Beach Gradient Sand Mani!

The other week, after a particularly difficult few days at work, I took an impromptu day off (I had to use up one more day of annual leave before the end of the academic year) and went to the seaside! I'm not a fan of traditional beaches and sitting around sunbathing - I prefer wild beaches with long walks, that sort of thing. I went to Gibraltar Point near Skegness,  walked for quite a long time and had a small picnic.  Whilst there, I kept looking at the sky and sand and thinking about a nail design... 

I also lay in the dunes for a bit and dozed, and started thinking about how pretty the sand was, and about 'liquid sand' nail varnish, and wondered what sand would look like on nails. I took a handful of sand home with me in a pocket, and today, this is what I've made.

This is Barry M Huckleberry and Vanilla, made into a gradient. On my ring finger, I painted a coat of Vanilla and then dipped my nail into the sand. 

In the end, the gradient doesn't actually look much like the actual sand/sky on the day, but I still like it. I think pale blue and pale brown go really well together. And while it isn't as sparkly as I'd hoped, I do like the way the sand looks. I hadn't really realised how many colours there are in sand!

The sand felt really secure, and I'm pretty confident it would have held up for a day on my nails, but I decided to add topcoat, hoping it would making it really shiny. 

I was a bit disappointed with this though - it does look like wet sand, but it's less shiny rather than more shiny, and it looks a bit muddy. Oh well, it was a fun experiment!