Contrary Butterflies

As always, coming in at the last minute for the final challenge of the month.  This is my favorite of all the pastel manis I did for April challenge for The Nail Challenge Collaborative.

 

I have been on a gradient kick recently and thought you might like to see how I make my gradients neatly.

This entire mani was made with one of my favorite polish collections, Contrary Polish's Love Lyrics.  The base is two coats of Somebody Loved.  It is a dusty pale pink with a subtle copper shimmer that you can barely see in this photo.  Please forgive what looks like dry cuticles.  It is actually dried PVA glue, part of the process I use for gradients.

I start by painting the PVA on the skin around my nails.  The next "secret" to my gradients is what I do with my sponge.

After each sponging I do, I let the polish dry on the sponge for the next gradient.  This hardens the edge and makes it easier to cut the end off in this fashion.  With the hard edge, when I cut it, it causes the new end to be concave, like this.

 
The sponge now "hugs" the nail, making it easier to get the gradient on the entire nail surface without too much mess.  Look at my poor thumbnail...boo hoo.  By the way, I wore Somebody Loved for three days before Creating this mani, which is why it isn't very close to my cuticles.  You can also see how well it it held up....except for my poor thumb.

Next I paint the sponge.  The top is more Somebody Loved.  Below that is Contrary Polish Play Me.  I hope to have a swatch of this gorgeous dusty purple with green shimmer posted soon.  On the bottom is Contrary Polish The Way I Am.  If you want to see this lovely olive green with purple glitter on it's own, check my post HERE.

So you can see, using the glue and concave sponge, this creates very little mess.  

  
What mess is there can just be peeled off, leaving very little clean up.

Finally I stamped with Contrary Polish Desert Fruit, LeaLaC XL B plate and dotted with with more Somebody Loved.

If you are interested in any of the beautiful Contrary Polish Love Lyrics Collection, you can find them at Llarowe HERE.  They are even all in stock right now.

What do you think?  Is it your favorite of the pastel challenge....or is it just me (tee hee).  Next months theme is STAMPING!  Can you tell I am excited?

Thanks for looking!
Tina