Day and Starry Night Nails

        Seeing as I haven't posted a nail design in a ridiculously long time I figured it was about time I set about doing a blog-worthy manicure. This design was actually inspired by star confettti that I had gotten in one of my birthday cards and of course managed to get everywhere. Like glitter, confetti just never seemes to go away, everytime I think I've found all of the bits and gotten them tidied into a container I discover another sneakily heading under a book on my desk. That being said let's get this nail design started!

Nail Polishes I Used

• Sally Hansen Ultimate Shield Base and Top Coat
• Avon Lagoon
• Sally Hansen Lustrous (the black polish)
• Star confetti (can be found at local craft stores)

Let's Get Started!

 

Step 1: Paint all of your nails a light blue base coat, something that resembles a clear blue sky.

Step 2: Paint half of your nails black diagonally by painting the black polish from one corner of your nail to the opposite corner.

Step 3: While the black nail polish is still wet place one of the confetti stars in the black portion of your nails using tweezers. Press gently on the confetti star so that it is relatively stuck in the black polish.

Step Four: Using a gold striping tool, or a thin paint brush dipped in gold nail polish make small dots around the star in the black portion of the nail to create the idea of smaller stars twinkling galaxies away. When your nail polish is dry paint a top coat over your design to ensure that it last as long as possible.

If you decide to try out this design, I'd love to know how it goes!

Highlight Poetry (#1)

 

A Bit of an Introduction to Highlight Poetry

     For a little while now I've been itching to start a meme but everytime I set about thinking up a theme or a name for it, I'd inevitably end up with an idea that somebody else had already come up with. Eventually I decided that I wanted to focus on something that is important to me and not recognized nearly enough; poetry. And bingo! Highlight Poetry crossed my mind as a good self-explanatory name for a meme that focused on highlighting (acknowledging) poetry. So when I searched "Highligh Poetry" in both the regular google search engine and google's blog search engine and could not find any results for a meme name "Highlight Poetry" I knew I had found the name for my meme!

The First Poem of Highlight Poetry

Embarking at Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1920

"We leave to-night...

  Silent, we filled the still, deserted street,

    A column of dim gray,

  And ghosts rose startled at the muffled beat

    Along the moonless way;

  The shadowy shipyards echoed to the feet

    That turned from night and day.

  And so we linger on the windless decks,

    See on the spectre shore

  Shades of a thousand days, poor gray-ribbed wrecks...

    Oh, shall we then deplore

  Those futile years!

              See how the sea is white!

  The clouds have broken and the heavens burn

    To hollow highways, paved with gravelled light

  The churning of the waves about the stern

    Rises to one voluminous nocturne,

                  ...We leave to-night."

 

A Brief Commentary Providing a Bit of Context

    I discovered this poem a couple of days ago while reading  F. Scott Fitgerald's This Side of Paradise. For those of you who are not familiar with Fitzgerald's works, This Side of Paradise is a ficitonal novel about a rather egotistical young man named Amory. Though the novel itself is not a book of poetry, through the character Amory, Fitzgerald writes several poems of which Embarking at Night was one . At the point in the novel when this poem is included, Amory is heading off to fight in the first world war and is presumably writing the poem about his emotions while he waits to embark in the night on the journey of a soldier.

    I absolutley love this poem, I think it is beautifully written, providing haunting imagery of a soldier's restless wait before he heads off to war. Through this poem Fitzgerald allows the reader to feel as if they themselves are mourning the futile years ahead and the "poor gray-ribbed wrecks" that will fall during the war. I felt as if I was truly transported to another time, while reading this poem, like I could hear the waves breaking upon far off shores and the feel the soldier's fear as he prepared to embark.

What are your thoughts? What struck you most about Emarking at Night?

To learn more about how you can get involved in Highlight Poetry click here.