The New Techniques

I'm dead tired at the moment. Partly because I just rolled out of bed, partly because it was late last night and I slept badly and partly because I worked hard and focused today.

I spent a lot of time filing today. Not on actual people, mind you. Not very carefully, either.

You see, there's this large heap of try-out, display nails on sticks which get used to teach techniques and such. None of them are blank anymore, and J.'s not sure where the blank ones are and anyway, she's leaving for holiday today, so she had other things on her mind.

It started when Sis was doing the sponge-dabbing thing to a customer and I wanted to try it. I decided I'd file some of the display nails and do so. How hard could it be?

Well, first of all I needed to beg off a new nail file. My crappy one which Sis had given me ages ago wasn't really making a dent in the color. I tried with the new one, which still took ages, but it got the job done.

Turns out, someone (no one knows who) before me tried things out, then gel-sealed the bejeesus out of them. I'm taking high-degree burns, here. One millimeter or more of the stuff. It takes ages to get it away and the end result kind of shows how frustrated you were at the end.

I got seven of the twenty-two clean and decided that was enough for one day. I'd damaged two of my almost-healed nails a bit further in the process and everything. Then I put on the first two layers of gel on them, which took care of most of the 'mauled by sandpaper bear' look of them.

Then there was the problem with the sponge-technique requiring sponges. Normally, there's tiny round ones provided by J., but they'd disappeared. Not that she didn't know where they were anymore. They're definitely in storage. Somewhere. In a bag with other nail design stuff.

That's a description of 50% of three out of four of the storage rooms.

I looked for them, but couldn't find them. J. told me to try with an eyeshadow applicator. In the meanwhile, I called Boyfriend to bring me a kitchen sponge, planning to cut it to pieces and rain down sponge-y goodness on the world.

I took a while figuring out that, unlike most things, you best don't wipe off the excess gel if you want to sponge-pattern something. The eyeshadow applicators and sponges both work. Sponges just get a prettier look.

Next, I tried a spike pattern. Then, I stamped on them. And then I kept trying stuff with the brush. A lot of things with swirling and drawing. And it went really, really well. I showed a few to J., who said 'good job', and the others agreed that it was well done. Then I tried applying some hard stuff, which didn't go as well as I hoped, but better than it could have been.

By then it was an hour after I said I'd gone home and I could fall asleep on my desk.

On my return, Iggy had escaped his harness for the second time today. So we put on his collar and tied him to my desk chair, letting him get used to being close to people. He fought the power, as he is wont to do, then calmed down. We kept him there for a bit longer, then let him go.

Then we had 'This Has Been In The Freezer For A While' for dinner (fish and veggies and fries and potato croquettes) and I fell asleep.