Anniversary Mani! (OMD3)

Like sands through the hourglass, Facebook was kind enough to remind me that today marks my second nail artiversary! Indeed, two years ago, fresh off falling into an hours-long K hole of nutso nail art on Tumblr, I went off to my local beauty supply and purchased all the supplies I might need to create a watermelon manicure, and then I came home and did precisely that. After that, I did a strawberry manicure on my left hand, back when I believed in right hand/left hand equality. And then over the next two years I did about 800 more. But for anyone discouraged by their perceived shortcomings in the world of nail art, I invite you to check out my initial attempts. The rather unlovely truth is that we all have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is often not very pretty straight out of the gates. At best, it’s not particularly well lit.

I toyed around with returning to the fruit well for these anniversary nails before deciding to take a more zen approach to the occasion. No need to bust out all the nail art whoseits and whatsits when I can create an awesome, festive mani using the first indie polish I ever purchased, Candy Lacquer’s Licorice Allsorts, over the pink polish I bought two years ago for my watermelons and strawberries, China Glaze’s Rich & Famous. For me, this is the manicure equivalent of putting my brain on autopilot – just a fun, calming, peaceful activity, which is in large part why I have stuck with it for so long. It feels quite fitting (besides, I have done approximately 8,657 strawberry and watermelon manis; time for a bit of a break.)

And so in honour of the simple (but too-fleeting) peace I feel when it’s just me at one with my polish, an activity I have most enjoyed these past two years, I also thought I’d submit these nails as my entry towards day 26’s theme of peace in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge. Celebration time, with a side of Om.

We’re All Stars Now

I adore star imagery – I have a couple of tattoos that would speak to that assertion – and despite a pre-tattoo, high school habit of inking rings of rainbow stars around my wrists with scented Crayola markers, I really can’t draw a star to save my life. They always end up looking vaguely like bottom-heavy starfish, and I invariably lose at least one of the star’s points to some odd miscalculation of angles on my part when forming the other four points (here’s where Mr. Finger Candy would rudely – but truthfully – butt in and point out that of course I suck at drawing stars; it involves math. I’d be offended, but it’s true – my talents do not lie in mathematics. One need only consult my high school math teachers to verify that one (because really, I naturally suck so hard at math, and no, not because I spent all of my class time drawing rings of rainbow stars around my wrists!)

So it was with great joy that I stood back upon completing this manicure and saw that these free-handed stars are not bad, not bad at all! This is a simple, allover starry design that takes inspiration from the pattern on a teeny little party hat I once bought for my cat. I probably don’t need to tell you that she HATED IT with the fire of 1,000 burning suns and fought its existence for the entire 37 and a half seconds it was on her head, which turned out to be all the time I needed to snap a few embarrassing photos, and after that it went into a bucket full of old cat stuff and was never heard from again. Just the way she would have preferred it all along, sneaky girl. 😉

For this manicure I used two China Glaze polishes and two OPI polishes over Orly’s silver holo, Mirrorball, China Glaze’s hot pink Rich & Famous and jade green Four Leaf Clover, and OPI’s lush blue No Room for the Blues and royal purple Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm?