Week 15, sort of...You're such a pansy!

Yep, that would be me. Or at least, my nails at the moment. :) I should explain the title of the post a bit better, though. Week 15 on A Year's Challenge is "Easter Day" mani. I'm not a Christian. If I were going to do manicure in honor of spring fertility, it would have been done on the spring equinox, March 20. So instead, for this week's challenge, I give you flowers. It's the closest you're going to get to "Easter" from me. :) To make these pansies, I followed Nailed It's tutorial.

As you might notice, I've gone down to nubbins. I broke another nail last night and decided to file them all down to be even. I've managed to square off all my nails except my left-hand thumb, but that's the one that broke nearly at the quick not too long ago. It'll be another couple of weeks, I expect, before the side edges get far enough out to file it square. I'm hoping that my continuing regimen of biotin, cuticle care, and a nail strengthening base coat will eventually get my very thin and flexible nails to stop flaking and breaking. I've used Sally Hansen Miracle Cure for the last few months, and now I'm trying something I picked up at Sally Beauty a week ago. We'll see where my nails are in two months! :)

The base color is China Glaze Re-fresh Mint. Such a lovely mint green! It looks very blue-y in the bottle, so I did a swatching stick before deciding to use it here. I'm still in process of swatching my stash. I think I'm about a third of the way through. It's hard to keep it organized in the meantime - trying to keep track of what I've swatched and what I haven't, especially since I'm overflowing my current storage, is difficult.
I did purple pansies on the left hand, with two blue and white ones on the thumb, and then reversed it and did blue and white pansies on the right hand, with two purple ones on the right thumb.  The blue pansies are done with China Glaze Frostbite and Milani Whitest White. The purples are done with Sinful Colors Rich in Heart and China Glaze Reggae to Riches. The yellow dots in the centers are China Glaze Solar Power.

What I think is interesting is that all those "streaks" are not from top coat. They're errors I made with the striping brush while doing the center coloring stripes, and I left them on purpose because I liked the way they made the whole manicure look. In these pictures, it makes it look very amateurish, but in real life, they look gorgeous. One of my co-workers asked if they were decals, and everyone has commented on how "perfect" they look. While I think they're far from perfect, the errors that glare so strongly in these pictures actually make them look more natural and life-like on my hands.

Pansies are actually my favorite lawn flower. I love the many, many colors they come in and the two-tone variegation of every flower. My second favorite flower to look at on the landscape would have to be bluebonnets, but I don't think I could do them justice on my nails at this point in my skill level! :) My favorite flower in a bouquet, however, is carnations. Trust me, Mr. IJAH is very happy that I don't care for roses (except when drawing them, because roses are really easy to draw. ;) Really, I think they're pretty, but the price for the amount of pretty you get is absurd, and they wither in days.  Carnations, on the other hand, can last for weeks with care, and they smell just as glorious as they look! It's especially fun to get light colored ones and add food coloring to the water. What are your favorite flowers?