Abstract Dreamcatcher Nails

Here is my companion piece to the dotted bow nails, a slightly less girly mix and match manicure in pink and aqua. I used a detail paintbrush, a cosmetic sponge and some rhinestones as far as tools needed for these nails.

Materials and methods, from right to left:
Thumb: Two coats of OPI's "Got a Date To-Knight," seal with matte topcoat, gold glitter gradient with Orly FX "Too Fab" on top 2/3 of nail.
Pinky and pointer: 2 coats of Sally Hansen "White On." Load up cosmetic sponge with Layla "Aqua Zen" and "Got a Date To-Knight." Blend onto nail with sponge so that the aqua is on the tip of the nail. Seal with regular fast drying top coat.
Middle Finger: 2 coats of Essie's "Mint Candy Apple." Painted design with small nail detail brush and OPI's "Black Onyx." Three rhinestones were randomly placed on design and sealed in with more top coat.
Ring: 2 coats of Ulta's "High Roller," 2 coats of "Too Fab."

All the colors worked quite nicely together, except Aqua Zen. I was originally going to use it for the center nail, but it was too dark to contrast with the black to make the design pop. It works well as an ombre color on the sponge painted nails because blending it with a light pink and a white is much less dramatic.

More pictures of the nail art:

(I made the bracelet too. The band is copper I sawed cutouts from and the stone in the middle is a piece of buffalo jasper).

Materials used: Ciate fast drying top coat, Sally Hansen "White On" Orly matte top coat, Julep base coat, tweezers for rhinestone placement, wedge sponge for ombre nails, Essie "Mint Candy Apple"
OPI "Black Onyx" little plastic card sleeve for painting/mixing, Ulta "High Roller" OPI "Got a Date To-Knight" Orly "Too Fab" Layla "Aqua Zen."

Ulta- High Roller

Normally, I am skeptical about store brand polishes (except for Formula X), so I was a little bit apprehensive when I got this as a free gift with some Tweezerman tweezers I bought in August. Today, I thought I might give it a try. Here Goes:
The first thing I noticed was how different the polish looked on my nails than in the bottle. In the bottle, it looked like a very fine small silver glitter polish, but on the nail I noticed that it was in fact a mixture of silver, gold and holo glitters in a gold base. Very interesting. One downside to the polish is that the glitters are not very dense and the gold base is very sheer, so I could still see the boundary between my nail and free edge after 4 coats. All the pictures show 5 coats.
However, one thing that this polish beats its competitors with is its smoothness. Normally, glitter polishes apply very coarsely and require at least two coats of a topcoat to get a satisfactory finish. This little guy, however, did not. It reminds me a little of the silver (like the element) particles used in some higher end polishes like CHI, or the ceramic effects line of Layla polishes. The finish seems very strong and like it will last some time without much wear.