I actually coaxed myself into trying more nail art for the 4th. If you recall my first nail art post, you know that the aptitudes necessary for this pursuit are not in my skill set. That's why the coaxing.
Red, white and blue. I selected polishes and gathered some materials together...
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| what I used, left to right: Seche Rebuild treatment basecoat, Sinful Colors Energetic Red, dotting tool with tiny tip, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Blue Year's Eve, Orly Sec 'n Dry, Seche Vite topcoat... in the foreground are french manicure adhesive nail guides (I used the crescent shape) and tweezers |
I applied basecoat and then Sinful Colors Energetic Red. This is a honey of a polish! It is a deeply saturated snapping bright medium tomato red with watermelon/guava-esque overtones, so it kind of straddles the line between red and coral. It applies like buttah, smoothly and evenly, no pooling no flooding. Which is a good thing because it is so well-pigmented that if you get it where you don't want it you have to work pretty carefully to remove all traces. Energetic Red dries to a glossy finish and is very nearly a one coater! I was très impressed with the performance of this inexpensive mainstream drugstore polish. You go, Sinful Colors! I took a pic while I only had one coat on to show the excellent coverage...
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red at ONE coat, no topcoat |
I had swatched and worn Energetic Red once before and took photos then so I have some to show you. This is Energetic Red at two coats over basecoat with Seche Vite topcoat...
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
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| at the window... |
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
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| Sinful Colors Energetic Red |
Nice one, eh? I used two coats of Energetic Red as base for the nail art, same as above only sans the Seche Vite. I topcoated it with Sec 'n Dry instead because it is much thinner than Seche and I didn't want a big build-up of polish on the nails I was going to decorate. That's right, I said "nails." 'Cause I only decorated two on each hand, the ring finger and the thumb.
Why didn't I decorate all of my nails, you ask. Or maybe you don't, because you're smart like that. *grin* But in case you do, I refer you to the "not in my skill set" remark above. This was my first time using the french manicure stickers and let me tell you there were many long sweaty moments of fierce open-mouthed concentration during the placement of those stickers.
After the Energetic Red and Sec 'n Dry were completely dry and set, I painstakingly applied the stickers about a third of the way down the nail from the cuticle on the nails I was decorating and pressed them down carefully all the way to the edges. Then, one finger at a time, I applied a thick coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White over the exposed tip and immediately removed the sticker. After I'd done this for all four nails, I applied a light coat of Sec 'n Dry over the white. I gave the blue a coat of Sec 'n Dry and let that dry completely.
Then I took more of the same stickers and applied them farther down the nail from the cuticle than before, covering up a strip of white at the point where the red and white met. I pressed them down carefully as before, applied a thick coat of China Glaze Blue Year's Eve to the exposed tips one at a time, removing the sticker immediately as I did each nail. I let that dry completely.
To decorate the blue tips, I decided to try and create stars, one on each nail, with Snow Me White and my dotting tool. I picked out the tiniest tipped dotter, and practiced making small stars on an old cd. It didn't really go very well and I was suddenly awash with a sense of foreboding that I would screw these stars up bigtime and put to waste all the trouble I'd taken with the stickers.
But no! I breathed deeply several times, in through my nose and out through my mouth. See, I have a tendency to mouth breathe. It's not something I'm proud of, but I find myself unconsciously doing it especially when I'm concentrating on something. Mouth breathing is not a good thing. Your body absorbs a lot more oxygen from the air you breathe when you breathe through your nose than when you mouth breathe. Oxygen is what keeps your brain, and the rest of you for that matter, alert and fully functional. So remember, youngster, just say NO to mouth breathing and YES to nose breathing!
Deep breaths, yadda yadda. I did the best I could with the stars. Their appearance is... rustic. Or maybe goofy would be a better word. But I did it. I let them dry, I applied a coat of Seche Vite to all of my nails and I was done.
That was last night. This morning, before I took the photos, I was coring apples and washing dishes in the kitchen and got a nice gouge in the polish of right thumb, plus miscellaneous scratches on other nails. All of which are visible in the pics unfortunately. But the design is so very rudimentary, the marks really don't detract much. *lol*
In the larger scheme of things, it's not much of a manicure. But sometimes the larger scheme just isn't relevant enough to worry over. Ya feel me? Sometimes the smaller picture is the better picture. In that sense, the small picture sense, I hope you enjoy my Independence Day mani.
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| LSL's deluxe *chortle* Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure (pardon the fibers) |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure, with gouge |
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| at the window... |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
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| Independence Day manicure |
So there you go!
While I was working in the kitchen, there was a dude on the radio broadcasting from Washington DC, down by the Capitol Building where the parades go by and the Washington Monument where they have the fireworks display every year. His descriptions reminded me of a 4th of July story to tell you.
This was way back when I was little. I couldn't have been more than 5 years old, so your mom was 4 and Thomas was 3. Fuzzy took all three of us down to the Washington Monument for a picnic and to watch the fireworks. This was around 1966 and the Vietnam War was a huge national issue. Folks were protesting it every chance they got, and what better chance than on the 4th of July in Washington DC? We were eating our picnic and it was just starting to get dark. There was a huge mass of people there protesting the war, waving signs and shouting shouting shouting. The police were trying to keep them from becoming a mob but this probably just made them more determined to fight the powers that be.
All of a sudden the police launched tear gas canisters into the crowd and tear gas went everywhere, all around the base of the Washington Monument on the side where we were sitting on a woven table cloth on the grass with our picnic, Fuzzy and three little kids. That tear gas HURT, it burned, made my eyes water like crazy and made me cough and gag.
I really recommend avoiding getting gassed if you can help it.
Anyway, people started running from where the canisters were spewing out the gas, huge waves of people were running and jumping over all of the people sitting on the grass who were there, like we were, to watch the fireworks. And then most of the people who had been sitting there on the grass, they got up and started running too, to get away from the gas.
Fuzzy whipped out another table cloth from the hamper she'd brought our picnic in, poured the water we'd brought to drink all over it and flung it over our heads. She was yelling, breathe through the cloth breathe through the cloth, and we scrunched up together with her under that table cloth. I could still see from under the edge of it, though, and could feel it through the ground as hundreds of people ran by and around us and jumped over us. I don't remember being scared, but it was really exciting!
We were all safe, nobody stepped on us or even touched us. We stayed there under the table cloth until most all of the gas dispersed. By that time it was getting pretty dark, and we stayed and watched the fireworks before we finally went home.
Hope your 4th of July is full of fun and fireworks and completely tear gas free!
love,
Aunt Liz
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