Mani Monday - Inspired by a loved one

Artificial lights, light box

For today's Mani Monday the theme is "inspired by a loved one" for last week's BHB Nail Club weekly challenge. I chose some simple stripe accents with Different Dimension's Light Year from the Cosmologically Speaking Collection. I also used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Kelp Yourself and Sinful Colors Professional in Tokyo Pearl for my accent. Before continuing I want to mention that I won this polish plus several others in an Instagram Giveaway hosted by Different Dimension. Also, I made a light box so in addition to my usual pictures in natural daylight, some of them will be either in the light box and/or with the LED lamp. Look at the captions to see what type of lighting I used. Now, on to the nails! (Make sure to click on "Read More".)

Sally Hansen - Kelp Yourself - Artificial Lights - Light box

I chose to base this look on my mom. Whenever I'm asked to pick someone that's inspired me, she's always my first thought. My mom grew up very poor in a little town and fought her way to become the successful woman and great mother she is now. She worked long hours while my sisters and I were kids to earn her PhD, while still making time to attend to every single school function, take us to doctor appointments, help with homework, and letting us try whatever hobby we wanted (dancing, art classes, music lessons). When I said I wanted to study art in college, she encouraged me and never told me I'd be wasting my time in a useless degree, she enrolled me in as many art classes as I wanted and supported me the whole way. She's had to fight several battles with her health along the way and is currently undergoing chemo for breast cancer. She's showed me how to overcome adversity, while remaining positive, even when everything seems like it's falling to pieces and you just keep getting bad news after bad news. I could go on about how amazing I think she is. Now as an adult and mother myself, I really appreciate all the sacrifices she and my dad made for us to have the best opportunities they cloud find us. They are the essentially the reason I'm writing this post in English today (I'm ESL, native Spanish speaker), by putting us in the best school they could find and buying as many books as I asked for.

Sunlight (Look it's my Cinderella hand!)

I wanted to capture her eye color, which was a pale minty green while I was growing up and now it's turned more olive green. We're not sure if it's due to the chemo or aging. The combination of Light Year and Kelp Yourself is exactly how I see her eyes, sometimes minty green, other times a little darker but always bright.

Natural Daylight - Indoors

Let's talk about the formulas! Light Year has a great formula, I had no issues, it applies like butter.. I'm wearing 2 coats and top coat, except for my middle finger where I smudged it a bit and had to add another coat.

LED Light

Kelp Yourself is a little thick and tricky. You can do one thick coat or two very thin ones. I used it as a base for my Summer Daze - Noodles Nail Polish mani here. The other color I used in my accent is Sinful Colors Professional Tokyo Pearl which is a opalescent white. I did this with a stripper brush, just dipped in the different polishes and kept layering different stripes across my nail until I was happy with it.

Sunlight

Here's a closer look at Light Year in the sunlight and the accent on my right hand. I love the golden shimmer!

Indoors - Daylight - Light Year Matte

Lastly, I matted it! This is how I actually wore it for a few days, I'm loving the way matte nail polish looks, especially when it's got some type of glitter or shimmer.

Have you ever done a nail art look inspired by a loved one? I'd love to see! If you want to see what the other BHB ladies did, use the hashtags #bhbnails and #threadlychallenge on Instagram.

Like I said above, I won this polish in a giveaway but you can get your own bottle of Light Year at www.differentdimension.us.