The Polished Bookworms: February 2015

Hi everyone. I'm a day late posting my mani for The Polished Bookworms February book choice. The most voted for book for February was The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I was very excited when it was chosen because it's been on my to-read list for a while now. I did enjoy the story overall, but it did frustrate me quite a bit as well. Even so, I intend to finish the series. It's an interesting story and I want to know what's going to happen next. Although interesting, it was difficult for me to find inspiration for my mani right away. I kept going back and forth on various ideas, but I couldn't settle on anything. Anyways, this is what I came up with at the last minute.

I took inspiration from the maze walls. The walls were described as cracked gray stone covered in ivy. So to start off, I painted my nails gray with 2 coats of e.l.f. nail polish "Misty Haze". I applied some matte topcoat to have a smoother surface to paint on. I sponged on some white, black and gray acrylic paint to my nails; trying to get it to look like stone. Again, I applied matte topcoat over the sponging in case I made a mistake. Good thing too, because I ended up making a mistake. So afterwards, I painted on some cracks on the walls with black paint, and highlighted around them with gray. I added the ivy and moss last, but I added to much moss and had to take some off. I used a cotton ball with alcohol to wipe some of it off. To finish, I just added topcoat.

Glossy:

Matte:

To be honest, I didn't really like how they came out. The only thing I was probably pleased with was how the sponging looked, because it did look like stone. I think I should've painted the wall cracks with dark gray instead of black, they just look too harsh. Also, the ivy wasn't that nice looking. Hopefully, next month it will be easier to find inspiration and it won't be last minute.

Well thanks for stopping by guys, I hope you enjoyed this second post of The Polished Bookworms. Stay tuned for next month's read which will be Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. If you'd like to join The Polished Bookworms, you still can. I've added the links below if you're interested.
-Ana

The Polished Bookworms: Instagram, Facebook Group, Facebook Page

Acrylic Paints Used:
Apple Barrel White
Apple Barrel Black
Apple Barrel Melted Chocolate
Apple Barrel New Shamrock
Apple Barrel Lime Tree
Craftsmart Grey

An InLinkz Link-up