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I achieved some positive and negative results with nails this week. 
Here are the manicures I tried out on myself, incorporating designs.

This one was supposed to be a sort of ombre design whose technique i learned from pearlsandpolish.com and I had to use a makeup sponge and sponge the colors on to make a gradient even though it wasn't actually a gradient because the colors were really different but they did blend together.  It was a nice effect not to sound to full of myself but I have to admit this one looked beautiful, the picture doesn't really do it justice though.

This one was a mixture of a design I got from my baby pearlsandpolish.com with a bit of my own twist it was whatever.

For this one, I painted my nails a nude color then did different sorts of tribal designs over it with a nail pen.  I thought this design up myself.  It turned out okay but I didn't wait long enough on some nails so they weren't completely dry and the pen sort of dug into it and looked nauseating.  But I did okay in the end.

These white nails were the base for the city skyline nails below, I just wanted photograph them to show the progress I've been making if you compare these nails to even my best manicure in my previous post, you can tell I've made a lot of progress which is pretty gnarly.  My brush control is improving so much.

And here is the City Skyline nail design which I got from this tutorial on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7tE6kwq8vM
Haha
I had to start with the sponge gradient I did in the first design which was okay but then making the cities I am so sorry I just ruined it.  I think I will come back to this design later.

What it was supposed to look like

 These last few pictures are of my sisters nails that I did, which was basically a disaster.  I actually started crying during this. My sister is really bossy and wouldn't even let me do her cuticles like that doesn't even make sense how am I supposed to do her nails if her cuticles are in the way.  She kept telling me what to do and yelling at me when she thinks I am doing something wrong.  It was really stressful and awful, and not a good experience for the first time painting someone's nails.  They turned out pretty bad.  Next week I hope to paint someone's nails who is a little more cooperative. 

One problem I have encountered is how I haven't really been able to practice shaping as much as I want to. Each time I file a nail, I shape it of course but I don't have nails long enough to practice almonds or points which is sad.  Next week I am going to start on other people's hands more and start with maybe some more advanced techniques??