First post showing my first few attempts!

First, just a bit of background. I'm currently a graduate student working towards my Master's in Clinical Psychology. Definitely a stressful time in my life, but I'm almost done! However, just because school is ending doesn't mean stress is - I've been trying (and failing) to find a job for months, questioning where to live, how to proceed since my degree is basically a glorified, very expensive piece of toilet paper, etc. Long story short, I was at the end of my rope - feeling depressed, anxious, irritable and just overall very worn down. One night while Facebook creeping (one of my strongest skills), I saw some photos of hand-painted nail art and loved it. After that, I started Googling like mad and that was the beginning of the end (of my financial security). I started trying to essentially copy some techniques I saw using how-to videos, etc. It didn't hurt (help?) that Sinful polish has been on sale at Rite Aid pretty much constantly. Painting different designs on my nails and focusing on that has been such a great stress reliever I've been amazed. When I had a huge paper due that was weighing on me, taking some time out to paint a couple of nails helps me chill enough to regain focus again. Or, I use it as something to look forward to when studying or doing assignments, for example - read two more articles and then I get to paint 2 nails. It's been a lifesaver. I've seen so many great nail blogs that have given me the inspiration for designs, I decided to document my progression. That being said - DISCLAIMER*** - I am not a professional by any means and I am literally just learning how to do this stuff. My first attempts are seriously shaky and my hopes are that someday I'll look back on this and see just how far I've come. Another hope is that other people just starting out with nail art will see that you have to start somewhere, and let it serve as motivation to keep going even when you suck! Well that's about all, I think I'll add just my very first new attempts at some different designs. Most of these pictures are going to be taken with my phone camera, so I will try my best but it may not be great. Any comments, ideas, suggestions - I'd appreciate the input but please be respectful! Hope you like my blog!

Peacock - my very first attempt! Also my FA at leopard.

Sloppy tiger stripes (I was still getting the hang of that) and I didn't know what gradient was yet, so I just tried fading the three colors together using clear - didn't work that well! Also a strawberry, which I smudged in the stem, and black with multi-color dots.

My actual nails, my FA at using tape to make clean lines/stripes. I used blue and gold, but the gold got bubbles in it so I tried to cover that up by using a gold glitter. Overall, for just starting out I liked the look of it. I'll try it again with different colors once I get better.

Purple houndstooth - still really shaky but the more I do it, the better it gets. I spent all day yesterday trying to perfect this pattern using the stripes/lines/checkers method I've seen online but just couldn't get it. Eventually I just realized that free-handing the squares and going from there was much easier and had much better results. Still pretty sloppy but overall I love this pattern!