Remember when we talked about looking at the world with your nail eyes? How is that going for you? Are you finding your inner creativity or are you still letting your eyes hold you back? For those of you who are still struggling to get what I mean, let’s walk through some things together.

Take a look at this photo collage for about 2-3 minutes. Go ahead, check it out, take it in.

What did you see?  While there are no wrong answers, if you saw flowers and some random paintings, look again. How does the collage make you feel? Do you feel colors and textures in your mind? How about if I help you out a little by cropping in on one place in the collage?

Now what do you see? Look beyond your first instinct to see a petal. Can you see a beautiful nail? A nail with a gradual color fade or a contrasting French? Maybe a nail with soft illusions of texture in vertical lines? Let’s make it a little more challenging.

Can you see anything in this one? Do you feel the texture and depth in your mind? Can you see the dimension and color balance? This speaks to me as stripes, as waves, as a French in ocean colors, and as solid aquamarine nails with whispers of coral around the edges.

You have nail eyes just like anyone else, the trick is teaching your imagination to make use of them. Now that we have looked at a couple pieces of the collage, go back and really look at the collage and see what you find. Remember it is not always about duplicating what you see, as we all see things differently, but getting ideas from it and going forward with your own twist to the concept. Lay your preconceived notions of what you are looking at to the side and open the world to your nail eyes.

—      Holly

Editor’s Note: We’d love to see what you guys come up with from these two photos of inspiration. E-mail your designs (you too, Holly!) to editor@nailsmag.com and tell us which picture you were inspired by and how you decided on your design.