Nails 101: A Student Blog

Weeks 6 & 7: Getting in Plenty of Practice

by NAILS Magazine | October 16, 2012 | Bookmark +

I’ve been so busy— in addition to school, kids, life and everything else, I just started working on the Board of Directors for our children’s Little League. I love it. (Like I had spare time, right?) But it’s a LOT of work right now — so I missed my blog post last week and I need to catch you all up to speed: 

First, my class went back to Easter Seals. That is an amazing experience everyone should have. It is so fulfilling to give back to your community. I was able to share my last post about our visit there and I showed a few pictures. My new friend at East Seals, Marco (above), wanted me to take pictures with my phone of everyone. He was adorable. We saw a few familiar faces and a few new faces. On the first Wednesday of each month we go there and I can honestly say it is something I look forward to! I also attached a picture of my classmate (who calls me “Mom”) Stephanie, myself, and our new friend Mia (below).

I am so excited to share a few of the new things I have been working on.

First here is a picture of my daughter’s full set I did for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It was a fun set and it was something different to try. She asked me to do the rhinestones in a ribbon, I thought, “Hey, why not?”

Another exciting part of my "nail life is I won the first day of NAILS Magazine's contest for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I won the OPI PInk of Hearts 2012 box set. I was so excited. I've been trying to get my classmates into the contest and hopefully one of them will win one day this month too. I can't wait for my goodie box to arrive.

I was also able to do my first set of Halloween nails for one of my friends who came to the school to have her nails done. It was awesome — I felt so creative and to top it off she loved her nails. I have to admit it was a little bit harder for me because her nail beds were so small I had to file down even my smallest tip. But it was great and it forced me to try something new and make it happen.

One of the girls in our class is going on maternity leave and before she went on leave she asked me to do a full set for her. She said it was up to me to do whatever I wanted to do. It took a couple of days before we had our personal day at school, but when it was time she had a picture of nails she wanted her nails to look like, she just wanted a shorter version. I thought, “Oh, a challenge, I love challenges!” I looked at the picture and I went in my own direction. I did a complete set of nails for her that we called Cocktail Nails. It was of course a challenge and I am at the point I am trying to get my full sets done faster, but when there is so much detail to be added it is hard. I did it and I think the nails look adorable.

I also did a full set of forms on my classmate Stephanie. I think because they were super short they were super easy. I made the glitter portion larger and the pink smaller so it made her nails look a lot longer than they are. I painted nail art on each of her ring fingers. It was a really fun set for me.

I have a client I have been seeing every other Friday at school. She is a cosmo student. This Friday I did a backfill on her and I’m pretty sure my time was shorter. I was able to change the white to a glitter and change out the pink she had for a darker pink and paint nail art on two of her nails. It is beginning to be really fun to see how quickly I can get a set done and what fun things I can add to each set. She wanted a charcoal color so I made one for her by mixing the powder and glitter myself. I felt good when she complimented me and said I was getting better. She would know — she was the first full set I did at school — and it took forever.

It seems I have focused a lot of acrylics the past two weeks. Of course I also did gels, which I love and next week my teacher said we are focusing on gels all week. I am so excited to get the chance to learn all of these new techniques.  

As always I love your feedback, so anything constructive is awesome to help me learn more. I am looking for advice on what brand is your favorite for acrylics/gels and why? What bonder or primer do you use? And what is your trick to keeping acrylic nails from lifting and lasting the longest? 

Thanks for your input and for reading my blog every week.

— Nikki

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