My Current Mani

This is the mani I am wearing as I type.  I am on a fall nails kick right now.  Probably will be until December.  The effect I was going for was fall leaves fallen on the ground.  If I did this again I would do the glitters at the tips instead of the cuticles because, well, the tips are "ground" directionally to me.  This would be cute, though, with some tree trunks growing up from the tips :)

I started with Nina Beige A Vue

See that horrible gouge.  Yeah, that is a big ol lump of polish to the left of the gouge.  I'll show you how I fixed it shortly.  The color in this picture is not accurate.  See the photo above for better color match.

Then I sponged from the cuticle 3/4 the way towards the tip with China Glaze Swanky Silk
Next I sponged the lower 1/3 with China Glaze Winter Holly

If I was smart I would have taped around my cuticles for this step.  This glitter was a ***** to clean up (as you can see in the first picture).  I love Winter Holly.  It is so densely packed with dark green glitter, but that made it difficult to create a decent gradient.

Next I sponged on Orly So Go-Diva, an awesome copper flaky.  The Orly covered most of the green glitter, but I knew with the denseness of Winter Holly, if I sponged on more, it would just cover up the copper "leaves".  (Think there's enough commas in that sentence?)  So instead I sponged on some Spoiled Show Me the Money.  The glitter in this polish is very sparse and a brighter green so created the gradient look I was trying to achieve.

So, want to know what I did with that gorgeous gouge?  First I let it dry completely then buffed it with my nail file.  Then I applied another coat of Beige A Vue.  See the pictures to see how it turned out.

What do you think?  If you look very closely in the final mani you can see a very small divot, but considering how horrible it was in the first place I think it worked out pretty well without having to remove it all and start over again.  See you next time!