THE COLOR RUN 2012!

On Sunday, I ran in the happiest 5k on the planet - The Color Run!  This is a 5k for non-serious folks mostly; at each kilometer mark, you get splattered in colored powder.  :) Proceeds go to a different charity in each city, and proceeds for the Minnesota run went to the Open Your Heart foundation, which is pretty cool! 

So.  In the spirit of this race, I decided to try out a splatter mani.  :)  I started with 2 coats of Essie Blanc, then prepared my workspace.  Once my entire coffeetable was covered in grocery bags and I had my paper plate, drinking straws, and splattering colors of choice within arms reach, the fun began!!  The process for this mani is pretty simple: put a blob of polish on the paper plate, dip the straw in it (I turned the straw to the side a bit and kind of scooped some polish in to the straw to make it work), then blow a sharp blast of air through the straw, which is pointed at your finger.  Repeat with each of your splatter colors - I'm too lazy to grab the bottles and look at the exact color names, but I went with blue, pink, yellow, green, and purple.

To minimize the amount of cleanup you'll need to do, you can cover the skin around your fingers in scotch tape, but I did this on the first hand and decided it was too much work.  The splattered polish on my skin came off easily enough with a q-tip and some polish remover.

Bonus: me (and my friend Michelle) after the race!

Happy 4th of July!

I am both incredibly happy and incredibly disappointed with this manicure.  Strange, I know.

(Reminds me of "Mood Rings" by Relient K - "She said to me that it's so happy it's depressing / and all I said was 'Someone, get that girl a mood ring.'"  It doesn't take much for a random song to pop in to my head....then I always have to listen to it.  Starting up the Two Lefts Don't Make a Right....But Three Do album now......)

I spent a fair amount of time on this last night, but I was rather impatient when waiting for each layer to dry, which means I have nicks, I have bits of blue polish that peeled up with the tape, and I have flooded my cuticles with topcoat.  All around, not my best work.  I also ran out of regular Scotch tape partway through and started using clear packing tape.  NOT ideal - the packing tape was much more sticky and pulled up the blue and some of the silver when I peeled it off.

BUT.  I do love the concept and I love the color combination (Sinful Colors Aquamarine, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Silver Sweep, and Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby.)  The somewhat transparent red over the silver has a pretty cool effect.

(This, of course, reminds me of another song...."Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs.  Hope I have that one on my Zune or it's going to drive me nuts all night.)

Hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!