Two challenges.....

Hello and good morning! Sorry for being MIA this week; things got a little crazy from Wednesday on and I haven't been able to post anything. I don't have pics of Pink Wednesday mani, but that's mainly because I didn't do anything special aside from do a pink mani. I wore Let me Entertain You from OPI, you can check under my OPI Swatches tab if you want to see what it looks like :P

I do have two challenges to show you, numbers 1 and 25. I'll start with 25 first, inspired by fashion. I pulled this inspiration right from the Missoni for Target line that was released just recently: zig zags! Now, I don't normally wear zig zags at all, they're just not flattering on me, but I thought they would make a cute mani. To start, I did a base color of 2 coats of Shorts Story from OPI.

I topped with SV and let that dry before moving on to the next color. Now, for I tape mani, I would usually use Scotch tape. Unfortunately, I've found that my craft scissors tend to shred Scotch tape, so for this I used blue painter's tape. I don't like using it since I can't see through it, but that's not a huge deal since I'm not lining up edges or anything. Here's what I used:

So, cutting the tape right off the roll, I taped off at angle and applied San Tan-tonio from OPI.

I'm still unsure of how I feel about this color on my nails, but it looks fab on my mother :P This is literally the first time I've ever worn tan; I usually stick to my bright colors.

Taped off again a little further up the nail and No Room for the Blues from OPI this time.

Taped off one last time and used Flit a Bit from OPI. Now, I should tell you that I topcoated in between every color so they would dry faster. This made for a rather thick bit of polish on the nail, so this mani barely lasted the day I did it. But it looked cool, I thought :P

Challenge #1 is what's currently on my nails, red nails. I took this opportunity to try on of my newest prettys: Zoya's Jem from the Smoke and Mirrors collection. This isn't red so much as red violet. Zoya describes it as "A dark red-toned purple base with metallic dark pink highlights and subtle gold duochrome flecks". It certainly looks like that in the bottle, but on the nail.... wow! I love this color! My husband even noticed how gorgeous Jem is!

As always, the formula is smooth as silk and easy to apply. I got full opacity in two coats. Topped with Poshe. My pics don't do Jem justice, since the weather has been pretty crappy here all weekend.

And there you have it! Enjoy your Sunday!