Week 24: Flag Manicure

This year's challenge theme for this week is flags, and, as a co-worker pointed out to me, today is Flag Day here in the U.S. (which I assume is what prompted the scheduling of this theme?) While I live in America and I'm proud of my country (its history at least, if not the current policies and directions) I decided not to do an American flag, simply because it's so typical. After all, I did red-white-and-blue for Memorial Day, and I fully expect I'll have the stars and stripes on my nails come July 4th. I decided I wanted to challenge myself a little more than that this week. And a challenge it was! I think in retrospect I should've done these flag designs on plastic and transferred them to my nails. The end result is cute enough, but I'm seriously disappointed in my skills at drawing flags, sideways and upside down, on my fingernails. I intended for all the flags to be upright when my hand was held in the typical picture pose, but I accidentally did one on my right hand upside down, and I just totally forgot which way my thumb would be angled when I was done, so that one's upside down, too...though I apparently neglected to take a picture of the left hand with the thumb showing. ^_^

So here's the explanation behind the flag choices: the middle and ring fingers on my left hand are my genetic history, and the ones on my right are my personal history. My thumb, of course, represents where I am now: that's the flag for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

My mother used to call herself a European mongrel when asked her family history. My dad, however, can trace his family tree back to Wales pretty clearly (his sister was interested in genealogy for a while) and his grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee. So that's the Welsh flag on my middle finger and the Cherokee Nation flag on my ring finger.

The entire manicure started off with a base of two coats of Milani Whitest White, except for my left thumb, which started with Sally Hansen Cardinal. Then the Cherokee flag was done with Sally Girl Orange, dots of Neon Primark Neon Yellow, and little rings of Sinful Colors Exotic Green. I didn't even attempt to make tiny little stars, knowing how badly I'd mangle it, so I represented all the stars with dots, each topped with a piece of yellow glitter. The Welsh flag was also done with Exotic Green, and then my attempt at a dragon was drawn with Cardinal and some China Glaze Liquid Leather.

The Fayetteville flag was also done with Neon Yellow, followed by a circle of Whitest White, some stripes of Sally Hansen Blue Me Away! and then circles and the mountain done in China Glaze Frostbite.

My personal history can be portioned off into cities: I spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri (Go Independence, the real gateway to the West!) so that's the KC, MO flag on my middle finger. One year wandering around (two semesters at college, a few months living in a St. Louis suburb, a few months in Louisiana) before my new husband got a new job, and then the next eighteen years of my life were spent in the Dallas, Texas area. (I've lived in I'm not sure how many cities in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, including Dallas itself twice.) So that's the Dallas flag on my ring finger, admittedly upside down compared to the KC flag. And then 5 years ago I moved here to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Growing up in KC led me to frequently comment that Dallas didn't have trees, it had landscaping. I missed trees desperately all those years. Being back in the Ozark mountains that I spent so much of my childhood summers in is amazing for my soul.

Both flags were done with Sally Hansen Cardinal and China Glaze Frostbite, with just a tiny bit of Liquid Leather for the fountains on the KC flag.

I thought with the number of flags in the world that use stars, that Windestine's Star Light (the pink on my left hand) and Star Bright (the blue on my right) were appropriate to use for the remaining fingers.

I hope you liked my attempt at a flag manicure and weren't too bored with the personal story that came along with it. Check out the list of challenge themes along with other bloggers who are playing along at Jennafroggy's blog, I'm Still Thinking.