Back to School! Pencils and Pandas

Hello, Fireflies!

I'm going to pretend that I'm not doing these out of order, and while my Summer Love mani is finished, I wanted to bump this mani up to today because public school in my county starts today!  I don't have kids, but the collective cheering of all the moms is deafening.



So, I've wanted to do a pencil mani, and I found this tutorial by Cutepolish that had the pencil tips, too!  I couldn't resist.

Her tutorial is really good, so I didn't do step-by-step pix.  The only thing I changed was to switch the order of the erasers.  She did pencil, metal, eraser.  I did pencil, eraser, and then the metal part because I knew I'd need the denser silver to cover any mistakes I'd made!

I'm totally excited about this mani.  I'd wear it again when University starts for me in a couple of weeks, but I'm not sure my students have ever seen, much less used, a pencil.  Maybe I'll do tablets or cellphones... lol

Here's the bottle shot of all the polishes I used for this mani:  Bondi Brick Road, Zoya Flynn, stripers in orange and black, Above The Curve Michelle's Pink Polish, and Revlon Sequin.

If I don't have kids, how did I know that school starts today?  Well, my friend Toni wanted a new mani to start school.  She chose these adorable pandas!

I couldn't find the Instagram account she used for the tutorial, but this mani looks like the template I used.  I used Essie Shop Till I Drop for the pink base, and Cult Nails Tempest and Nevermore for the art.

Even though this is a simple mani, I'm proud of it.

Toni's mom, Jill, is quitting smoking, and her nails and cuticles have taken a beating.  Jill didn't think she had enough nails to paint, but I wanted to do something for her, and she loves black nails.  I used Liquid Sky Lacquer Rain Cloud with a tip of Cult Nails Nevermore and a bit of silver nail art glitter striper.

Her nails and cuticles may bear the brunt of her nicotine withdrawal now, but I think her tattoo speaks louder -

Love lives here daily. 

Be good to each other.