An earnest attempt at striping

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently bought some striping tape. This weekend I decided to try it out for a manicure. It took a LOT of patience and I learned a thing or two along the way.

It's a bit tricky to tell with this lighting, but I used black, charcoal gray, light gray, peach, and white. I'm actually quite pleased with the way this turned out considering how difficult it was to apply the tape with one hand. 

Yeah, I think I ended up prepping, painting, and cleaning up for about three hours. Ridiculous, right? Well, part of that time was me being distracted by Netflix, but I've realized that in general it just takes me forever to paint. Is that true for you guys as well? Any tips to speed up the process?

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement next week! Until then...

Happy Painting!

30 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Tutorial

We did it! Well, maybe. I'm perplexed. Some people think this is the last day of the challenge and others are going with 31 days. I don't know.

I'm getting this out a day late since I ran out of time after finishing this design yesterday. I was going to do an apple tutorial but then pulled out my China Glaze Peachy Keen and decided I wanted to used it, so I did my own take on this tutorial by Jennifer Marcus.

Kind of cool, right? It's sort of like a tribal print, which I'm generally not too great at, but I like a few of these. It's hard to tell, but the light color is a pink from Sinful Colors.

Because I was going out in public and didn't want to look weird with only one hand painted, I went for a full on manicure. With the exception of my pinky (which was basically a lost cause), I actually think I like how my right hand turned out better than my left.

The lines are far from perfect, but compared to some of the earlier challenges, I think I've come a long way. This challenge has been difficult and tiring, but awesome practice and really fun as well. So, perhaps in a few days I'll throw in the 31st challenge, but until then, I want to thank those of you who have liked my posts and commented. The feedback means so much to me and has been very encouraging. I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with post-challenge!

Happy Painting!