Ok, I don't normally take nail pics in full sunlight

Ok, I don't normally take nail pics in full sunlight (because of shadows) but considering that I did something weird and I'm not sure how long they'll last, I have made an exception.

So... this time, you get a surprise visit from my Cindy hand! (In the nail art world, Cindy is short for Cinderella - the hand that does all of the work, but doesn't get seen). In my case, she's the left one because I'm a south paw. She doesn't always match the right hand, and is often used as the "test" hand for me to make sure that whatever I'm doing is going to look ok for the hand I'm gonna post. 😜🤣🤣🤣 However, today I made a point of dressing her like the right hand so she would be somewhat presentable. My poor lefty is never quite as pretty (though I'm a good bit ambidextrous), because she is my dominant hand and those nails are always broken and that polish chips first, not to mention the testing.

If you haven't spotted the difference between them yet, here it is: I experimented with a new nail shape at about 4:30 this morning. 😳😳😳 Cindy is wearing baby stilettos! I have been updating my Pinterest with a lot of nail art recently (that whole cleaning out my bookmarks and folder of screencaps thing), and I guess I felt inspired to try something new. To be perfectly honest, I've never been happy with my nail shape, and I figured it was time to put some effort into it.

For those of you who can grow your nails long and they will stay even and pretty, I am jealous. Mine have never been that way. They start to curl once they reach a certain length. Some curl worse than others, so even if I have done the same thing to them all, it doesn't necessarily look as though I have. 🙁 I'm sure that some of this is genetic, but also when I was a kid I did bite my nails for a while, as well as pick the skin at the sides a lot, so I'm sure there is scarring from all of the mistreatment. ☹️☹️☹️

Since the curling happens at my edges, I thought "What would happen if I just took the edges off?" LOL I actually really like the way my pinky and ring finger look on my left hand. My middle finger took the brunt of my picking as a child, so it will probably always look wonky. And my pointer finger is almost always shorter than the rest due to breakage, but it did look better this morning. At some point during all of my painting and prep, it got caught in my scissor and nicked, so I had to file it down even shorter. If you are curious about my Cindy thumb, it is still round (because who cares about her, right?!). 😆😆😆

I read that this is not the strongest nail shape, but if it doesn't work out, that's ok. It's on good old lefty for testing purposes. 😂😂😂 I treat my nails a lot like my hair - if I hate it, I will cut it off and it will grow back. No biggie. But out of curiosity, what do you guys think? Fight to keep them round-ish, or maybe go with the stiletto shape? The ones that turned out nice (pinky and ring finger), I'm really kind of digging.

Also, this nail art is one I've wanted to do for like, THREE YEARS. 😳 I usually don't just straight up rip off other people's work, but I have so much studying to do that I couldn't dedicate my brain power to ideas today. Below is a link is to the blog where I first saw this, and I basically just copied what she did (not exactly, but so very close). She is one of my favorite nail bloggers, so hopefully it would be seen as flattery and not me taking credit for her work, especially since I am minding my internet manners and giving her credit for the idea.

Anyway, I'm off. I've got my nails done for the week, and Calculus is calling me. I'll be back later. ❤

Linky link:  https://www.thenailasaurus.com/2014/02/lacquer-legion-adoration-nail-art.html?

Nail pic! Woohoo! 😃

Nail pic! Woohoo! 😃

So this may not look that spectacular, but I tried a new nail art technique and unlike my nail fail the other day it turned out great. This is something that I've wanted to try for ages, but due to my packed schedule and never really feeling like I had time to "play" I just didn't get to it. I guess I'll go ahead and clue you guys in: The thing I wanted to try was gradient stamping!

The background image is stamped, but with 3 different polish colors (ranging from blue to green). It's done like regular stamping except that you put your chosen colors down in whatever pattern you want (as opposed to just one color covering the image) and then you scrape the excess polish off. I found that I needed to use a light hand so I could mix the colors during the scrape. Stamping polish notoriously dries fast (meaning that if you aren't quick, you can't pick it up on your stamping head - and even if you can, it might be too dry to stick to your nail), so you've gotta be quick. I scraped over each of these backgrounds about 3 times to get a nice gradient.

I tried this over white because I wanted to be able to see just how good of a job I did (or didn't) do. I'm not usually a fan of wearing white polish, but it's summer and these are bright so that's ok. I ALMOST decided to wear just the gradient, but by later in the afternoon I was like "Nah. Where's the fun in that?" 🤣🤣🤣

It feels kind of like a cop-out that I chose to wear another unicorn so soon, but I feel like this background was screaming for her. The plate was sitting on my table from being used previously and when I saw her little happy self - I just knew. 🦄🦄🦄 After that it was easy enough to paint in some stars for color variety.

Anyway, that's my mani for the week. I have no idea if / when I'll get to paint again, but I'm hoping that I will have time at least every weekend. It is such a stress relief and I don't really have any other creative outlets at the moment so I need this in my life. 💅💅💅😁😁

It's late so probably no one will see these...

It's late so probably no one will see these, but that is kind of ok.  🤣🤣🤣  I like them because I like puke colors and nature, but I know that is not everyone's cup of tea.  😜  Anyway, I've decided that these are leaf cells.  If you look closely you can see some mitosis happening.  Yay for biology!  And spring!  😄😄😄  (This totally counts as a spring mani, right?  😆)

Gradients look SO NICE, but I've never been that great at them.  The sponge method doesn't work well for me because my C-curve is so strong that the edges of my nails usually don't get coated in polish.  🙁  There is a new stamping plate out - Make Your Mark 03 by Lina Nail Art Supplies - that has a blank rectangle in it.  The first time I saw the plate was on Instagram and a girl was putting stripes of polish in it and then swiping a couple of times to mix them to create a gradient.  It turned out GREAT.  Needless to say I had to have it.

So my left hand (my practice hand) doesn't look quite as nice as this one, but I gotta say that this method is pretty effective for gradients.  The polish that gets picked up on the stamper is super thin so doing a few layers builds it nicely.

Weirdly, the only thing I ended up painting on these was topcoat.  I did three thin layers of white, and then 2 - 3 of my yellow / green mix, and then the pattern, ALL WITH THE STAMPER.  😳  If you don't like the feel of thick polish then maybe you would like this, but you'd need liquid latex or tape or something to keep from having to drench your skin / nails in acetone trying to clean up the mess (which is what I did - woohoo for not planning!)

I tend to like thicker layers on my nails because they are thin and I clean a lot because of all of my ani-pals, so thicker coats protect my nails and stay on longer.  My nails feel almost naked right now and I'm not down with it.  I keep also feeling like this whole mani is gonna flake right off so I decided to get a pic and post it before I destroyed them.

Anyway, what do you guys think?  Too fugly for spring?  😜😆🤣