Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : Z for Zebra

Helloooooooo everyone ! So it's the final theme today for the last letter in the alphabet, and today it's "Z for Zebra". It doesn't feel like it's been a month (including the 4 day gap when I went on holiday to Brittany) since I started this challenge as it's gone really quickly ! I'm going out with a bang with today's design though, so here it is !

I've done zebra print once before but that was a long time ago, waaaay before I started blogging and sharing photos on here and to be honest it really didn't look that great and I found it quite difficult to paint ! I loved the zebra print stamp on the Konad M-57 plate but I've gone off stamping recently and so I decided that I really needed to try doing it freehand again and I'm so glad I did !

I started with a base of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, which I left to dry completely before starting my gradient (to avoid getting annoying bits of make-up sponge on my nails) using OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Suzi's Hungary Again, and I used black acrylic paint to do the zebra stripes. The rough effect of the stripes were done by doing a "dabbing" effect with my nail art brush when painting on the acrylic, which I think really adds to the whole look !

I did think about maybe doing the stripes in white to make a bigger contrast with the gradient background, but I'm glad I stuck to the black because it really does look good in my opinion ! I even did both  hands, I'm glad I'll be able to keep my designs on for a bit longer than 24 hours for a while now as there were several days during this challenge when I would have loved to keep the design on !

Right, it's getting late now and I'm heading off to Ikea tomorrow so I'm going to go to bed to make sure I get plenty of sleep ! Goodnight everyone !