, and most of them are participating in the challenge. So instead of trying to do intricate work with a dotting tool, I went huge.

I used the back of a pen to get dots of this size, but unfortunately they got somewhat smeared after I applied top coat. Still, hopefully this look is at least somewhat unusual!

And sliding into home base mere minutes before this post is scheduled to go live, Hannah's dot nails!

I'm already at work, so I can't adjust the colors or watermark them, but I'll probably edit that in later for posterity's sake Fixed! Just a bit of cropping and color adjustment :)

Hannah has also decided to try and catch up on the days she missed, so she sent me blue nails today as well, which I have to say are rather awesome. For those and also for links to the other blogs participating in today's challenge, click the jump!

31DC2013 Day 10- Gradient nails

Gradients are pretty much a staple for me, so I had to think a bit on what I wanted to do to keep it fresh for the challenge. I decided not to get too complicated with it, and I'm pretty happy with the results. There are some flaws and my cleanup is far from perfect, but I'm still pleased with the overall look.

Also- this took fifteen polishes to achieve. Three shades for each nail. Plus the rhinestones of course :)

Funny thing about rhinestones: I haven't worn them in a really long time. When I fiiiirst started getting into nail art ages ago, I tried to incorporate a couple into one of my early attempts at freehand. It was awful- I was constantly misjudging my hand placement because I wasn't used to being careful where I put my nails. The would get stuck in my hair, I was constantly picking at them, the whole deal. So I decided that they simply weren't for me and scrapped any future plans to use them.

Now, years later, I try them again- and I'm just fine. I barely even noticed they were there, aside for going "oh hey, my nails look cool!" I guess in the interim I've become a lot more spatially aware of my nails, so I know how to deal with bumps. Also I wear texture polish every now and then, so that probably helped desensitize me. Well, I'm definitely going to use them in future designs!

Edit: HANNAH'S BACK! She hasn't had time lately to participate, but today she sent me a picture for gradient nails, so here it is (added in while I'm at work, so unfortunately no watermark)

She was in a bit of a hurry, but I still like how she made it look almost like a duochrome effect. Hopefully there'll be more from her as the challenge goes on :)

To see who else contributed today, click the jump! 

31DC2013 Day 9- Rainbow nails

Rainbow nails! I incorporate rainbow motifs into my nail art a lot, so I wanted to do something that was unusual even for me. I have done Nyan Cat nails before, but only ever on other people. Needless to say, this was definitely the subject of some odd looks at work :D

For links to other blogs participating today, click the jump.

31DC2013 Day 8- Metallic nails

Today I decided to keep it simple. This is a mirror-effect polish from an unknown brand- I picked this up in a tiny little nail supply store in Tel Aviv. I have not had much luck with mirror effects- I can't seem to get it to work over any kind of base coat, and it is absolutely unforgiving about ridges. Still, after some careful buffing I'm fairly happy with the results.

I added subtle accents with gluequins from the BornPrettyStore. I'm definitely going to wear this manicure again!

Unfortunately in order to wear this to work and not have it chip off right away, I needed to add top coat. This made the finish glossier, but it dulled the mirror effect that it had. To see photos of this with top coat plus links to everyone else who is participating in the challenge today, click the jump!