The Green Nails

I went to the studio today, as per usual. I even chickened out to the point where I was just wearing a retainer in my nose, just in case.

There was laughing. There was chat. There even was knitting when the only client was there for a pedicure, which is not my responsibility. There was no eating. I forgot. Again. Now I'm ravenously hungry.

But J. pointed out I should try to gel my nails again. Customers ask questions if you work on nails when yours are all natural.

So in the last hour of the week, I decided to practice some more. On me. Okay, just my left hand, but dammit, I get points for taking initiative here.

First of all, I took a pointer from a customer, who pointed out that you don't see if gel lets go if it's a solid or dark color. So I painted my nails lime green. Three layers (ouch, hot!) later, I'd messed up my hand more than a little, but you couldn't see my natural nails any more. So far, mission successful.

Then, I decided just green was too plain. On the other hand, stamps are hard work and I was starting to feel that I hadn't eaten since a quarter to nine in the morning. I wasn't going to have the patience to pick out a stamp, wrestle it on my nails in a color that might or might not work and then work in accents with glittery gel. Hell, the polish remover smells like fruit. I might try drinking it to fill my belly.

So I collected a bit of white, a bit of flesh tone and grabbed a swirl tool, dotting and swirling as I went, hardening the gel inbetween stages of my project. After I was done, it was missing something. I needed black.

I asked Sis if there was any, and she said there was. I hadn't seen it so far, but apparently, it was in the studio somwhere. 'Somewhere' being inside Mt. Mix-Boxes. I asked if there was anything else I could use for two tiny dots, and she lent me her personal stash of black gel. I put on eyes and tha-da! I'd painted a sheep on my thumbnail.

It's not a very in-focus or detailed sheep, but it's unmistakably a sheep. My canvas was fifteen by fifteen millimeters, it wasn't going to be a Mona Lisa.

Everyone was delighted. I got a frowny face from J for the amount of gel on my skin, but the sheep got a thumbs up, no pun intenden. S. and Sis squealed happily over it, so I was happy too.

So now there's nothing to do but to let it frolic happily over my keyboard on its green background for the rest of the weekend, and try not to file it all off by tonight. Wish me luck.