Silver Lining

I have been doing so much swatching lately that I had forgotten how much I love to lose myself in the creativity of nail art.  This manicure was time consuming and involved a lot of steps, but it was worth the effort!

The first step was to paint all of my nails with one generous coat of Zoya Kristen.  This step provided a good base for the next step, which was sponging.  Once Kristen had dried completely I used small pieces of makeup sponge to create a gradient on each nail with Zoya Carly and Zoya Zuza. 

The result of the sponging was quite beautiful, but I resisted the urge to stop there and continued on to step three...

After the sponging gradient had completely dried I used striping tape to create patterns on my thumb, index, middle, and pinky nails.  While I did do a gradient on my ring finger I ended up painting over it with Zoya Trixie and finishing it with a top coat of Purple Stuff from I <3 Nail Polish.

Once all of my nails had been taped to my satisfaction I painted them over with a coat of Zoya Trixie.  As I painted each nail I immediately removed the tape - if you wait too long to remove the tape it can and will cause some of the top coat to peel away and leave you with wonky lines.  Boo, for wonky lines!

Speaking of wonky - something went a bit wonky on my thumb, but I think it still worked out quite well.

Like I said before this manicure required a lot of time, but I did get a lot of joy out of it so the reward was well wroth the work.

Thanks for reading.  Toodles!