Stained Glass Accent

Hey there everyone! How is everyone's Saturday going? Mine has been wonderfully relaxing with the exception of a few loads of laundry.

I am super excited about today's post. As you know I am participating in the flip/flop February put on by Jilian over at jilltastic nail designs, you can check out her blog here.

So today's challenge options were stained glass or accent nail. This was a rough decision for me...I knew I didn't want to just do an accent nail because I often do those and this is a challenge meaning you should challenge yourself. Problem was I have never done a Stained glass nail, didn't really know if I wanted it on all of my nails, and to be honest everything I googled for this technique was really not my style. And then I saw a super detailed super awesome design that was of a scene from a church window. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull that off but it gave me the inspiration I needed to refine my search. I finally found a cute dragonfly stained glass art piece that I thought I might be able to pull off. You can check out the artwork here.
Since this was my first attempt at this I decided to combine today's options and do a stained glass accent nail.

I started off with just one coat of Zoya's Zuza

 Then looking at my picture for reference I began to carefully paint on my dragon fly using some acrylic paint from a set my sister gave me for Christmas (seen above) and my thin paint brush 

After letting that completely dry I decided to do the outline of my "glass panes" with a dark blue sharpie (I could not find black to save my life). I am not sure if this is considered cheating because I didn't use black paint but I just new I wouldn't be able to outline it without messing the whole thing up (I am extremely new to freehand painting designs).

I am so pleased with how these turned out!!!! I know its not super crisp but for me this was pretty freaking good!

Here is a picture of the accent nail next to its inspired piece

Not too shabby if you ask me :o). Hope you all enjoy these as much as I do. Also don't forget to check out the other talented ladies joining me on this challenge journey

Thank you all for stopping by! Check back tomorrow for day three, pretty sure I am going to try my first water marble so it should be interesting!

Keep it polished!
<3 Jess

Nail mail!!!

Nothing like coming home from a long day of work to nail mail!

Finally got my Zoya polishes that I ordered last week from zoya.com using the zoya2013 promo code (3 polishes for $10!!!!). These are my very first Zoya polishes and I can not wait to get them on. I promise to post swatches asap.
OK so from left to right the 3 polishes I chose were Reagan, Crystal, and Akyra. Did any of you participate in this awesome deal? If so what did you choose?

Feel fee to leave your comments below!

Keep it polished!
<3 Jess