The Lazy Days of Summer 11: Summer Days

Hello~

first of all, I want to thank all of you have been commenting on my last post. It means a lot to me that I got this feedback. I'm definitely not going to stop posting in English, but I wanted to know if my readers would like me to post in German too. Well, there are a couple of days left and the post is not even 24 hours old, so I'll wait for now.

Anyway, before I'm going to face the heat again when I'm at work, I would like to show you my next Challenge item. The eleventh theme was "Summer Days" and I had a couple ideas on what to do for this one. I decided to let my love for Japan come through once more.

The first summer I spent in Japan back in 2007 was probably the best in my life so far. I had so much fun with all the other international and local students there. The weather was just awesome and I really loved the region. (I stayed in northern Aomori prefecture) So I wanted to do something that represents a part of the summer there. Festivals are a big thing every summer and every festival has these goldfish catch game for kids. You have to use a tiny paper fan to catch a goldfish from a shallow tub. I never actually tried, but I loved to watch the kids when they did.

To achieve my mani, I used white as my base color (uh, yes... again), because I didn't know how opaque the later sponging would be. I don't remember what colors I used for the sponging... I think it was a blue by Catrice and the usual unnamed white by Color Club.

Next, I painted the goldfish. I used red acrylic paint and watered it down a lot. I wanted the goldfish to look a bit like an aquarell, which I tried to achieve by layering the watered down red. It really looked that way, but it doesn't really show up on the pictures. With black and white, I added the eyes.

Next, I watered down some white acrylic paint to draw the white lines. I didn't want them to be too prominent. For the silver lines I actually used some polish, a silver striper by essence. It turned out to be a little too strong. I wanted those lines to be more subtle... oh well.

Lastly, a dabbed on a tiny bit of glitter and topped it with essence BTGN Top Sealer. I'm on my 6th bottle now... I love that topcoat.

I was really pleased with this mani. Loved it. What do you think? Is it summer days appropriate?

Okay... gonna face the heat now... Have a great day!