Football Friday: Apple Cup Edition

This week is end of regular season football and means that, in general, it's time for all the annual rivalry games that fans eagerly await. Rivalry games, especially in-state (and sometimes, inter-state rivalries) stir up a lot of crazy feelings in the fans and a lot of times, the games are crazy in and of themselves. Our annual rivalry with our other in-state public university, Washington State, is called the Apple Cup... mostly because Washington (the state) in known for it's apple production. This year is a little bit odd because not only is the game after Thanksgiving (it used to be the weekend before), it's also on the Friday after Thanksgiving! This is the second time this year that the Huskies will play on a Friday-- something that is highly unusual for us. Of course, this game is highly contentious in my extended family, as many of in-laws are WSU Cougars, while my husband and I are UW Huskies.

Because it's the Apple Cup, I decided to pull out all the stops. I purchased my first two Illamasqua polishes at the beginning of November, but only just got to play with them because I sent them to my parent's house in Portland (hooray no sales tax!). First I pulled out Prosperity, which is an eye-searing neon purple. I used this on my pointer, middle, and pinkie fingers. Then I pulled out Jindie Nails Geaux! which was inspired by the LSU Tigers (boo, hiss) but according to Jindie Nails description is supposed to be worn to support any football team with the same colors, which UW has. As a superstitious sports fan, that works for me. On my ring finger I decided to go with American Apparel Gold Flash and a UW nail tattoo. Then on my thumb I decided to go back to my very first Football Friday manicure of the season and do the UW football helmet. For that I used Gold Flash, Illamasqua Faux Pas, and the Stripe Rite white stripper polish. Ta-da!

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Thumb:

Full hand:

Go Dawgs! Beat the Cougs!

Olympics!! (Oh, and a manicute too)

The XXXth Olympiad kicks off tonight in London with the Opening Ceremonies and I'm so excited! I'm a huge Olympics fan and have watched them as far back as I can remember, basically. One of my most vivid memories is watching Kristi Yamaguchi skate to gold in 1992. I even got to attend the Olympics last year in Vancouver (to watch women's figure skating) and it was incredible. I plan on being glued to my tv over the next two weeks.

For my manicure, I finally decided to do some real nail art and used the Olympic Rings as my inspiration. I painted the colors of the rings across my fingers and then used a gold striping brush to write 2012 on my four fingers. Originally, I wanted to write London on my thumb, but this proved to be too difficult for me, at least with the tools I had at my disposal. So I decided to pay tribute to the host country by painting the Union Jack on my thumb! This was my first attempt at "proper" nail art and I'm actually quite pleased with how it turned out!

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - (partial/not really) sun:

Here's a close up of the Union Jack on my thumb:

I needed a lot of polishes to make this happen:

From left to right: American Apparel Downtown LA, China Glaze Starboard, a england Camelot, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, OPI Dating A Royal and then gold, white and red striping polishes from Stripe Rite and Finger Paints. Whew! On my right hand I did a patriotic manicure with American Apparel Downtown LA and Julep America.

Are you going to be watching the Olympics over the next two weeks? What are your favorite sports? Personally, I love swimming and gymnastics the most, but I will also watch diving, beach volleyball and some of the track and field events. I also like to try and watch something I haven't before-- I might try cycling this year, since I just read Gold by Chris Cleve.