Lacquer or Leave Her!: The Digit-al Dozen Inspires Each Other--Day 4!

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Hello!

Today's the fourth day of The Digit-al Dozen's inspire-each-other week, and today I'm inspired by this manicure from More Nail Polish:

Isn't that a beauty? I absolutely adore the rhinestones across the nails. That got me to thinking...and my end result requires a little explanation, because it's fairly far afield from this one. Besides the rhinestone wave, I also love the way the nails were divided into two sections, and I wanted to play with that. I'm currently obsessed with the naked-nail-negative-space trend, so I decided to combine the two.

First, I used latex mani defender (normally used to protect your cuticles) to divide my nails--I swept it in a curve across my nail, and waited for it to dry. Then I stamped an image from Dixie Plates Lace 01, with gradient stamping--I went from white through different pinks, and finally to red (Messy Mansion Chalk, Dogwood Pink, Petal, Red-y Or Not, and Kaleidoscope St-04 Pink. I peeled of the latex, which left me with half my nails stamped, then lined with my rhinestone gradient. Here's how it came out:

Dixie Plates Lace 01, stamped with Messy Mansion and Kaleidoscope polishes

So, as you can see, my mani is pretty different from the original--but you can definitely see where the inspiration comes from. And that's the cool thing about inspiration--one element can really speak to you, and take you off into your own new direction.

If you'd like to see how I made this mani, check out my tutorial: