Summer Cabin Moonrise

Yesterday I just felt like doing my nails. I had been wanting to try making crescent moons, but after making one on my ring finger, I thought the manicure looked a bit plain. I have so many nail art brushes, but none of them are super fine, so I had decided to cut some bristles off of one to make it a really nice detail brush:

Since I had this "new" detail brush, I decided to put it to good use:

So, here's how I did this: I first applied a coat of Essie Protein Base Coat and then painted two coats of Rimmel Burgundy Flirt on all of my nails. Then I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly because I was going to sponge on a gradient. For my gradient I used Rimmel Burgundy Flirt and Milani Rapid Orchid. I put a stripe of each next to each other on a makeup sponge and stippled it onto my nails so that the darker color (Milani Rapid Orchid) would be toward the tips of my nails. I then took a dotting tool and made a large white dot on my ring finger. After I let that dry for a while I took the dotting tool again and put a drip of each of the red colors side by side on a piece of paper. I mixed them together a bit in the center with the dotting tool and then put a dot of the color to the right side of the white circle to create a crescent moon. I made sure the bit of the dot with more light red was toward the cuticle side of my nail so it would be able to blend in with the gradient base better.

After making the crescent moon, I thought the rest of the manicure looked too plain, so the idea of painting some silhouettes came to me. I took my small detail brush and some Sally Hansen Black Out and painted a house on my middle finger and a spruce tree on my pinkie. The black silhouettes were hard to see, so I took the same detail brush and Sally Hansen Golden-I and outlined the silhouettes. I am extremely pleased with the result. The gradient looks like a late evening summer sky. The moon has just come up and the tree and cabin are lit from behind by the dying sun. I finished off the manicure with two coats of Dries Instantly. OH! If you didn't know, I also have a Facebook page for Ten Digit Design! Just search Ten Digit Design on Facebook and it should come up! =)