Scrapbooked Talons

A while back, V and I went wandering through Hobby Lobby thinking, "What can we put on our nails?" A previous post showed one result of that trip, with embroidery floss. For this manicure, I pulled out another item we purchased on that trip, from the scrapbooking section. These decals were intended to be placed on page corners, but I decided to trim them down to decorate my nails instead. ^_^

First, for a base, I did a gradient with two new polishes I just picked up at Walgreen's the other day: Sinful Colors Zeus and Neptune. Honestly, I could have kept this as a beautiful manicure all by itself! The two colors go sooo well together - I described it to one friend as the horizon just after the sun has gone down. You still have that pale purple color along the horizon, and the farther up you look, the darker blue it gets until you start to see the sparkle of the stars shining.

One thing I am annoyed by is my inability to clean up well at the moment. I'm out of pure acetone, and I just can't seem to clean up as well with polish remover. And while I can put on straight polish well enough to not need too much clean-up, I did this gradient by putting the two colors next to each other on a plastic palette, picking them both up with a fan brush, and then painting sideways across my nail. The sponging effect has its place, but when you want a smooth blending of colors, you can't get better than painting them together with a fan brush.

I actually did this manicure twice. My first attempt with the stickers didn't come out nearly this well. I had to figure out how best to trim them to fit my nails. Also, I need to buy some of The Best Glue Ever that Robin Moses is always touting, because these stickers just don't react well to top coat. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, they were! Came out looking gorgeous, though, and everybody who saw them thought they were awesome. :) This first picture was the best one I got for color accuracy, but I included a shot of my other hand as well.