Repin Any Of This and It's Curtains For Ya. Independence Day Manicure #3

*contains press samples

  Hi all!!  All these pretty Independence Day manicures all over the place, featuring, like, art and whatnot, made me want to try some new stuff, leopard print in particular.  THIS POST by Ruby's Nails pushed me over the edge to remove my nearly fresh Magical Pixie Dust manicure (no small feat, if you've ever worn one of those polishes) and give some red, white, and blue spots a try, especially upon reading how easy they are. 

  I looked up a tutorial first (not doing so being a mistake I've made in the past that I wasn't interested in replicating).  Jezebel.com was the first link I clicked on, and indeed, the technique looked simple enough.

  My left thumbnail is quickly approaching "waaaay too long" territory.  Anyhoo, I followed the seemingly foolproof steps.  I laid my white base down first (names have been omitted to protect the innocent but if you're really curious, ask me in the comments and I'll probably tell you what I used), then took my chosen red and made little dots all over my nails at reasonably spaced intervals.  So far, so good.  I felt cautiously optimistic, knowing the hard part, drawing the borders, and doing so with an actual nail art brush, was coming.  I picked up my fancy little skinny brush and took to attempting those nice little irregular borders all good leopard print manicures sport and quickly realized that I a) should have chosen a more opaque blue, and b) was becoming rather bored.  So, I admit to half-assing my way through the rest, with the fallback plan of putting a holo glitter topcoat over the whole thing, because that's what all the gals do when they think their art has been a complete and utter fail.

  Difference-- mine was a complete and utter fail.  I asked C what he thought I had attempted to do, knowing I'd probably get a response somewhere along the lines of the last time I asked him what my purported "art" resembled.  He did not disappoint.  "Thai fighters?" he said.  Well, actually, he said "tie fighters" which is a lot different than how I was interpreting it.  God bless Star Wars nerds and homonyms.  I showed him my jezebel.com reference point and to my credit, he said he wouldn't have known what hers were, either.  

  Well, that settled it, I was going with the big time holo topcoat as opposed to the subtle, dainty holo topcoat.  And guess what-- it doesn't hide much of anything BUT it does make terrible art sparkly.

 

  That one spot on my index finger is good, right?  RIGHT!??!?

  Does a quasi-fashionable hand pose make the whole thing a little more palatable?  And is it strange that I'm still just a teensy bit proud of myself?  If anyone asks, I'll call them avant-garde leopard spots.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

  Oh, and one more thing-- when cleaning your nail art brushes, make sure you're cleaning the metal and bristle part only, because acetone will eat the paint right off those suckers, too.  Who knew?!  Good grief.

  Thank you for reading, and to my fellow Americans, have a safe and fun Fourth this year ♥♥

*contains press samples