It's just a HOBBY...

The title of the blog is in reference to both my daughter and my husband trying to tease me and tell me that I'm obsessed with nail art. Okay, to them this might look like obsession, given that I'm one of the UN-girliest girls you might ever meet, short of a butch lesbian. (We had to get my daughter a make-up kit because when she was playing "dress up" she had to use lipstick for blush - I didn't own any. In fact, the only reason I own eye shadow is for an 80's party I went to last year. :P When I wear makeup, which is strictly for parties, pretty much, it's generally eye liner, mascara, and light lipstick or lipgloss. I have foundation and powder, but I don't use them. And I don't think anyone at work has ever seen me in any kind of makeup.) But honestly? I'll admit to being obsessed with reading fanfiction. I'll admit to absolutely loving science fiction, in books, movies, and TV shows (yes, I've seen every episode of Highlander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Stargate: SG-1, among others, and given that those shows ran 7, 7, and 10 years long, respectively, that's a LOT of TV right there) but deciding to give myself a pretty manicure once a week? That doesn't qualify as an "obsession", in my opinion.

What got me, the non-girly-girl, started on this whole nail art thing, was when an acquaintance of mine on Facebook picked up the 52-week challenge over on RedditLacqueristas, and started posting her nails on her FB. I liked looking at them, and thought they were cool, but never really thought about it until she posted a link to the tutorial for Galaxy Nails one week. Her mani was really pretty, so I went and checked out the tutorial. Then I noticed all these other tutorials on the sidebar, and started clicking...I was enraptured by the idea of water marbling.

My 7-year-old daughter and I decided to try it, and try valiantly we did...but in vain. We went through the nail polishes we had, first to find out which ones would spread out in the water and which wouldn't. You'd be surprised by how many we had that actually went ker-plunk! And a few the color just stayed in the middle and didn't spread in the water at all. Finally we had a dozen or so that spread right, so we picked a few colors that would go nicely together and we gave it a try. We taped off one of my fingers, dropped the polish, swirled it just a bit, and did the dip. We got...well, a little swirly and a lot globby. ^_^ We did a few more on her nails (which she did in fact top coat over and pronounce them "gorgeous", but she's seven!) and then I gave it up as a bad try.

However, my sister had sent me an Amazon gift card for Christmas...so I did a little internet research, went through who used what polishes in water marbling, what worked and what didn't...and decided to give China Glaze a try. Found an Amazon.com seller who had the rainbow colors we wanted and sent off an order, along with an order for a small set of nail art brushes. I also found a supplier on ebay that had nail art rhinestones, glitter, and foil striping (among lots and LOTS of other bling!) for insanely cheap prices, if I was willing to wait the several weeks for shipping (free!!) from Hong Kong. So I spent ten dollars there, too, and got a set of dotting tools, eight or nine of those round wheel-things (what are they called?) with 12 colours each of stones (four or five wheels in rhinestone and four in pearly colors) in different shapes (though I accidentally got two wheels of rhinestone hearts), a set of 12 colours of glitter, and 12 colours of foil striping tape. For less than $10 total!! Now that's a HAUL!

While I got the China Glaze polishes fairly quickly (and have used most of them, and they're *awesome*) I haven't gotten around to trying the water marbling again. It's just so much WORK for each and every nail! I'll still get to it one of these weeks...but in the meantime...

When my nail art brushes came in the mail on December 21st, we *had* to try them out. My first nail art ever was this:

I did a gradient white-to-blue by putting a drop of blue and a drop of white next to each other on a palette (in our case, a plastic lid from a food storage bowl :) and then using a fan brush to brush them both on the nail at the same time. It makes for lots of clean-up (and as you can see, I missed a few spots) but it makes the most perfect gradient ever. Drew the snowflake in with a detail brush, of course, and I think I need a tinier detail brush, because I still (month and a half later!) can't draw thin detail lines.

I decided that I really liked this nail art thing, and that I would re-do my nails every weekend. After a few weeks of posting my nail pics on my FB, my oldest daughter (who lives in Kentucky, while I'm in Arkansas) tried to tease me that I was obsessed. I argued that if I were changing my nail polish every day, she could call me obsessed. Once a week? That's just a hobby...

I bought some more nail polish when I got paid at the end of January, and my husband teased me about needing to get more bookshelves for my nail polish than we have for books. (Never mind that all my nail polish, bling, *and* tools currently fit in a box smaller than 10x18x8"!) I immediately pulled up pictures of some people's WALLS of polish shelves and again argued this isn't an obsession, it's just a hobby. ^_^

And mind you, he was teasing me again about less then $10 of supplies. I'd bought more nail polish remover, and the following items:

From left to right: Pure Ice Gold Mist, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Pure Ice Splash, Pure Ice Best Friend, Sally Hansen White On, NYC Starry Silver Glitter


So now you know the background to my blog's title, and you've seen the beginnings of my nail art journey. I'll add my current manicure next, and then I'll alternate with the ones I've gone through up 'til now with my current manis until I'm up to date. I hope, over time, we'll see some improvement in my art skills, but at least I'm enjoying having the pretty on my nails. Now I need to go hit Google Reader and see what everybody's updated since this morning... ^_^