Spike Strip

It occurred to me the other day that one of my favourite nail art designs, a chicken scratch sort of knit pattern, also looks a great deal like tire tracks.  So as these things go, twas but a hop, skip and a jump later before I was elbow-deep in lacquered tire treads, here Lilypad Lacquer’s holographic Rainbows in Space over Essence’s Color & Go in Chic Reloaded, a shimmery green-to-grey-to-purple multichrome that (quite appropriately for this manicure) reminds me of an oil slick.

Then because I can’t ever leave well enough alone, and also because my monochromatic tire track design was looking a bit bare, I laid down two silver spiked nail charms right at the edges of my cuticles on my middle two fingers.  Et voila, a spike strip!  Nail art punnage at its finest, folks.  But all the same, just know I’ve got my eye on you, crash queens and moto babies, and drive safe.

Disney Girl Challenge: Miss Sally

While I’d never count myself as a member of the Disney Army (Disneyphiles, I believe they’re called), as I don’t worship at the altar of any and all things Disney (I save all my Mouse worship for my temple and future home, the Haunted Mansion in Orlando), I do love me some Disney, and I’m downright powerless in the face of one of their phenomenal animated flicks. When Pixar merged with the House of Mouse in 2006, they brought their stable of beautiful, delightful films with them, and my Blu-Ray player and wallet have been shouldering that burden ever since!

Of course, I’m not a fan of all of Disney, Pixar or Disney-Pixar’s offerings. Monsters University was about 45 minutes too long and lacked the warmth of the first movie (Squishy excepted, because he’s awesome), Cars 2 felt like a better than usual direct-to-DVD release and Up…I can barely talk about Up, because there is NOTHING that can make me cry as hard as the first 10 minutes of that movie. It sort of ruins my enjoyment of the very charming and gorgeous film that follows because I’m thereafter inconsolable. I’d seriously rather watch Marlin’s wife and kids from Nemo get repeatedly iced on a demented loop-o-rama than watch those first 10 minutes of Up, because they are HEARTBREAKING.

But as my husband can attest, I really love the majority of most of the Disney animated flicks, and one of my favourites is the movie that’s the inspiration for these nails, Cars. I wasn’t expecting to like Cars. In fact, I probably only saw it three or four years after it came out, because, like, talking cars, the American mid-west and Indy anything? No thanks!

But then I finally caved and watched it, and I’ve been feeling like an ass for neglecting it ever since, because it’s so charming and sweet, and oh lord, when that song starts playing about the death of small town America and all of Radiator Springs watches forlornly as the interstate passes them by…wuh oh, here come those waterworks again.

But to finally get to the point, 8,000 characters later, I did these nails as part of a super casual challenge I imposed on myself last year to capture the essence of the ladies of the Disneyverse in tiny lacquered form. So here I took a run at Sally (or Miss Sally, as Mater would say), a kicky little legal-minded Porsche who just happens to look pretty fabulous in my new periwinkle blue polish from Cirque.