Spring piggies

Spring has been teasing me and I really don't appreciate it.

Monday was 80 degrees.

Tuesday was 45 degrees.

You just can't play with my emotions like that!

So, in an effort to cheer myself up and to make sure I'm ready for when the next sandal day pops up, I decided to give myself a pedicure. You should too.

Even if your one of those people who gets polish all over the place (like me) you can still make your toes look pretty.

Here are the tools you will need. (L-R) base coat, color, top coat, file, orange wood stick, buffer, polish remover. The orange wood stick and the buffing block are super cheap and you can get them at any Sally's beauty supply. You might even be able to find them at Wal-Mart.

The tools underneath are ones that are nice to have but not a necessity. (L-R) cuticle nippers, metal ball thingy for making flowers, and toe separators.

Now the steps. This may be a little redundant for some people, but you would be surprised how many women don't know how to do a simple pedicure.

First of course would be to remove any existing polish.

Next you want to clean up and shape the nails. Start by filing gently until you have a nice squoval shape. Yes, that is an actual word. It means in between square and oval and is the most flattering shape. Next take your orange wood stick and push back your cuticles and clean out all that dirty stuff underneath the nail.

Next you can take your buffing block and gently buff each nail to remove any yellowing or ridges. If you polish your nails a lot I wouldn't buff each time. But if you only do it once a year than go right ahead.

This next step is one that most people don't do, but is very important. Take a cotton ball with polish remover on it and run it over all your nails again. This removes any oils from your fingers that got on the nail while you were cleaning them. If the oils are left on the nail than the polish doesn't stay on as well.

And finally you get to put on the polish. First the base coat, then Two coats of color, and finish with a top coat. Most of what I use if O.P.I but my favorite top coat is from creative radical and it is super shiny. It's OK if you get it on your skin, just try not to get it on your cuticles. If you do get color in places it shouldn't be just put a tiny bit of cotton on the end of your stick, dip it in remover, and wipe the skin. You can also just dab a little bit of top coat on the skin and the color will wipe right off with your orange wood stick.

Now, I'm not an expert on nail art by any means, but doing a simple flower is fairly easy. This is where it's nice to have the metal ball thing (does anyone know what that is actually called?) The one I have is actually a scrap booking tool that my mother-in-law gave me, but it looks just like the ones they use in salons. She said it didn't cost very much and you can buy them anywhere. You can also use the tip of the polish brush but it's quite a bit harder.

Anyway, start by making a circle of five dots.

Next, put the tip of your orange wood stick in the middle of a dot and drag it toward the center. Do that to all of them.

Then put a dot of color in the middle and your flower is done.

If you want to get fancy you can play around with different sizes of flowers and do decorative dots. Also, I forgot to mention that you can use either polish or craft paint to make your designs.

So, that's it. Happy spring piggies.