Sometimes when I sit down to do my nails, I really have no idea what I'm going to do, but for this week's Mani Monday I actually had a pretty good idea going into it. First of all, I wanted to finally try out one of the new Crayola + Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Pastel polishes, since I was super excited to pick a few of them up, and second, I really wanted to do a gradient with some interesting stamping.

Ta da! The Crayola + Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Wisteria is a really pretty lavender shade that leans much more towards pink than blue when paired with O.P.I.'s Suzi & The Arctic Fox from last year's Iceland collection. I tried to keep the deeper shade closer to the tip so that most of the nail was that light lavender and I really like the look it gave. Both of these shades are really quite gorgeous.

To get this look I started with a thin coat of Wisteria and let it dry completely. I feel like that's one thing I had to learn for myself that no one really told me about gradients - if you don't let your base dry you risk lifting the polish when you go in with the sponge. I applied Wisteria and Suzi & The Arctic Fox to a makeup sponge and went to town with the dabbing all over the nail, blending by dabbing each layer. Once I had the desired opacity and blend, I went in with a thin coat of JULEP Desiree for a little subtle holographic flash and to really help smoothly blend the gradient. This is actually my favorite polish to do this - and one of my favorite all time polishes in my collection - because the holo is super fine so it doesn't overwhelm the look, but instead gives a really subtle flash and does a nice job on the blend.

I actually had a pretty hard time deciding what I wanted to stamp over this gradient, but I'm really, really glad that I went with this geometric design just at the tip. I've actually had this plate for a while and haven't ever been able to get the lines straight until now. The trick, I've found, is using a really dense stamping polish - I chose the Bundle Monster Stamping Polish in Straight Up Black - and pairing it with quite a stiff stamper. I used this stamper from Born Pretty Store and it seems to really help maintain the crisp, straight lines of the triangles. For three of my fingers, I used the simple two triangles design and then decided to add a little bit more of an intricate design to my ring finger that still really keeps with the lines of the other three. Overall, I really love how this turned out.

I'm genuinely really happy with how this mani turned out. I feel like there's something a little bit outer space and futuristic about it, but in a really subtle way. I'm definitely going to be reaching for the Crayola + Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Pastels more in the coming weeks and I suspect that this stamping plate is going to get a lot of play now that I've figured out how to use it.

As I have been lately, I teamed up with Jayne from Cosmetic Proof and Renee from See The World In Pink with an ombré nail art theme for this Mani Monday, so make sure to head over to their blogs to check out their takes on ombré nails!

Thanks for reading!