31DC Day 13: Your Cheer Yourself up Mani

Greetings everyone.

I really needed today's challenge. It's been a tough couple of days out in the real world, so I really need some nails that will cheer me up!

Ever since I got into nails, animal print has been one of my favourite designs. I like animal print anyway, on clothes, bedding etc, and the first nail art I learned was leopard print. However my favourite animal print is tiger. As I type this, I'm warming up under a tiger duvet. I've attempted various freehand tiger designs, but none of them wowed me. Then on Christmas Eve, I was going to the zoo (tradition. Long story.) and I wanted tiger nails to show the tigers. The nails I created made me grin like an idiot every time I saw them and they literally made me happy just by looking at them. 

So here is my 'cheer myself up mani', tiger print:

Is it weird to want to pet your nails?

 Yes, Cazzy. Yes it is weird.

I'm quite proud of these. Look how pretty! These are 2 coats of OPI Swedish Nude (the perfect off-white for animal print). I then sponged on some OPI Brights Power, followed by OPI Bronzed to Perfection to get the orange a bit darker and deeper. I put on top coat while the orange was still a bit tacky and brushed the nails a lot, which blended the colours together and gave the nails that soft, furry look which I really love. Stamping plates BM16 and Cheeky CH2 provided the stripes, and black Konad polish provided the, er, black polish!. I love that I have more than one tiger print. It stops all your nails looking too 'matchy' and uniform and makes it more tiger-y I think. I also had to make them matte. You don't get shiny tigers! Unfortunately I have a couple of white spots, from the dried matte polish falling off the top of the bottle. The good news is that I just started a new bottle, so that shouldn't happen for a while!

Anyway, these nails really do cheer me up and make me smile, and I hope you like them. If not, why not have a look at what others have done?