Back To School!

It's happening. It's really happening.

This will be, as far as I can tell, my last first day of school. I think it's kind of ridiculous, to be honest. I feel like I'm five. I can't have possibly gone through 19 first days of school. That shit cray.

For weeks, the plan was to go all out for today and do rainbow leopard print to inject some colour into an otherwise miserable day. That changed when I realized that this might be (probably will be) my last first day of school and I won't ever have the chance to do another first day of school themed manicure! So the leopard print was scrapped. And I did this:

This definitely is not an original idea. The pencil was from cutepolish (who apparently got the idea from a magazine), and the lined paper has been there and done that all over the interwebs. Most of my notes are taken on my laptop these days, and I haven't used a non-mechanical pencil for years, but these made for some pretty cute nail art. I also hope you've noticed that I'm holding pens instead of a polish bottle. (Tee hee.)

I've seen versions of the lined paper mani with doodles all over them, but I liked the look of the plain lined paper so much that I left it alone.

The white base I used was Sally Hansen White On, the lines were Sally Hansen Coral Reef and Tip Toe (Old Navy) Bubblegum scented polish. The pencil top is Joe Fresh Caramel, the orange is  Wet 'n' Wild Sunny Side Up, the ridges are Joe Fresh Crush, the erase is Coral Reef again, and the silver part is Sally Hansen Celeb City.

I did end up doing one doodle, on my thumb, which is not visible in the above pictures:

So, to everybody going back to school, I wish you good luck and a wonderful year. And, to the future Class of 2013: let's kick some ass this year, huh?

Score!

There truly is nothing like sorting through my nail polish collection after a long day at work!

My current project has been categorizing my nail polishes by colour and making up nail wheels. The nail wheel part has been fun, especially since a good part of my collection is currently made up of untrieds due to all the extra time (and cash) I've had compared to during the school year. Swatching the untrieds just gets me excited to actually go out and try them -- it's just too bad one only has ten fingers and ten toes to try them on!

Today's post is for two previous manicures that I thought fit the mood as I am currently curled up in an armchair in front of the TV watching the NHL Entry Draft with my brother. I guess this also doubles as a review for the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen, since I used it in both of these hockey-themed manis. I did this first one right before I went to a Leafs vs. Canadiens game. The Leafs lost, of course, but I had fun putting this one on.

Two of those in the background -- still currently untrieds! eep!

The background colour is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue It! I'm not really too fond of this polish, since the smell on this one is really strong and when I was doing this mani, my eyes were tearing up really bad.

 

You probably can't see from the picture, but the leaf was actually quite blotchy and you could see all the penstrokes from the pen itself. I was quite pleased with how easy it was to write on my nail and have the writing be legible, but I was kind of disappointed at the fact that the product did not actually use real nail polish. The liquid was way too runny and I had to keep my fingers pretty much level so that any drops from the design wouldn't start dripping down the nail, ruining the design.

This one was from quite a bit later, during the Stanley Cup Finals -- I guess you can tell which team I was rooting for...too bad I'm kind of a bad luck charm. I used the same white pen again, trying to go for a white french tip effect (since the box claimed it was "perfect for french manicures"). The base colour is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Going Green, one of my most favourite colours in my entire collection. The blue center in the Canucks logo is Sally Hansen Complete Manicure - Thinking of Blue. There was some major tip-wear with the white pen, and eventually the logo began to dull, again not very pleased with the white pen.

Eventually I just layered one coat of Nicole by OPI - Make a Comet-ment over it to hide the tip wear via distraction. The holo-glitter in this one is gorgeous. I couldn't help staring at my nails in the sunlight, even when I was driving -- NOT A GOOD IDEA -- but beautiful, nonetheless.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the performance of the nail art pen. I have the black one as well, but I'm jumping at the chance to use it. I glimpsed a display of LA Colors Art Deco nail art polishes at the dollar store a few weeks ago, I might pop in and opt to buy a couple of those instead.

My brother pretty much just shit a knife just about now, courtesy of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Brian Burke trading away two picks for one, so I'll be off to help him calm himself before he rages to the point of destruction. See ya!