Nails: CAS Blog Three

I’ve never been super feminine, or a “girly girl”. This fact has always set me apart from my mother and sister. While I’ve always been interested in the arts, I’ve never felt creative enough to execute any of my ideas.

In the past couple of months my sister has begun to get her nails done professionally. This is after years of painting her nails herself. I’ve found her nails particularly beautiful, and I wanted to have elegant nails of my own.

I don’t currently have a job or a flow of income, so going to the salon is not an option. As a result, I’ve decided to turn to doing my own nails.

My hands started off very shaky. I could barely paint a plain color without getting nail polish everywhere. I got very ambitious very quickly. The second time I painted my nails I decided to try to do some nail. I took my time coming up with a different design for each nail. On my pinky I would do some clouds. On my ring finger I would try a rainbow. On my middle finger I would do a heart. On my pointer finger I would do some stars. Finally, on my thumb I would do a smiley face. Doing my left hand was fairly easy and surprisingly fun. Doing my right hand was a different story. I’m right handed, so I found it very difficult to try to make small designs with my left hand. I decided to paint my right hand with various colors and instead wrote a letter on each nail. When put together it would read, “HOPE.” I didn’t realize I needed more hope to actually do this. I ended up taking hours painting and removing the polish on these nails over and over until I felt satisfied.

I was surprised with the results, and I was inspired to continue painting my nails. The next week I wanted to do something a bit less flashy. Originally, I wanted to try doing nail art with cow print. This plan was spoiled when I realized I didn’t have any white nail polish that would work. Instead, I did the design on a iridescent color. This looked better than I imagined and I took a significantly smaller amount of time. The right hand was still difficult, however, the results were much less sloppy.

Monday of this week I decided to paint my nails again. I wanted to do something simple, so I did a bit of googling to see how I could paint a French manicure on my nails at home. I was reminded I still didn’t have white nail polish, so I decided I would do pastel colors at the end of each nail. In order to achieve the look I used Avery reinforcement labels. Once again, I felt as though I improved.

I’m currently painting my nails again. The Monday design was temporary, so I’m coming up with something I can wear when I return to school. So far I’m not sure what I’m going for, and that’s okay. I feel as though my nails look better when I relax and come up with it as I go. I’ve used a periwinkle color on three of my five fingers and I’m going to attempt to use a sponge to create an interesting look with two colors. I was originally planning on it creating an ombre affect, however, when I tried it for the first time it didn’t exactly work. The sponge was still wet from when I washed it off and it created a weird look, but I actually liked it. I took the nail polish off and repainted my nail so I could try to make it look better.

Each week I’ve been faced with a new mountain to climb as I try to satisfy my own wants, but I’ve enjoyed the challenge. I feel accomplished seeing the end product and how much I improve. I’m planning on continuing to paint my nails, at least for now. Maybe I can give an update on my progress in the future, including the product of what I’ve made today. But for now, I’ll leave you with some pictures displaying the growth of my new skill.