stars & stripes

Despite my ever present anglophilia, the 4th of July is always a holiday I look forward to celebrating. Not only is it the good old U. S. of A.'s birthday, but it is my firecracker of a mom's! We always spend the day at our cottage up north surrounded by family and friends decked in red, white, and blue, eat until we burst, play out on the water, volleyball, corn hole, have a bonfire and watch the fireworks over the lake. It really is a spectacular day. 

I spend quite a bit of it and the days previous setting up shop doing patriotic manicures for friends and family having hauled just about every red, white, and blue lacquer I owned up north. For my nails I decided for a simple but patriotic stars and stripes design. 

I actually had a really really reeeeaaaalllllyy awful break a few days before on my left hand pointer finger...we're talking just about down to the nail bed, so I got a little professional fixing and a good talking to about letting nails get too long... ooops! They were super nice and trimmed them down nice for me and even painted them white for my base color before sending me off with a hug and a "be careful!" 

Once I got to work, I painted over my thumb and pointer finger on each hand with butter LONDON's Blagger. My goal was to create a bright waving flag effect across the hand so the stars would be on the thumb and pointer and the stripes on the other three fingers. I painted the stripes next using one of my favorite red shades, Pillar Box Red. I painted three stripes along each nail continuing from one to the next in a bit of a waved pattern. Next I got my bright white Cotton Buds and hand painted stars on the two blue nails in a bit of a staggered pattern. This was by far the more time consuming stage of the design--particularly the right hand. 

I contemplated leaving the design as is--nice and bold stars and stripes, but ended up adding some glitter because whats the 4th of July with out a little fireworks. 

I outlined the red stripes with the beautiful red glitter Chancer and a select few stars with a beautiful blue glitter from the butter LONDON Rock Your Color collection called Inky Six. Once I was done outlining with the glitter--a more difficult process than I anticipated because a massive thunderstorm rolled in disturbing my concentration with floor shaking booms at the most inopportune moments, I painted a coat of SV topcoat to finish the look. 

Chancer                   Pillar Box Red                   Cotton Buds                          Blagger                          Inky Six        

The look got tons of compliments over the holiday weekend, and I certainly was pleased with the overall patriotic effect. What do you think? Did you do anything festive on your nails for the 4th? 

Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July festivities!