So, as saturated as the net is with various nail art blogs, most of which I read on a daily basis, I have decided to start my own. Anyone who knows me would think the very idea was laughable until a few months ago. You see, I've never been a "girly girl." In fact, I'm 26 years old and only this year learned how to do the following things:
- Pluck my eyebrows (kind of)
- Straighten my hair
- Understand all those hair products they sell (okay this one is a lie, I still don't..)
- Blend eye-shadows so I don't look like a transvestite when I wear them
- All things nail related, including painting them without looking like a cat vomited all over my arms.
For the most part, I've always been a tomboy. I love me some jeans and t-shirts. I own 2 dresses. I own an off-white lacy skirt but I've never actually worn it, I just bought it because I thought someday I might want to look girly and I thought it was cute. Most days I pull my hair up into a messy (not purposely) bun, or clip it out of the way. I grew up surrounded by boys and was more interested in rollerblading and climbing trees than playing with dolls. I can start a campfire in the pouring rain, but I can't walk in heels to save my life.
Now, of course I've had the obligatory manicure with friends for a wedding, and I love pedicures because they rub my feet and get all the callouses off from shoving my feet into old sneakers every day. And I've always liked to think of myself as crafty, in that I learned how to hem my own pants because I'm just barely not a midget, and I've tried a million times to teach myself to knit. So, one day when I was getting an obligatory manicure, I saw a display for Crackle Nail Polish.
Mostly, I was curious as to how it worked, which lead to an internet search and a trip to the store to buy a bottle of nail polish and a bottle of Crackle. And I watched videos on how to paint my nails without ruining my home. And I found that I really liked having colors on my fingers! And then I discovered this whole world of nail art and all these really cool things all these girls were doing, like water marbling and dots and stamping and gradients and all kinds of things that I didn't understand in the slightest but I wanted to be able to do. And so I made it my mission to understand this phenomenon and learn to recreate it.
Now, months later, and hours and hours of reading and learning and trial and frustrating error, and boring my boyfriend to tears about nail polish and different types and why I need to have 8 different bottles of blue polish and YES they are all different, I wanted to share with the world my newfound hobby. But also, I wanted to try and compile a resource for people who don't understand the terminology and gobbledygook that comes along with this hobby. I've learned a lot from so many different teachers, and I've imitated so many different manis I've seen on the net, and I want to pay homage to those teachers, but also show people that even though it looks easy, it's not always easy for everyone and it takes a LONG time to get something to come out looking like... something.
This is the manicure I'm most proud of to date. Partly because I love Halloween, and partly because it's the first time I got stamping for real. More in depth on stamping in another post, but for reference, I used:
Pure Ice Hot Tamale as the base color, and Pure Ice Scandal sponged on the tips to create the foggy look. I used Bundle Monster stamps, using Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and Sinful Colours Black on Black for the stamping.
So, welcome to my journey into the foreign world that is being a girl. And look forward to, I'm as dumb as rocks tutorials on how to do things that seem really simple but aren't for me. And lots and lots of stamping, and blue nail polish :)
-Laura
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