Happy  Monday, all! Our March theme for #CBBxManiMonday is Spring/Green and because I'm neck deep in a random hyperfocus around doing a sort of rainbow gradient through my feed (my brain, I'm telling you...) I decided to stick with something springy in a blue color palette for this week and I'll transition into the green of it all next week. I don't think I've ever done a gradient skittle before using all one color, but I've really wanted to and with the stamping design I had in mind for this one it seemed like they time. 

Keep reading for more!

When I tell you that I pulled out a ridiculous number of blue polishes to choose the right ones for this gradient, I am not joking. I think I pulled out every blue créme in my collection. Ultimately I wanted them all to have very neutral undertones with really good saturation to the color and I wanted a really balanced progression. I am very neurotic, I will admit.

Anyway, I think I ended up with just what I was looking for using polishes from Dimension Nails (my favorite créme formula of all time, available from and gifted to me by NailStuff.ca), Sally Hansen and Color Club. For the Dimension Nails polishes (pinkie and ring finger) I only needed one coat and for the rest of my nails I went in with two coats. I also decided, sort of on a whim, that I wanted to add some texture to the base so I also applied one coat Cirque Colors Spotted to all of my nails to get that speckled effect. 

To work with the spring theme for this week, I knew I wanted to use some flower images in this mani and also some other abstract details, so I grabbed for one of my favorite stamping plates for abstract designs - Nicole Diary L36. Nicole Diary seems to, unfortunately, be transitioning away from stamping at this point, but if you can get your hands on this plate I highly recommend it because it's a great one to have in your collection. I decided to use this pretty simple swooping lines image across all of the nails in black and I shifted the direction and placement across the mani so that it would almost give the appearance of it continuing across my entire hand. For the flowers, I used white stamping polish and chose a different one for each nail and I chose with image went on which nail based on the size. Finally, I wanted to add a little bit more white to the design, so I used this small sort of speckled image to just add a little bit of interest at the corners.

Once I was happy with the design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a layer of matte top coat to bring down the shine and sort of  bring the whole mani together. And voila!

I'm actually really, really happy with how this came together and immediately it makes me want to do a whole bunch more of these one color gradient skittle mani's. I love how subtle it ends up being and I'm definitely considering trying out some sort of green version of this style of design soon - so keep an eye out!

Be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK today for more #CBBxManiMonday nail art! 

Thanks for reading!