First off, let me wish one and all a happy new year. 2014 came in with a distinctly "whomp whomp" in the Faff house last night. We opened a bottle of bubbly, but between the two of us didn't manage to drink it all. The remaining glass wound up going into the slowcooker with my black-eyed peas (called black-eyed beans in the UK).
Typical new year food in most southern states should include black-eyed peas (symbolizing wealth because they look a bit like coins to some people, and prosperity because they swell when cooked), collard greens or another green vegetable (symbolizing money), cornbread (symbolizing gold), and a pork product (because pigs are meant to symbolizing progress and embracing challenges because they root forwards in the dirt). Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any cornmeal here in my part of the UK, so there won't be any cornbread on my plate this year but I reckon that's okay because making cornbread from scratch is a bit of a pain anyway. I'll have to remember to buy some packets of cornbread mix next time I visit home and squirrel them away in the cupboard for January 1, 2015. Anyway... followers on my Instagram may have already seen I've got my black-eyed peas in the slowcooker today with bacon lardons, onions, and chopped tomatoes, and I'll have some steamed broccoli on my plate as well since I never really liked collard greens (or any other of the "greens" for that matter). Mr. Faff thinks my dinner stinks. He just doesn't know good southern food, and he's a picker eater anyway.
For today's manicure theme, I did something a little bit different. I originally intended this manicure to be a New Year's Eve mani rather than a New Year's Day, but after getting into the look, I decided it actually made more sense as a Jan 1 manicure. I made a geometric pattern on all of my nails and my accent nail is a tabula rasa. For me, this represents maintaining beauty and sparkle throughout the year while keeping a blank slate for writing my own destiny.
I started with Revlon Grape Icy as a base on all but my ring finger (Sally Hansen White On). I then created the asymmetrical geometric patterns with Sinful Colors Glass Pink (over White On) and ILNP Amanda Hugginkiss.
As I said before, my original intent was for this to become a New Year's Eve look and I was going to really bling out that ring finger, but as I finished the other nails, I saw that I had a completely blank nail looking at me, and I realized that it was a far better representation of the coming new year for me. It's all bling and sparkle, but that accent nail is the blank canvas on which I should be creating my own future.
Tomorrow's post is going to be a bit more about my plans for the coming year and may put my tabula rasa manicure into a bit of context. I hope you'll come back and see what I mean.
As always, any other New Years looks from the ladies of Llama Nails are linked below.
I hope 2014 brings all of you prosperity, happiness, health, and love.
Much love,
Ali