Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes! It's my birthday!

...a little narcissistic, no? But I guess that's to be expected from someone who blogs about their own nails, right? Oh, well.

My sister surprised me with the most AMAZING nail polish birthday present ever: the Oprah's Favorite Things Nail Color Jewelry Box by Julep! It's a super pretty white box with velvet lining and TWELVE Julep polishes in it ("A 12-polish set of Oprah's hand-picked favorites"!). Which is absolutely perfect, considering right now I'm at least kind of obsessed with Julep products.

Anyway. Here's what my birthday manicure was GOING to be - just a plain creme, because I thought I'd give myself time in my day to do real-people fun things, not just paint my nails:

This is Julep Carrie, a delightfully soft pastel pink. Yes - delightfully. I don't know why that doesn't seem like a word that should ever describe a nail polish, but I just went there. Carrie was perfectly self-evening and everything in just two coats!

After I'd been sitting around for a couple minutes, I realized that I had to do something at least a little more exciting for birthday nails, so I grabbed a dotting tool and got to work using Julep Lauren...

Just FYI, if you're ever dotting with a neon, be aware that you will have to work SUPER quickly! Something about the way neons dry all fast and matte and stuff make them harder to dot with.

So that was going to be it for my birthday nails, but then I had a ridiculous accident with a broken shower tile that left me rather immobile. (An accident? In the shower? Only me. I know. It actually takes talent to be as uncoordinated as I am.) I couldn't swim, but I showed up to the pool anyways to help my coach out a little bit.

Well, I ended up sitting at a desk beside the pool for the better part of two hours, and if you've ever tried to watch a swim practice, you know that swimming is a downright boring sport to observe. I stole two of my coach's Sharpie pens and went at my nails:

(This is after a few hand-washings - the green and red started to fade off.)

It was supposed to look floral-ish...which I guess it sort of did...but nobody could really tell what was going on with my nails unless I shoved them in their faces saying, "LOOK AT MY NAILS THEY HAVE FLOWERS!" At which point most people would just smile and say, "Sure they do, Natalie."

So...yeah. That was my birthday. Maybe soon I'll try the "floral" thing again (and maybe I'll actually use real nail polish this time!). What do you think of the look?

Stay happy!