A little late: ABC Challenge - "J" is for June Pearl and Jonqal Nail Art

Hello Lovelies. I'm late with this post (and several others) due to a family emergency. As many of you know, my Father-In-Law passed away early Thursday morning after a 7 month battle with Lung Cancer. It was much more sudden than expected, and we spent Wednesday trying to get Brian back home. My FIL was a wonderful man, loving and with a wicked sense of humor. I'll never forget h quickly he embraced me, and most of all...the love that he showed my daughter. I could talk about him for days, but honestly it's hard right now. So I'll just move on to the polish stuff.

The giveaway is still going. Please help to spread the word! I'm not as active right now so any help is much appreciated. You know you wanna win Daring Digits' new 80's Hits Collection!

Also there are rumors that GFC is going away. As far as I know it's Google Reader that is going, but I plan on posting a BlogLovin link here as well. :)

My letter J Manicure is a partail fail, but was still fun to work on. The base color is June Pearl, a polish made in honor of my Mother and Lung Cancer victims and survivors everywhere (Ironic that I was wearing that...I know.) made by the fabulous Ketlyn at BG Cosmetics. It is part of the Lung Cancer Awareness Collection and 50% of the proceeds from these polishes goes to Lung Cancer charities. I promise to post this alone soon and give more details. I'm exhausted and it's hard to focus right now.

The design is inspired by Lucy's Stash and her Jonqal nails. The basics of this design are fairly simple, yet it's not as easy to master as it looks! I used my black MASH nail art pen for this, and in retrospect I think using a thin striper brush and acrylic paint would have made cleaner lines. I still have no idea what the weird reddish purple shadow at the edges of the design are, but okay. I really want to play with more of these designs. Mine will probably never look as amazing as Lucy's, but it's always fun to try. You can check out all of Lucy's awesome nail art on her blog. If you haven't followed her yet, you are really missing out.

I snapped these pics quickly and they are obviously not my best work. Sorry guys, my mind really has been elsewhere. I promise to actually care about lighting and stuff in the future.

Definitely not my best work, but I tried! I had originally intended to wear June Pearl on her own, but I could not get this pattern out of my mind. It looks so cool! The only problem I had was with the Mash pens. They worked well enough for the design, but they are very messy if you have to work anywhere near the edges of your nails or your cuticles. In fact, I had to scrub the hell out of my cuticles and nails with a nail brush for a good 10 minutes to get most of it off. Hence my poor fingers looking like mincemeat here. I love nail art pens, but these are acrylic pain pens, and that means acetone is useless to clean it all up. Alochol works on the nail, but for some reason once this particular pen's paint is on your skin, it just smears around until you scrub it off with soap and water. That won't stop me from using them - I'll just have to protect my cuticles first!

I'll be back tomorrow with some more of the new 80's Hits Collection from Daring Digits. Posts may be a little sporadic for a few more days, but I'm working on getting back, even if it's just as a distraction.

In the meantime, don't forget to check out all my lovely lady friends and their "J" manicures!





Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber