Black and White Optical Illusion Nails!

I'm kinda late to the party cos I've only recently discovered tumblr.  When I did though, oh the hours that were wasted.  Especially when I see a post like this and think that would totally be a good idea to start doing at midnight.  Oh, not so subtle promo: I am on tumblr and post most of my manicures, if you're into that. 

To start, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls - still my all time favourite white - and topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.  After I waited for that to dry, and waited another five minutes. I  taped off the tips of my nails with painter's masking tape and did the initial stripes using striping tape and Essence Back in Black.  Any black will do, this one was just at hand.  Once all my tape was on, I pressed everything down, to make sure I had no leaks.  This is why you gotta wait for everything to be super dry - you don't want to squish it.  Once I'd done all my fingers and the next coat of Seche Vite was dry, I tried lining the tape back up and applying the reverse stripes.  I did my thumb before giving up because it wasn't really working that well - it's super hard to see through opaque blue tape.  I resorted to free-handing the remaining stripes but I'm not happy with that either - not crisp enough.  And they look like umpire nails.  But at least they're different!

The Verdict:  Meh.  They took forever and aren't even a bit sparkly, so eh.  I think I'll try this again with brighter colours and clear tape, see if I can't get the second lot of stripes perfect.