Holo Giraffe

Terrible idea. The poor lopsided dears would just tip over. Oh, wait, we’re not talking about hollow giraffes, but holo giraffes? Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. 😉

My husband’s dearly missed grandmother had a real soft spot for giraffes. One Christmas we made a number of gifts for our friends and family – preserves, candies, soaps and other beauty products – and in her package, we included a veritable herd of vanilla scented soaps shaped like wee little giraffes. She very cutely kept them in her half bathroom long past the point where they either smelled or cleaned, but it always charmed me to see them laying there nonetheless.

These fun animal print nails are in service of a challenge I’m participating in over on Instagram where the theme is a holographic pattern. Giraffe skin counts as a pattern, right? I believe the giraffe would think so! For this manicure, I used three of my favourite holographic polishes, Cirque’s marigold yellow Chyrsopoeia and grass green Panacea, and Smitten Polish’s chocolate brown Seasonal Lattes.

Da Blob

This is a nail art animal called a blobbicure. As you might expect, I hate the stupid name, love the cute effect. My thumb looks like it’s sporting jellybeans!

Like its cousin the dotticure (also ugh), the blobbicure is ultra easy, perhaps more so, because you don’t need any special equipment such as a dotting tool, only the brush that comes with your bottle of polish. Simply lay down a couple of coats of a base polish and then, choosing a different colour (or colours), wipe off most of the polish on the brush and then dab it onto your nails in random bits and bobs (or blobs), making sure each blob has its own space and isn’t touching its neighbour. This is a real anything-goes kind of technique – your blobs can be large or small, perfectly round or imperfectly irregular, and any combination of colours. I’m afraid I can’t be any more precise than that, because this just isn’t that precise a technique! The only tip I’d offer is to really wipe the polish off your brush before getting blobby with it. You’re aiming for blobs here, not bumps.

I did this manicure at the behest of an Instagram challenge that called for a blobbicure in a holographic finish. Here I chose to layer four Cirque holos – green Panacea, blue Sky Woman, pink Powwow and gold Chyrsopoeia – over two coats of KB Shimmer’s ultra pale nude, In Bare Form. The blobs themselves give these nails a kind of pebbled footpath-type look, although the mix of rainbow shades, particularly on my thumb, is pure jellybean (although when’s the last time I looked at a manicure and didn’t see some type of food?)

400th Post Retrospective

In about a month this blog will be celebrating its first year of existence. At the same time I’ll be marking a personal milestone, pouring one out for myself in celebration of one year of close-to-daily writing, blogging and nail art pursuits. I danced recreationally for close to 20 years, half of that time with the same company, so I understand what it means to stick with something for the long haul. But I’m still sort of amazed and, quite frankly, impressed when I contemplate the 400 some-odd manis I’ve done over the past 365 days, to say nothing of the written words that have flowed there from. Where did I find the inspiration to do that many manicures? Or more accurately, where did I find the time to paint my nails that many times? And how could I possibly have had that much to say about nail art?

While providing no real answers to those questions, this post, my 400th, bears out my obsessive/casual approach to writing, blogging and nail art and how the three have come together to form a most enjoyable pursuit that’s just structured enough to keep me engaged and on task, while still allowing me the freedom to float around in more creative spheres. I’m lucky enough to have found that perfect mix of “I should do this” and “I want to do this” that has brought me to this 400th post, so maybe I shouldn’t question it so much and just go with the (nail polish) flow? Sounds like a non-plan. Here’s to the next 400!

For these festive nails celebrating my blog’s quadricentennial post, I topped two coats of Cirque’s marigold-hued Chyrsopoeia with one coat of Nails Inc.’s Graffiti in Old Street.