Graduation nail (art) school

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I am proud to announce I have finished my training and am now a certified Hand Painted Nail Art and Manicure technician! I did my graduation mani on my teacher, Severine. I was nervous or anxious, don't know. I thought about the design all night it seemed. You know, you have an idea but are unsure if it will turn out. And on a real person it is really important!

When I got to the studio it was very busy so I decided to make a display set with my idea while I waited for Severine. I knew I could use the "good polish"! So looked through blues and decided on a skittlette base of thumb (one coat OPI Keeping Suzi at Bay, topped with a China Glaze dark blue jelly glitter), index-middle (two coats Suzi) and ring-pinkie (two coats OPI Dining al Frisco). I canned the thumb idea for the real mani as the CG glitter was too old and basically useless. That is why I have forgotten the name! So the thumb in the real mani is Suzi.

Then I drew vertical lines in light blue, grey and white. The flowers are in two shades of pink with grey stamen/pistil and a white dot. As a signature accent I chose pink hearts with two darker hearts to represent her children. Seche Vite sealed the deal. I could not do any cuticle clean up as there was no non-acetone remover and the acetone would have ruined her acrylic tips (I did not do those!). But the lines were pretty neat. The mani turned out exactly how I envisioned it, so am very happy about that!

Since I had to wait quite a while I also did a quick snowflake type "inexpensive" nail design, and a silver fern. I couldn't really finish the silver fern as in the middle of it 1) Severine was ready to start and 2) her son knocked over the lamp and caused me to blur some leaves. But I kept it, but will probably do another for display. At home I would add some black holo polish to give the frond depth.

So that was my intensive course! Usually the course lasts a month with less hours a day and time off. But I didn't have that much time, and am pretty dedicated and disciplined when I set my mind to something. Of course, continual practice and mani experience is key but I feel I have a solid base of technique to get me going. This is a very affordable course in a country known for nail art. So..... If you are ever in Thailand, I highly recommend Severine!! The Nail Studio Pai (http://www.painailstudio.com).

Big hugs from me!! And ciao girls for now!

Eighth day nail art school

Hi girls! This is my second try at writing this. There is no internet so am writing offline but lost the first draft into some black hole of who-knows-where. Today, it seems, all I did was vertical lines. Practicing lines. Once you get the hang of it, it flows. It was my last display set today and I used lines.

I started with a base of Revlon Flirt, a candy type purple. Did the pinkie first and this would be a fab mani on its own: vertical stripes with flowers on top. (BTW notice how the Seche Vite caused shrinkage? Interesting...) I like this the best. In fact, from pinkie to middle I like and would make great accent nails or full manis. Am on the fence regarding the index finger, probably because of the white line. Might look better without. And the thumb started as a side French but got boring and now looks like I came too late to the World Cup Brazil party!

I did two pedi toe nail sets as well. The first used my own newbie Manshong turquoise blue! I also added a diagonal gradient green using a tiny piece of car sponge!

This looks a lot better in natural light. The turquoise-coral combo looks good and the yellow in mid flower is definitely noticeable. Didn't add any leaves this time. Really is very pretty. My second set was done directly on the white nail as it was getting really late and I wanted a French type display.

Each tip is in a different candy shop colour going diagonally in alternating directions. These were covered in navy blue and red "sparks" from the alternating sides. Cute and pop-py. So, another super big day. Tomorrow is my last "graduation" day and I will recap as well then.