In the beginning

I've always had a thing for nail polish. When I was little I would sit for hours while my dad painted my nails and added polka dots with toothpicks (a technique I totally still use, thanks dad). I remember one time he painted my nails white and put black spots on them so they looked like Dalmatians, let's face it, I looked cool as hell. Teenage me had less than stellar taste in all manner of makeup, I clearly remember painting each nail a different neon color and allowing them to chip at will with no regard for touch ups. It was a dark day for nails.

There are at least twelve things I should have to explain about this picture but I am going to just go ahead and ignore them.

I was broke and lazy in college which isn't the best combination for nails so we will just skip those years. I got my very first manicure for my wedding. I was 25 and hung over from my awesome bachelorette party from the night before. I got a French manicure and totally fell in love, they looked like fake nails and for some strange reason I loved when people assumed they were. My nails went from looking amazing to looking horrific on our honeymoon. Something about the combination of sun block and whatever they put on my nails turned into this sticky layer of pocket lint, food particles, and just general nastiness.

I had the bug, now I didn't just want to have painted nails, I wanted to have super freaking awesome "those must be fake" nails. I had a few manicures over the next year or so but it wasn't until someone at work told me about gel nail polish that my world changed (I don't care how dramatic that sounds). I started getting gel polish manicures and OMG I loved them more than words.

I promise that my photographic skills will get better.

After about 10 straight months of getting gel polish manicures every three weeks (I don’t want to think about how much money I spent on them) my nails were totally wrecked. They were so thin that nail polish removed would soak through to the nail bed, not the best feeling in the world.

This is where my current nail journey began, since my nails were so messed up from the gel polish I had to keep them painted all the time. I missed the fancy nails my ladies at TQ gave me so I was forced to learn how to paint mine, and after spending hours on nail blogs I thought it might be fun to start one as a nail art newbie. Hope you enjoy J