Zentangled nails

Hi everyone!


It's time for the last manicure in the ABC-Challenge, the Z. I wanted to end with a stupendous, awe inspiring manicure but of course I had to also think of a theme with a Z... All I could come up with was Zig-Zag and Zebra, which didn't inspire me to do something awesome and I started to get a little agitated... and then I realized another theme for the letter Z is what polishing my nails means to me. It relaxes me: I can focus on a small thing that is totally under my control and take my mind off matters that keep nagging when I can't do a thing about them. And while I'm not very good at things like painting or other "normal" creative hobbies, I love that I can create something beautiful with nail polish (and it's an extra bonus that other people like what I make ;) So basically polishing my nails is sort of my way to Zen (or at least a more relaxed, peaceful state).

Of course Zen is a very abstract concept so I decided to see what images were connected with the word Zen. When I searched Pinterest I came across something called zentangle: drawings made up of easy, repeating lines that make up patterns. While I don't think I would enjoy drawing with actual pen and paper, I immediately started thinking about translating those patterns to a manicure and that's what my final ABC manicure turned out to be: zentangled nails.

indoors, no flash

Of course I could have used a plain white base to add the zentangle pattern to but I wanted to make it a little more interesting. So I chose Il était un vernis #imanatural, a pale greige (gray-beige) polish with a subtle holo effect and painted two thin coats on my middle and ring finger. With ILNP Long Walks, another greige but with a little more color and tiny copper flakies I created a gradient, making sure the darker polish ended up at the tip of my nail in an attempt to mimic an old piece of paper. It took two rounds of sponging to achieve a gradient that I liked.

While that was drying I painted my thumb, index and pinky with two thin coats of OPI Lady in Black (also known as Black Onyx) and a coat of Seche Vite.

I chose an image from Creative Shop plate 06 that reminded me of all the zentangled patterns and stamped it on my ring finger using Hit The Bottle As Black as Night. I was going to stamp both nails but, as often happens to me with this kind of manicure, I stopped after one nail as I felt it was enough.

I actually remembered to take a picture with flash to show off the holo sparkles. I'm not sure they show up any better but the copper flakies make their appearance so I figured you wouldn't mind looking at another picture ;)

indoors, with flash

And of course all polishes nicely lined up:

Il était un vernis #imanatural, ILNP Long Walks, OPI Lady in Black, Hit the Bottle As Black as Night

Easy? Yep! Simple? Definitely! Do I like it? You bet!

I love the colors together and while it doesn't look much like old paper I think I prefer the colored base over a plain white one in this manicure. I'm kind of sad the pictures don't show the flakies and holo peeking through the stamped image. In real life they are way more visible and really catch the eye with their unexpected flashes when I'm hammering away on my keyboard or gesturing while talking. But even with the not-so-good pictures and the not-so-good "paper" I think I managed what I set out to do: create a manicure that I liked and that I would be sad to remove. Do you agree? :)


Unfortunately I haven't seen an InLinkz code for the letter Z but I'll update this post when I get it so you can see what the other ladies have done for the Z.



Il était un vernis #imanatural was bought from Il était un vernis.
Hit the Bottle As Black as Night and ILNP Long Walks were bought from Hypnotic Polish.