The night is young, ain't no one gonna know where you been

This post is special for two reasons.
1) The first video EVER on Nice and Shiny
2) My 200th post!

Don't get too excited just yet! The video is very shoddy and unedited, but I wanted to post it as the first of more to come. Now that I have a decent camera that takes good quality video, I've been thinking about making videos for the blog. Also considering how much I LOVE it when other bloggers make them. The thing is... I don't really know what to make the videos of! I'm not a fan of my voice on camera and I'm not particularly chatty, so doing haul/tutorial/chat videos are pretty much out of the question (for now at least). But hey, I'm telling you guys this now so you can give me ideas! Saves me from having to think about it! It might be cool to make some DIY videos, but now that I'm in England and sewing machine-less that idea will have to be put on hold for a while.
Anyways, what I wanted to show you today is my nail design. It doesn't need to be said that nails are just blowing up right now. Which is fine by me as I've always been a fan of the insane, 3-dimensional designs that those Japanese girls come up with. SO COOL, although I don't think diamonds and bows and pom-poms would really suit me (if you haven't noticed, I've pretty much been wearing only black for the past few months).
So I wanted to do something cool with my nails that would actually go along with my current goth obsession. Luckily I found this beauty of an idea in some long lost folder on my computer.

I've been pretty obsessed with this design since I first saw it, and knew I had to do it for myself. While watching one of Gem Fatale's awesome tutorial videos, she mentioned how when she went to get her nails done that the manicurists were using acrylic paint for the designs, then using a topcoat to seal it. This got me thinking that using acrylic paint could work pretty well for this gradient design.
I went for a wander around Ikea yesterday and found some acrylic paints and cheap brushes in the kid's section by chance. I bought them right away as I doubt I'll be able to find any art supplies in central London that were cheaper than these.

I'm also going to do some paintings/artwork for my room, I didn't just buy all these paints for this one nail project!

The before shot. These aren't my real nails by the way. Right before I left Canada I decided I wanted to get gel nails done... don't ask why but I thought it would be a good idea. Turns out they started lifting the very next day! I had to go and get them fixed ON the day I was leaving, but even then they were majorly lifting less than a week later. I found a place in London that fixed them up in no time, and they still look great after 2+ weeks!

All you need is a good basecoat and topcoat, your acrylic paint, and a paintbrush.
The cheap paintbush I used has quite stiff bristles, so the it's not a smooth gradient effect but rather a scratchy, dripping kind of look (which I happen to think looks just as rad).
Basically all I did was, after first applying a basecoat, dip the brush in just a little bit of paint. Then paint just the tip of your nails, not going past the white tips. Wipe off the excess paint that's on the brush and carefully do little downward strokes, smearing the paint just a little bit past the white. Then you can put a bit more paint on the brush and dab a bit more on the very tips to get a more solid colour.
Here's the very sketchy video I made, just to show you how I did it. The video setting on my camera doesn't autofocus, you have to do it manually, which is why the middle section of the video is out of focus... you can still make out the general idea, right?

After the paint dries then whack on a few coats of topcoat. I don't think I did enough topcoat layers on mine as they started chipping after just an hour. Oops! Just make sure you have a good topcoat (I used Nails Inc.) and do at least 2 coats!
So that's it! I think they look pretty fierce, no? Don't forget to leave me a comment if you have any video ideas, or just anything you'd like to see on the blog! And of course, thank you so SO much for sticking with me for the past 200 posts! I know other blogs have way more posts, but I try to make each one special and of good quality... I hope it shows. I love you guys!!

Above is without the topcoat... I actually love the matte look that the acrylic paint gives. It would wash off right away though, that's why we need the topcoat!)