31DC2013 Day 1: Red Nails

It's September once again, which means many of the big names in nail blogging are all participating in the 31 Day Challenge. If you're not familiar with the challenge, it's designed to stretch nail art skills and creativity: every day for 31 days, you create nail art based on a particular theme (various colors, patterns, and even media types are all on the list).

After seeing my favorite bloggers' results for the first few days of the challenge, I decided that I needed to get in on this fun, too! However, since I'm still new to nail art and my schedule also gets pretty crazy this time of year, I'm going to spread the challenge out over a couple of months instead. I know that eliminates what is probably the most challenging part of the challenge—having the dedication and inspiration to do something new every single day—but, baby steps, right? I'll still be working on my skills, which is the most important thing to me right now.

Anyway, on to the manicure!

Day one of the challenge was red nails, and I came up with this red glitter gradient that photographed kind of terribly but was quite rich and pretty in real life:

My camera completely flattened out the depth of this manicure, so you'll have to trust me that the glitter gradient at the tips looked much nicer in reality. I used NARS Jungle Red for the base color here (which I wasn't thrilled with, by the way—three coats and I still had issues with streakiness!), and then carefully applied I Love Nail Polish Bella to the tips in increasingly shorter layers to create a gradient effect.

If you're curious about what else the 31 Day Challenge has in store, there are some great little graphics over at Chalkboard Nails that show the full list!