Fancy Nails

I've recently become obsessed with the instagram account "nails2inspire."  The owner of the account posts lots of photos of insane nails, like these:

They're miniature works of art!  I especially love when she (I'm assuming the owner of the account is a woman) posts videos of the nail art being created.

I'm fascinated by them, but I don't even own any nail polish other than clear.  Then I saw that Anna Bond from the Rifle Paper Company had used a mixture of nail polish and gouache.

Brilliant! So, I grabbed some acrylic paint and got to work!

I still can't figure out how you do your right hand, but it was fun working super tiny.  I didn't actually have a brush small enough, so I ended up cutting some bristles out of a brush so that it would be small enough.  And, I will say that the paint started to peel off after about a day-and-a-half, even though I top-coated it with clear polish.  You can see the chipping here:

Real nail polish exists for a reason, I guess.  ;)

Nonetheless, I had fun!  In fact, I caught a case of the giggles while taking photos for this post!

Any recommendations on nail polish brands to begin my collection?  I know nothing about nails!

Thanks for stopping by!