Nail Art Challenge Day One: Galaxy Nails

Hey, wonderful nail folks! I think I've got an exciting post for you today, so I'm going to skip the long intro and jump right into it.

I'm participating in my second nail art challenge, again hosted by Erica's Nails and More. My nail art really improved over the course of the first challenge, so I thought I'd try it again. This challenge has nine days (they're usually ten days, but the month of February is too short for ten), and the days are spaced out by three days per design. Here's what all we'll be doing this month:

Anyone else really excited for this one? I'm dying in anticipation for day 3, and I love gradients, so day 6 should be pretty fun, too.

A new aspect of this challenge is to use one unused polish (one you bought but never used, or one you haven't used in months) in each design. I'll talk about that more later!

So onto today's work. The theme for day one is galaxy nails. I've done these once before, and I was pretty proud of how they turned out the first time, so decided to switch up the colors for this one and use varying shades of purple instead of the typical white, yellow, and blue. This really looked better in my head; I had to re-do it a couple of times before I was even slightly satisfied with the design. I still feel like this could look better, but I was afraid of messing it up even more, so I stuck with it. 

Anyone notice anything different about my pictures? I decided to try switching to a black background! I'd been waiting to buy a black poster board to put in my light box, but finally I just pulled out an old black t-shirt and used it for by backdrop. What do you guys think about it? Personally, I think it looks much better than my white-background photos did.

And... let the photo montage commence!

We're required to do a photo using a handwritten sign to
make sure that we aren't using old pictures.

A different angle.

Another angle!

Bottle shot.

One more picture just for the heck of it.

A new aspect of this challenge is to use one unused polish (one you bought but never used, or one you haven't used in months) in each design. For this my unused's were Zoya - Kelly (part of the galaxy background) and Orly - Wild Wisteria (used to blend the black and the galaxy together). 

I used a boatload of other colors for this one, so I'll try to describe what they all are, but so many overlap in the pictures that it might be hard to tell which is which.

Base coat: Beauty Secrets - Ridge Filler
Black background: Sally Hansen - Black Heart
White galaxy background/stars: Sally Hansen - Hard to Get
Second galaxy background color: Zoya - Kelly
Purple galaxy accent - Zoya - Monica
Blend between black and galaxy: Orly - Wild Wisteria
Glitter top coat: Sally Hansen - Strobe Light
Top coat: Sally Hansen - Strengthening Top Coat

And... that about wraps it up! I hope you enjoyed my first post! If you'd like to see the rest of my designs for the challenge, make sure to follow here, 'like' on Facebook, and follow on Twitter, and don't forget to send some love to Erica's Nails and More, too! If you'd like to see what the other participants have come up with, check out the Inlinkz below! 

- Muffin