Purple Gradient Aztec Nails

Arden: Sorry, dear readers!  We've been majorly derelict in blogging the last week.  Life got crazy!  But hopefully we're back on track now.

Today I have another not 100% successful nail art manicure to share.  It started with a gradient.  An awesome FOUR COLOR gradient.  I'm still pretty jazzed about my Julep Eden polish, and was looking to use it in a manicure.  I thought, "Hey, I've got a lot of shades of purple polish now.  Why not try a gradient with as many purple polishes as I can fit on my fingers?"  So I did!

I ultimately went with four purple polishes (listed from light to dark):

Sally Hansen I Lilac You
L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented
Zoya Mira
Julep Eden

I followed it up with a matte top coat (Essie Matte About You), because I always think gradients look cool mattified.  (Though as you can tell on my pointer finger, sometimes matte coats also cause the tip of your nail to look not-so-good.)

I wore these for a day, and then was like, "I'm gonna draw something on top of them!  I've never done any kind of Aztec nail design-- it can't be that hard, I should try that!"

Oh, such a mistake. 

I found a design I liked on Pinterest that seemed deceptively easy.  All you had to do was draw on white lines using a striping brush!  How hard could it be?

Things started ok.  My thumb looked pretty good.  My pointer finger was ok.  Then the wheels fell off the wagon.  By my ring finger I thought, "WHAT AM I DOING???"  By the pinky, I was just hoping not to accidentally dip my finger into the white polish.

Here, see for yourself:

In fairness, from far away they didn't look too terrible.  It was just up close that they looked like I'd allowed a 5-year-old to draw on my fingers with White Out.

Lesson learned: I need to practice A LOT more with drawing lines/patterns on my fingers using striping brushes.  Lesson #2: some Pinterest pins should come with a "Don't Try This At Home" warning.

What about you guys?  What new things have you been trying lately? Were you

successful?  Let us know!