Fun Stamped Gradient + OPI Crown Me Already

I really need to come up with better post titles lol...

Hi guys! I've been saying recently that I've wanted to get more into nail art. I haven't had a lot of time or inspiration for it in the past week or so, but I sat down a couple of weeks ago, and decided to do some nail art while I caught up on Big Brother! :D I'm really into Big Brother this year but I'm soooo behind and have to catch up! Let me know if you're watching it too! :)
I did these nails a bit over a week ago but didn't really have a time to post them on the blog till today. :( I am itching to show you this because I really love it!

Anyway. My favourite type of nail art to do would have to be gradients or stamping. (So I've done a mani featuring both of those!) I can't often be bothered with gradients though, as they are quite messy and I don't want to deal with the clean up process! :P Stamping is also messy (mostly the workspace, though).

For my gradient I used a bubblegum pink colour from the Kmart BC Co brand, Shade 14, OPI Do You Lilac It, and Orly Frisky.

For the stamping I used this plate (QA66) from Born Pretty Store with their black stamping polish (which I LOVE). The plate was fairly good quality in my opinion. The image is kind of these triangle-y shapes. Haha. My stamping skills still aren't so great but I don't practice much so that's my fault I suppose. ;) I'm not good at placing the image lol.

I actually wasn't going to stamp over the gradient, but the gradient came out a bit weird-looking so I decided I needed to cover it up a little.

Lastly, on my ring finger I used OPI Crown Me Already, one of my all time favourite glitters! :D I only needed 2 coats of it, it's such a dense glitter! ♥
I actually lost some of this polish when I was staying at my auntie's house a while back. I had it packed with some other polishes and it leaked. :( Not too much, thankfully!

This time I tried a different method of cleaning up the cuticles for the gradient part, because it is so messy. I used some PVA glue! I've been using PVA glue for a while now as an easy removal method for glitter nail polish. (I recommend you read this post by Pretty Purple Polish about that!) But I recently read that you can use it for clean up also!
So we all remember in primary school when we used to paint PVA glue on our hands and then peel it off, right? It's the same thing! I just painted a generous amount of PVA glue all around my cuticles and skin surrounding my nail (making sure not to go too close to the cuticles - and don't get any on the nail!). Then I used a hair dryer on the low & cold setting and blew it on my nails for a little bit to dry the glue faster because I'm impatient (and it was late at night - ain't nobody got time fo' that). :) When that was totally dry I did my gradient as usual. Once I was finished with the gradient I just peeled off the dry glue and cleaned up whatever was left (which wasn't much) with my acetone + little makeup brush! :) Soooo much easier than trying to clean it up with a million cotton buds!

I feel like I've done a gradient in these exact same colours before with a glitter on the ring finger. For some reason, this is just the colours I always pick up when I want to do a gradient.

Do you guys have any colour suggestions for my next gradient? I need to get out of my pink to purple to blue gradient rut haha.

Thanks for visiting! ♥