Black and Blue

    And so it all begins!  The first design I'll show you is pretty simple, but takes a bit of coordination when painting your dominant hand.  Don't worry though, it's not that bad.  Start with our materials:

You'll need a nail file/clippers, a makeup sponge, and two contrasting colors of polish.  I used Revlon "Knockout" and Wet n Wild "I Need A Refresh-Mint"

    After you have everything you'll need together, you can begin.  Start by taking off any old polish you have on and shaping your nails until you like them.  I call this the "pretty nail" stage.

Like this!

Ta-dah!

Apply one or two coats of your lighter color polish (the blue).  The brand I used is pretty good, so I only needed one.  

A wedge shaped sponge like this works great.

Put a drop or two of the darker color (black) onto a hard surface that you don't mind ruining.  I use an old tupperware lid.  Then, take your makeup sponge and dip just the corner into the polish. I've used mine for other projects, but the top right corner is the one I used for this.

Press harder at the tip, and lighter as you go up.

Here's the hard part.  Before continuing, make sure your nails are almost completely dry.  The drier, the better.  Watch an episode of Glee or something.  Okay, here goes.  Really gently, blot the sponge on the tip of your nail.  As the paint is used up, you can blot higher up the nail for a cool gradient effect.  If you push too hard, you'll get really dark spots that look funny, so be gentle.  Do this on all your nails.  

The final product!

One thing to be aware of: sponging your nails leaves the polish feeling a little rough.  This doesn't bother me, but some people don't like how it feels.  Putting a top coat on should solve this problem.

Thanks for reading, I hope this works for you!  Comments make my day!

~Hannah