Feelin' Blue

Hello Friends!
So I was looking through my nail polish collection recently, and I realized that there are a bunch of polishes I haven't used in ages!  I decided it was time to break out some old favorites and perhaps put them to new use.  This was the result!

So as you can see I alternated shades of blue.  The lighter blue is Essie Bikini So Teeny, and the darker blue is Essie Butler Please.  I haven't used either of these in quite a while, which was obvious when I pulled the brushes out of the bottles.  However, on the second coat of each polish they evened out.  I did a sponge gradient on the ring finger using both colors.  Not the cleanest gradient I've ever done, but it looks ok.  On the rest of my fingers I did a glitter gradient using OPI Last Friday Night.  I don't know why it's been so long since I used this one; it's freaking gorgeous!  I think I probably could have used another layer of the glitter, but the light tip coverage looks nice too :)  The other change I would make if I  do this again would be to add a layer of the glitter on top of the gradient.  As I played around with this glitter later on, I found that this glitter is rather thin on its own, so it would have worked nicely.  However, if you do want full coverage with this glitter, you can sponge it on and it packs a punch!

I hope y'all enjoyed seeing my experimentation with old polishes!  Let me know if you try something like this or what polishes you have in your collection that could use some love :) Hope y'all have a fantastic week!
~Mary Elizabeth

Summer Diagonal French

Hello Friends!
Summer is in full force where I live, so I decided to do some summery nails.  What better color to use than an aggressively bright pink?!  This design is inspired by Kelli Marissa on YouTube.  I thought it would be fun way to use a mega bright color without putting it all over my nail.

So for the base I used one coat of Essie Gel Couture in Fairy Tailor.  I took some striping tape and laid it diagonally across the tips of my nails, starting at the right corner.  Then I used one coat of China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy below the tape.  I have now realized that I need to buy a new bottle of this one because mine is SUPER lumpy and old.  After that I pulled off the striping tape and finished it off with Seche Vite top coat to give it a nice glossy finish.

So that is my fun, bright summer diagonal french!  I love how this turned out! I'm going to have to do this type of mani with other colors in the future.  I hope y'all have a great weekend!
~Mary Elizabeth

Hometown Gradient

Hey Everybody!
I hope y'all have had a great last couple of weeks!  This past weekend I went home to Orlando for a family reunion.  I hadn't been home since December so it was fun to get to see my family again and be in familiar territory.  One of my favorite (mundane) parts about going home is that I get to sort through my mom's nail polishes and paint my nails with some polishes that are not common among our collections.  One thing I noticed is that my mom has a lot of shades in the pink/purple range, and in general a lot of polishes in the warm zone.  I decided that while I had a different stash to play with and more time in which to do so, I would try to play with gradients.  I did 2 different gradients in my time at home, but I am only going to share one with you.  That is because the first one was almost indiscernible because the 2 colors I chose were far too close together.  You really couldn't even tell I did a gradient at all.  The second one, however, turned out quite nice! Here is my far more successful gradient.

So for this gradient I chose 2 different OPI purples.  The lighter one is OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, and the darker one is OPI Hello Hawaii Ya?  My mom has a whole lot of OPI polishes, and she likes the first shade I mentioned so much that she bought 2 of them.  Anyway, I painted all my nails with the lighter shade, then on the ring finger did a gradient of the 2 shades with a cosmetic sponge.  There are a crap ton of tutorials on how to do this on YouTube, so I'm not going to explain how to do this.  I am not super great at gradients because I don't do them all that often, but I was pleasantly surprised at how successful this was.  I think I need to look for some slightly less porous sponges in the future, because up close you can see some little speckles from the sponge in the gradient.   Anyway I finished it off with Seche Vite top coat, which I am slowly falling back into love with.

So that is my gradient using my mom's polishes!  I really need to do these more often because this one came out so nice.  Hope y'all have a fantastic weekend!
 ~ Mary Elizabeth