Handmade by Natalie: Lowe's Heroes Nail Art

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Lowe's Heroes Nail Art

So, as I mentioned before, I work at a very large home improvement store. I was going to avoid saying which one, but it's hard to talk about the Lowe's Heroes project without mentioning the name of the store, since it's right there in the title and everything! Anyway, as long as I don't spill any corporate secrets (which, since I'm not really privy to any, shouldn't be hard to do) or say bad things about Lowe's or my co-workers (and I have nothing bad to say about either; I love working there and I adore the people I work with), I won't violate any Lowe's policies.

The Lowe's Heroes project is a volunteer organization made up of Lowe's employees and organized by Lowe's. The fact that it's voluntary means you can only participate on your own time, not when you are on the clock. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to participate this time because I was scheduled to work Monday, but luckily (well, luckily for me but I guess unluckily for her) one of my co-workers called in sick Saturday, so I got to work her shift and be off Monday! Yay! Lowe's Heroes does various things in the community, like helping out with disaster cleanup and such. Tomorrow we will be demolishing and removing debris from two of the many houses that were destroyed in the recent flooding here in the Memphis area. While I am terribly sad for the people who lost their belongings in the flood, I am also really excited about tearing down the houses. Don't get me wrong, I love to create, but I also love me some destruction! I will probably be stomping around like Calvin in Godzilla mode and saying, "Natalie smash! Natalie smash!" a lot.

(copyright Bill Watterson, of course)

I usually wait a day or two to take pictures of my nails. For one, I have really sensitive skin, and my cuticles usually look like hell afterwards, all red and irritated-looking, even though all I've done to them is pushed them back and maybe trimmed or buffed off a little dead skin. Also, I am horrible at painting my nails, so I have to do a LOT of cleanup, and I always have some staining from the polish and acetone around my nails. I like to give my manis time for the cuticles to de-reddify and the polish stains to get washed off before I commit them to pictures. However, since I am not really expecting this mani to last through the day tomorrow, I went ahead and took pics right after I finished it. Please ignore the redness, and the red and blue stains!

Right hand:

For my left ring and thumb and my right thumb I painted images from the Lowe's Heroes logo. For my left ring, I just did some heart stamps from my Bundle Monster plates (03 and 08, in case you're interested). I used Orly Royal Navy, Essie Retro Red, OPI Blue Shatter, and China Glaze White On White. For the little people, I mixed Royal Navy and White On White. Oh, and I used white Konad Special Polish for the stamping.

One more note: Swatching is very important in knitting, so that you know you're using the right gauge to get your item the correct size. I am finding it's important in nail polish, as well! My original idea involved red nails with blue shatter AND blue nails with red shatter. I decided to try this out on some fake nails first, and boy, am I glad I did!

Red nails with blue shatter = oooohhhh, pretty!