NOTD + NOTD = Happy Bastille Day!

Bonjour!

Today is the day that France celebrates their independence day, Bastille Day! Part of my family is French, so I've always felt a little comaraderie with this day. On top of that, today's challenge in my Purple Crumpet Fairy challenge group is to do a Bastille Day manicure. So guess what I have for you today? ;-)


I've been looking forward to this challenge for a while, and even practiced my free-hand element for it. Ah, the best laid plans...Here is what I planned out and created:

Happy Bastille Day! Right hand

Happy Bastille Day! Right hand again

 First, the base color is Color Club's Worth The Risque. That was supposed to be awesome, because it's a silver holo that was going to shine and add to the firework effect in the background and under the crackles. But...the sun has not been out, and so the holo cannot shine. And the polish looks more dull silver than pretty-white-sparkly silver.

This is also a problem because I free-handed my Eiffel Tower in a dark gray, that should have shown up against the background. With the dull light, however, it didn't show up very well. So I had to go over it in black (Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris), and, well...I'm not a very good free-hander to start with, let alone when I have to try to double-up. So my Eiffel Tower looks a bit like a cell phone tower. Sigh.

I used China Glaze crackle in Oxidized Aqua, which also does not contrast nearly as nicely with a silver gray as with a silver white. I put Revlon glitter over it, and painted the other third of my flag with Sally Hanson crackle, followed by a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust to make it sparkly. I stamped a blue firework with the Oxidized Aqua (don't worry if you can't see it, it doesn't show up in this light), and then a red firework over it with Pure Ice Siren, using Shany plate SH13.

Don't get me wrong. I like the manicure, I just think I'd like it more if the sun were out!!! I can certainly feel the pain of my British stamping sisters who tend to get a lot of overcast and rainy days even in the summer. The upshot is, I felt like this looked too washed out without the sun to light it up, and I wanted to do something a little more vibrant.

Luckily, I have two hands, so I scrubbed the polish off of my left hand, and designed another manicure! Here is my unplanned creation:

Happy Bastille Day! Left hand

For this one, I painted the bottom half of the nails with China Glaze Frostbite, using scotch tape to colorblock. I learned something important--when you have a thin polish, if you paint upward toward the tape, the polish may leak under it. It's better to paint down off of the tape. After I cleaned up my disaster with an acetone-soaked Q-tip, I painted the top half with China Glaze Adventure Red-y. I used white nail tape to delineate the border between the two. Then I stamped a fleur de lis with Sally Hansen White On off-center on each nail, using Mash-35. This captures the colors of the French flag a little more effectively I think! I'll take a picture of the first manicure tomorrow if the sun comes out. :)

Thanks for looking! Please check out the other Bastille Day masterpieces my fellow bloggers created, and Vive La France!!

M.