Springin’ Sprinkles

If I have learned anything over the last year and a bit of pandemic life – and that is highly debatable; in most respects, I actually feel like I’m regressing – it’s that our existence is fragile, and we could all use a hell of a lot more sprinkles. I’m talking here about metaphorical sprinkles – those sparkly, too-fleeting moments of hope and joy and love and understanding – but also the real kind, the ones composed of corn syrup and cellulose gum and palm oil, and a certain childlike glee in having your foodstuffs adorned with the same.

It was with that thought in mind – “Want pretty sprinkles for sweet foods!” – that I placed an order for a beautiful mess of items from Sprinkle Pop, a candy maker I found through the always dangerous platform of Instagram (dangerous in that I can always find some completely random new area of interest to occupy my time and money. Bespoke sprinkles – *snort* – is just the latest.)

Sprinkle Pop’s surprisingly tasty adornments – flavoured jimmies, metallic spheres, glittery dragees, and colourful mixes loaded with tiny, hand-piped extras – come in three sizes, eight ounce jars, four ounce jars, and two ounce sample packs. The sample packs give you about a quarter cup of sprinkles, which in my (newly acquired) experience will decorate about three dozen cupcakes, or two sprinkled-spackled cakes. Here’s the Robin’s Egg sprinkle mix (perhaps my favourite) sitting prettily atop some cupcakes I recently made (chocolate with salted caramel buttercream icing, in case you feel like driving yourself mad with desire, and yes, they were totally delicious!)

I chose six sample packs, three perfect for the just-passed Easter season (from left to right, Hangin’ With My Peeps, a mix of pastel jimmies and tiny royal icing Peeps; Egg Hunt, another springy rainbow mix studded with hand-piped bunnies and carrots; and Robin’s Egg, with its sweet, speckled eggs) and three just-because-they’re-pretties (from left to right, Royal Plume, a fun mix of bright, peacock-inspired hues; Love You a Latte, a soft, Valentine’s Day-appropriate blend of coffee-flavoured jimmies; and Leprechaun Loot, which is clearly going to have to wait until next year to properly exercise its lucky charms.)

Then because I have plans for them, I bought two mixes in the slightly larger four ounce size, Dark Unicorn, a sugar’corn-studded blend of blacks and brights and neons, and Strawberry Shortcake, which is delightfully self-explanatory.

I even managed to derive some nail art inspiration from Egg Hunt!

Neat! Important, necessary, critical to my existence? Definitely not. But a sweet diversion in a world that could use a lot more sprinkles, and a fun thing in my life.

Having a (Gum) Ball

Well, would you look at that – nail art for the second day in a row, just like I promised yesterday!  I probably shouldn’t be quite so excited about just honouring a rather easy-to-hold promise, but as I mentioned, oh, months ago now, I’ve been having a lot of difficulty motivating myself in the direction of my nail art supplies, so this really is quite an accomplishment.  Today I’m featuring a simple gum ball-type design, quite easy – just dots made with a dotting tool and a handful of rainbow-hued polishes – but still very striking.  Actual candy for these fingers. 😉

Choking Hazard

While I was looking up photos of jawbreaker candies for this sweet manicure, it struck me just how much of a safety hazard these candies really are.  All of them start out life tooth-breakingly hard, but when you add in the sheer size of some of them – about the size of a child’s fist – I don’t know how they’re not sent off to the same prison as Kinder Eggs for choking hazard crimes.  They’re basically dental work-destroying, candied ball gags.

But cute?  So cute!  And at the end of the day, still candy, so ignore all that prior talk of busted teeth and blocked trachea, huh?  Also a great excuse to use the so, so messy splatter technique for this manicure, which involves blowing nail polish out the end of a straw and onto your nails (always blow, never suck; these nails just look edible!)

Frosted Peppermint

I have done so many peppermint-themed designs this holiday season.  And here’s another one!  This time using the dry brush technique, with an added bit of frosty glitter for the sweetest of holidays.

Sprinkle Pops

Because every so often I just have to paint my nails like something frosted and sprinkled, preferably both! Donuts are the ideal, but here I used a sweet lollipop nail charm from Daily Charme – I’m indiscriminate about the foodstuffs I’ll top with sprinkles, mostly in nail art, but occasionally sometimes also in life (I CANNOT make a chocolate box cake with tub icing without coating it in about half a cup of rainbow jimmies. Crunchy sugar goodness.) 🙂

Oh, Lolli, Lolli

Late last year, right around the Christmas holidays, I went through a period where I was just klutziness personified.  In the span of about three weeks, I accidentally dyed my nails bright green, nearly throttled myself with a shapewear cami and – my favourite – gouged a great big chunk out of the inside of my cheek whilst making the “Pop!” sound in the 1950s Chordettes’ song, Lollipop.  Holy crap, you guys, was it PAINFUL! And completely preventable, had I remembered that my nails are now as sharp as a cat’s and I WILL wound myself, because that’s just what I do.  You’d never, ever know that I took about 20 years of dance and can be somewhat graceful (just apparently not around green nail polish, shapewear or novelty songs from the 1950s.)

Sweet Mani!

Okay, so I can see Mike and Ikes being a favourite – they’re fruity and gummy and sour/sweet in a pleasant, not-at-all-real kind of way.  But those little paper dot candies? Has anyone ever enjoyed those in the history of ever?  They’re mostly just very, very cute. Which is precisely the reason they’re now adorning my nails, alongside a smattering of Mike and Ikes.  Finger candy at Finger Candy. 😉

The Gingerbread Man

Hey, would you look at that, actual nail art!  I’ve been going all hot and heavy lately with the swatches; I had started to wonder if I could still actually put detail brush to nail.  Apparently I can!  Three cheers for me and my featureless gingerbread man, who apparently has no defining characteristics but for his gumdrop buttons, poor sod.

Merry Pinkmas!

Today I have another seasonal pick from KB Shimmer, this time Merry Pinkmas, a blogger collaboration shade from their 2013 winter holiday collection.  Created in conjunction with Cristina of Let Them Have Polish, a blogger and nail artist probably best known for her all-pink approach to the holidays, Merry Pinkmas is a bright pink crelly loaded (and I do mean loaded) with hex, square and circle glitter in an eye-popping assortment of green, pink, white and red hues.  It’s super sugary sweet and reminds me of beautiful Christmas ribbon candy.  I purchased my bottle last year when KB re-released Merry Pinkmas as part of a greatest hits holiday mini collection.

But a word about all that glitter.  It’s plentiful, and can make application a pain.  Even going slowly and polishing carefully, I had issues with the glitter bunching up on itself.  Two thick layers of topcoat will be necessary.  I used only one for this manicure, and you can regrettably tell – my index finger in particular looks like it might actually be coated in crushed ribbon candy.  Which is a look, sure, but not quite the one I was going for, no matter how much I might like it when my nails look like candy!

Pink Peppermint

This manicure is sweet as candy, and scented like it, too – the red and white glitter topper I layered over a sugary pink gradient, KB Shimmer’s Candy Cane Crush, smells like peppermint!  Sweeeeeeeeet.