Cult Nails & BeautyPopShop Rhinestone Tuesday Mani

Maria of Cult Nails (who is exceptionally fabulous if you're not familiar with her) and I were tweeting back and forth regarding manis last week when she came up with the fabulous idea of challenging ourselves to come up with themed manis! I wear nail polish all the time (with the occasional exception of short periods when I try to give my nails a break for a day or so), but I don't focus on super creative manis as much as I should. And when I do, I often forget to take pics! Awful I know, but life is such a whirlwind right now what can you do? ;)
The theme of our mani Tuesday is "rhinestones"! I love, love classy bling. I really do! Unfortunately, I have allergic reactions to most metals and it's gotten worse over the years, so my daily jewelry wearing has gone down dramatically (ugh hurts just to think about how much I miss my jewelry!). So, I jumped at the chance to bling out my nails when Maria suggested rhinestones as a possibility! 
I'm a huge swarovski fan. Can you tell given the swarovski-covered polish racks we released shortly after our launch back in January of this year? I had purchased a bunch of different swarovski sizes a while back for use on my nails and had barely touched them---perfect opportunity to dig in! I played around a bunch but I'm admittedly extremely hyper-critical of myself so after shifting around different swarovskis for far longer than I'd like to admit, I finally landed on this! I know it's not insanely complicated, but I really like clean lines and for some reason this really grabbed me after I arranged them this way. And just a heads up, my dad was so long yesterday I couldn't choose between photos after I edited my favorites so you get to see them all lol.





I realized after I took my mani pics that I could have included a nice or at least neutral background ... classy laptop in the background I know. I tend to do my nails at my desk so there you have it!
What do you think? I used 2 different size swarovski flatbacks in 2 different colors over Sheswai Hot Damn. 
Line from cuticle up to larger swarovski = Xilion Rose Provence Lavender in PLV5
Large swarovski at tip of nail = Xilion Rose Crystal AB (my fav) in CAB7
I prefer the new 2058 style swarovskis over the older 2028 because they have a slightly different cut. They have a smaller table (the flat part of the face of the swarovski) and higher profile which really makes them flash and reflect a lot of color. I love them! The only downside is that they do stick up slightly higher than the old ones on your nails which actually isn't a huge deal in my opinion with the super small sizes, but still something to note ;) I used 1 super thick coat of gelous over them once I placed them into the layer of gelous I placed over my solid purple nail and then another coat of topcoat over that so while it's nowhere near flat, it's not quite as pointing. 
So, what do you think?