Disappointment, Re-dos, and Tie Dying!

So, today while I was at work, after I chipped a couple nails as well as some of my peacock manicure, I was staring at my nails and trying to decide what I was going to do with them this evening. A couple ideas floated through my mind, including some crazy designs I've seen tutorials on. But since tomorrow is my first day of internship, I thought that perhaps I shouldn't go *too* crazy with the nails!

I finally decided on a gradient using four shades of purple. I painted each nail a different color, lightest to darkest, starting with my thumb and leaving my ring fingernail bare. Then, at the tip of each of those nails, I sponged on the next darkest color so that each nail had a gradient and they would all connect in a way. On the pinky nails which were the darkest purple, I used black for the darker color. For the ring fingers, I used the make-up sponge technique and did the entire gradient: lightest to darkest, base to tip. Here's how it turned out::

My problem was that my two lighter colors were both really light, and my two darker colors were both really dark. I need some colors in-between to make the gradient smoother.
So this actually was really bugging me, and just couldn't stand to keep this on my nails for my first day of term tomorrow!

And so, disappointed, I started again from scratch.

I'm really happy with my re-do! I decided to do a tie-dye technique that I've used a few times in the past, but I don't believe I've shared it yet. Here are some examples of when I've done this in the past:

So you can see that you can use a variety of colors and it tends to always come out looking awesome!! I learned this from a YouTube tutorial by PackAPunchPolish and it is fabulous!! This time around, I decided to document the process myself so I have a series of pics to walk you through what I did this evening!

After my Beauty Secrets base coat, I painted a one thick coat of China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted.

The colors I picked to use in my tie-dy were: Finger Paints Bronze Sculpture; Finger Paints A Heart For Art; China Glaze Rich & Famous; and I added China Glaze Exceptionally Gifted as well to help it blend better. Then, I cut myself a smallish square of plastic wrap.

Then, drip drops of each color spread out in the center of the plastic wrap piece...

... fold the plastic wrap in half so that the polish is folded on top of itself...

... use your finger to squish all the drops together...

... unfold the plastic wrap...

... then place a section of the plastic wrap over a nail and press down lightly. Then pick a different spot on the plastic wrap and press that onto the second nail. For tonight's project, I used one square of plastic wrap for each hand.

As you can see, it makes quite a mess on your fingers! You can easily use tape around your nail to make clean-up so much easier. I just didn't think about it beforehand.

I'm quite happy with this color combination! Pinks and browns are classic and actually work quite well for me as a redhead! BONUS: I can match my outfit and/or make up to this color scheme for my first day tomorrow if I so choose! 

UPDATE:

They coordinated so well with my outfit today! :)