Galaxy Nails

I know, I know. How dare I not post anything in forever. I am truly sorry. Things have been majorly hectic around here. Between working 9 days stretches here and Hurricane Irene and other issues there, well I can barely keep up with PaA.

Speaking of, this week's Monday Mani theme was Galaxy inspired nails. And after posting my mani a tutorial was requested. I've never done an actual tutorial but I figured I'd give a pic-torial a whirls. So, here goes nothing!

To start, you're going to need some polishes. I'm using Nic's Sticks Silver-ella, Finger Paints Gallery Glam, Seeing Stars (a Hungry Asian franken), Claire's Mystical, and Nicole's Make U Smile. I didn't even use any other art tools. At most I had a piece of paper to dab off excess polish.
(all pics are clickable to enlarge)

I did 2 coats of Gallery Glam as my base color. It's a very deep bluish purple.

Up next I used Silver-ella to do the dust trails. I started by brushing off the excess that came out. I wanted to make it look as much like sponging as possible without having to go through the extra steps of finding and using a sponge.

Using just the end of the bristles I dabbed a trail across each nail. Vary the pattern in any way you desire.

Next I used Seeing Stars, which is holo and dark royal blue colored glitters in clear base. I more or less followed the same process as with Silver-ella and the same pattern in a semi sloppy manner. Again, going for the sponging look without the sponge.

Then I used Make U Smile to add larger "stars" in the open areas. I worked the brush in the bottle to get some of the larger hex glitters onto the tip so I could strategically place them where I wanted. Bonus of this polish was that it also has smaller silver glitters that ended up in random places giving some "stars" a more distant appearance.

Then to add just a touch more sparkle and to darken up a few spots I used Mystical (a dark, superfine blue and purple glitter in clear base). I just dabbed it over any spot I though turned out a bit too light or needed something extra. The first 2 nails have it, the 3rd not yet.

And finally some topcoat to seal it all together and Ta-Da! Far out spacey Galaxy Nails =)

And here's the picture that inspired the tutorial. 

I hope this is informative enough to help anyone who is interested in giving this look a try. Obviously any of these polishes can be substituted by other colors, brands, etc. Who knows, you may end up coming up with a better combination. I'd love to try this again using some other colors, maybe with something kind of pearly. I'm also curious as to how holo-y Silver-ella will look in the sun tomorrow LoL