Honest Criticism: Essie After School Boy Blazer with Holo Stars

My favourite thing about the nail art community is that every single person is just about the nicest person I've ever met.  Everyone is so encouraging, so supportive, it just makes me so happy.  I'm not so rosy-glasses about myself.  I know I can't produce masterpieces every day so let's take a look at a mani I'm not so happy with, for a multitude of reasons. 

Things started off as usual for me - base coat, three coats of Essie After School Boy Blazer, a fabulous blackened navy creme, then the Love & Beauty Top Coat to apply my stars.  Even at this point, I had issues.  I was messy in applying my base colour which is never a good way to start.  Ideally you want to clean up the edges of the base colour with a brush and some acetone before you apply your glitter.  It gives you a better idea of where you should fit your pieces and I personally hate it when a piece goes over the edges of the polish at the cuticle.  When I actually got to the glitter, I didn't apply the first center column evenly.  Look at my middle nail: see how the middle line is wonky?  With these large pieces it's obvious when it isn't even.  It throws off the rest of the spacing.  I also got sloppy in pressing down all the pieces so even after two coats of Seche Vite, I had bits sticking up and catching.  And then the Seche Vite was bubbly.  But it is sparkly....

The Verdict:  The colour combination isn't amazing, the base colour isn't applied or cleaned up neatly, the stars are wonky and stick up in places and the top coat has bubbles in it.  I'm not asking for sympathy here or fishing for compliments: sometimes manicures turn out better or worse than others.  For reference, this is what I consider a good mani.  Even though the base colour bled onto the glitter on my index finger >.<

Also, I'm on Instagram now at @polishallthenails.  I wouldn't hate it if you followed me.  Sorry and thanks, depending on your reaction to self-promo-ing.