Nail Art Successes and Not So Much — Celebrate Both

You may have seen Holly’s posts about making a visit to Lauren Wireman’s Wildflowers Elevated Art class in Omaha over the weekend. Wildflowers also had two other classes on the same weekend: Portfolio Builder and Liquid Art. I attended all three classes. Like many nail techs, nail art is my passion. I have attended Wildflowers classes for the last three years, in addition to many other nail art classes over the years. I also teach nail art classes. With quite a bit of nail art education under my belt one might wonder why I keep going to more classes? The answer: You can ALWAYS learn more from other professionals!

At last weekend’s classes we learned many techniques and designs, some of which came pretty easy, others not so much. I especially loved the Liquid Art class. The techniques were easy for me to adapt to my art style and abilities. One of the girls at my table, Teri, created a version of the design being demoed that Lauren and the rest of the class loved.

The Elevated Art class got me out of my comfort zone. One design required a 3-D bow made of Puffy Gel to be added to the nail. Easy peasy, right? Well not for me. The two other techs at my table, Teri and Sheila, nailed it (pun intended). I struggled with getting the bow to fold over. I actually didn’t finish mine. Rather than stress myself out about it, I moved on to the next design and let it go (mostly).

What I’ve learned from all the classes I have attended is to never stop learning and keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. If everything new we tried came easy, how would we grow? How would we challenge ourselves? I decided that my failed bow is still a success since it taught me what not to do and what areas I need to work on. Successes are fabulous and feel great, but don’t let a perceived failure be the enemy of great!

— Mel