Arteries of the Sea

This manicure started out life as a coral design.  I was going to make a bunch of The Walking Dead Carl/Coral jokes, too (the filthier and more unhinged Rick gets, the more he defaults to bellowing for his son, CORAL!!! Please watch this short YouTube video that inexplicably makes me nearly pee my pants every time I see it for further explanation and laughter:)

All was going well with the CORAL!!! design until I added the dark orange and yellow shading along the branches of the you-know-what, turning this CAWWWWRRRLLL into something more closely resembling the diagram on page 74 of your grade 11 biology textbook.  Still pretty, although also sort of icky.  I don’t like it when my nail art gets too real.  Cotton candy zombie unicorns, yes, the inner workings of the human form, lord NO.

And so I changed the title of this post to better reflect the reality of these nails, although I’m glad I was able to work in that Walking Dead joke regardless.  Bless you, Rick Grimes, you incompetent bastard; never stop losing your sh— CORAL?!?

You So Jelly

Just some gently bobbing jellyfish, going along with the flow (the flow being Enchanted Polish’s wonderfully watery Neptune, a green-to-blue duochrome that reminds me of the ocean’s inky depths.)

Winner Winner, Mermaid Tail Dinner!

Oh no. No, no, that doesn’t sound right at all. Pretty disgusting, actually. And after I came in all strong on that “winner winner” opening note. But GUYS! GUESS WHAT? I won the Canadian prize pack for the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge! And for my favourite nails of the challenge, too, my Simpsons Beerquarium mani (yeah, I know I’ve said previously that I don’t play favourites, but I didn’t want the other manicures to feel left out.) This is totally awesome! I hardly ever win anything (although now that I’m thinking about it, I won a ridiculous number of prizes at various bridal shows I attended when Mr. Finger Candy and I were enfianced.) But this is seriously so much better, in no small part because the prize is kickin’ – lots of cool polishes and polish-related accessories I’ll be sure to talk about endlessly on this blog! So great!

But on to this mani, which I was hard at work at when the good news came in. I think these multichrome, gradient, holographic mermaid tail nails (with pearl-in oyster accent nail) are kind of the shit. There’s a lot going on here, but I’m just so blinded by all the colour-shifting, rainbow sparkling beauty to give much of a frig. For the multichrome-on-multichrome gradient, I topped two coats of Enchanted Polish’s turquoise-to-purple Magical Mystery Tour with two sponged-on coats of Enchanted’s mostly magenta Entwined. I then added the fish scale detailing with Liquid Sky Lacquer’s megawatt silver holo, Dream. Finally, on my ring finger I painted on something that I think looks more or less like an oyster (although it could also be a purple catcher’s mitt.) Winning mermaid magic.

Beach Vacay! (OMD3)

It’s pretty funny that I’ve chosen to depict some traditional elements of a beach vacation on my nails for day 21’s theme of travel in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge, as what I’ve shown here is pretty much my version of vacation hell. For one, I am INCREDIBLY fair skinned. Nothing a little SPF 65 can’t (hardly) handle. Secondly, and perhaps flowing from number one, I actively dislike the sensation of sunshine on my skin. Sitting out in the sun, I am always acutely aware that I’m roasting my delicate, pink pig skin, just without the benefit of being ringed in carrots, potatoes and various aromatics. Thirdly, although I’m a very strong swimmer, I’m really, REALLY scared of being touched or nibbled upon by just about every bit of flora and fauna under the sea. I also loathe getting sand up my swimsuit. So no to the actual beach vacation, but yes to these beachy nails – definitely my kind of travel.

Seaweed (OMD3)

Under the sea, you say? Well, what about on top of the sea? Does that count? I certainly hope so, as these super glitzy seaweed nails are my entry towards day 23’s theme of under the sea in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge.

I adore the base polish I used here as my sea, Smitten Polish’s Glacial Springs. It has acted as the gorgeous, glittering stand-in for water in more of my designs than I can count, and it works for nearly every type of water at that, from tropical lagoons to the iced turquoise waters of the Arctic. Here I topped Glacial Springs with some very random tangles of lacquered seaweed in a couple of different shades of grass green and gold before topping it off with one coat of shine-enhancing Seche Vite. Quite ritzy for a slimy water plant we all prefer to sidestep (or possibly eat, but in an entirely different context!)

Parrot Talk (OMD2)

Parrot fish, that is, and my pick for day 21’s theme of animal print in the Oh Mon Dieu nail art challenge. And yes, I realize that fish are not animals in the strictest, most sciencey meaning of the term, but here’s my basic criteria for determining whether something is an animal: Is it a small relation of a larger critter that we adopt into our families and house in our homes? Then it’s an animal. So fish totally count, according to my highly technical definition. The parrot print stays!

Coral Print (OMD2)

Day two’s theme of coral in the Oh Mon Dieu 2 nail art challenge very nearly led me to recreate some super fun and well-received coral reef nails I did last week (“Hey look, it’s the, um, backside of the reef!”) Despite the fact that they were one of the best nail art designs I’ve ever done, cranking out a second coral reef felt like an unnecessarily lazy answer to the challenge theme, and so I went with something once again inspired by all that gorgeous underwater life, but this time in a patterned fabric-type design (come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Waverly has a printed cotton fabric in this exact same design. Hmm, same colours, too. Cripes, let’s hope the Waverly trademark lawyer goons don’t show up to break my thumbs, because then I won’t be able to blog!) 😦

Coral Reef

One day when I was a kid, I very grandly announced to my parents that when I grew up, I was going to become a marine biologist. No doubt this surprised the heck out of my parents, as I had never shown any appreciable talent or interest in the biological sciences (my parents still speak in disbelieving, vaguely awed terms about the Sunday evening in grade 2 when I commented rather nonchalantly that I had a leaf project due the next morning. Cue my mother frantically running around our not-insubstantial front lawn scooping up handfuls of wet, moldy leaves whilst yelping, “Maple! I’ve got a Maple! And, um…oh crap, what is this?! Oh, Poplar! Okay, next show momma an Oak!”)

They were probably also a bit surprised by my exclamation on account of the fact that for as long as I can remember, I have been terrified of large bodies of water and the critters that dwell beneath them. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a phobia in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t break out into hives or shriek at the mere sight of a river (good thing, too, since I live right beside one.) I’m also not so weird about it that I won’t boat or even, say, swim with sharks in a highly sanitized experience at Walt Disney World. But honestly, the mere thought of even wading into the ocean up to my mid-calves fills me with a kind of dread I just don’t need in my life. It’s mostly the not knowing that creeps me out – like, what is down there going about its business while my legs dangle enticingly above? I think I’d be okay scuba diving (in a group, please – safety in numbers!) because at least I’d be down there with the things that want to eat me, you know? Because it’s better to see the things that are going to shock, sting, squeeze and bite me to death, I guess?

Anyhow, I think it goes without saying my future plans did not pan out. But don’t worry, I’m not too broken up about it (neither are my parents; imagine them trying to fix my neglected shark project two hours before deadline!) Turns out I’d far prefer to paint pretty coral reefs on my nails than actually be underwater with them. 😉

Under the Sea

Sharp eyed, ecologically minded folks may notice the cluster of dirty sea anemones I dotted around the base of my adorable kelp forest. The kelp forests are endangered and sea anemones love to nosh on the tender roots, thereby killing the plants. Enter the mighty sea otter, who loves to gorge on anemones, and you’ve got quite the majestic circle of life.

But I don’t know how to draw otters, so I stuck with a shark. It seems to me the king of the sea should be able to scare away a few little anemones, right? 😉