Third time's a charm?

So my nail art doesn't seem to be the lucky charm I thought it would be, but I'll keep rocking their colors on my fingernails anyway.  Here's the latest design.

This one is super cute and super easy!  It's just layers of polish placed strategically.

Step one: Paint all nails with silver polish

Step two: Starting at the base of the nail, paint about half-way up with black

Step three: Paint entire nail with small glitter polish

Step four: repeat with small glitter polish, but begin about 1/4 of the way up the nail

Step five: switch to chunkier glitter polish and apply where the black polish meets the silver

Step six: Add one more layer of the chunky glitter polish from 3/4 of the way up the nail.

Nail Art Part Deux

I'm showing my Raider love again this week with more black and silver nail art!

For these nails  I painted a coat of silver paint on each of my nails.  On all but the ring finger I used a black crackle paint over the top.  For the ring finger, I cut a 'v' shape out of masking tape and placed it on my nail.  Then I painted a stripe of black on a postcard and used a makeup sponge to soak up the paint to put on the nail.

Hopefully at some point my nail art will be a good luck charm and my team will start winning a few!

NFL Nail Art

With the NFL season kicking off this week I decided to do my nails honoring my favorite football team; the Raiders.  

The final product:

For my main nails I used the ombre technique shown here.  You may, however, notice that the orientation of the ombre effect is reversed from the directions shown.  I tried it both ways and I like having the top color near the base of the nail rather than the tip.  If you haven't clicked the link, the directions are basically as follows.

Step 1: Paint nail the base color

Step 2: On a piece of wax paper or a shiny surface paint a stripe of the base color and the ombre      color.  Using a toothpick or orange stick swirl the two colors together where they meet.

Step 3: Use a makeup triangle to pick up the the polish colors.

Step 4: Place the triangle with the polish on it onto the nail.

The ring finger was done using the technique found here.

Again, it's really easy but makes a statement.  And if you don't feel like opening this link either, the steps are shown below.

Step 1: Paint nail the base color

Step 2: Paint a stripe in the middle of the nail about half way up

Step 3: Paint another stripe to one side of the middle stripe, but a little farther up

Step 4: Paint another stripe on the empty side of the first stripe, but not as far up.

Step 5: (Not shown) Repeat steps 2-4 with another color, but not as far up as the first color

They lost!

When your team loses you go through a range of emotions.  Whether they lose the championship game (*cough* ), or they lose the game that would have kept them in the playoff race (*cough* ), or they can't win a game to save their lives (*cough* ) the cycle remains the same.

The first phase is pure, uninhibited anger.

If they played a particularly frustrating game, or one of great significance, or a game against a rival, this anger is often accompanied by:

Once the anger has subsided you're ready to move into the next phase.

Reasoning

You begin to make excuses for your team.  You say, "Well, if our star player hadn't gotten that paper cut before the game he would have scored more points."  Or, "If the refs hadn't been so biased, we easily could have won."

After reasoning, you realize it doesn't matter what could have happened because your team still lost.  You then move into the third phase.

Depression

The reality of the loss hits, and the sadness sinks in.  

 

You wallow, you moan, you drive your co-workers crazy, then one day you wake up and realize there's still the next season or the next game, and you're ready to move into phase four.

Acceptance

That moment, just before game time, when you realize you love your team.  Win or lose, you're their fan and you will be there to cheer for them.  Every game.