Happy 4th of July Gradient Dots Manicure

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! I got home from the gym yesterday with a butter LONDON box tucked into my storm door. Gotta love 30% off sales! So there I sit with the beautiful cobalt blue Blagger in my hand on July 3rd, and am hit with a patriotic nail art idea. 

Sarah from Chalkboard Nails posted an awesome gradient dot mani over on her blog. (check out her post here) It is beautiful, dramatic, and above all simple. At least she made it seem simple. Since I am not a gifted nail artist, I decided to give it a go.

I started with 2 coats of the fabulous butter LONDON Blagger, then dotted on large white dots with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls near the tips of my nails with the flat end of a bamboo kabob stick. (Working with what I've got!) Next, I used a small dotting tool to add some white dots near the base of the nail. Lastly, I repeated the dotting process with Zoya Sooki. 

Look at that! Nail art! And I think it looks pretty decent. Happy 4th of July guys!!

OPI White to Blue Gradient Mani and Super Bass Shatter.

Gradient manis and tutorials have been popping up everywhere, and as I said in my last post, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls was like a blank canvas mocking me and daring me to slap something fabulous on it. I spied this tutorial and decided to see how it would look with $OPI Slushied from the Glee collection. 

I think it turned out really great! I am very happy with my first ever attempt. Next time I'll take care to keep the fading further up on the nail. I got so many compliments on this mani, even from folks who usually pay no attention to things like this. A few people even accused me of pulling their leg when I said I did it myself.

Then I decided that I hadn't yet used my OPI Super Bass Shatter from the Nicki Minaj collection, and the purple would probably compliment the blue and white nicely. I was also very happy with what the top coat added.