Challenge Accepted - Part 8

WOO HOO!!  It's Friday!!  And I'm not at work!!  WOO HOO!!  I've done a whole lotta nutin today and I'm okay with that.  I take it back.  I met up with the hubs at a park for a picnic lunch.  But other than that, absolutely nothing.  Now you know what that means, right?  I have a lot of stuff to get done this afternoon before everybody gets home.  Either way, it won't be that because I'm by myself!  *sigh*  What did I ever do before kids?

I don't usually like to do the same topic posted back to back, but I wanted to get this one in there.  Today I bring you PHD's weekly challenge: Nature.  This is a little more unrestricted than usual - the instructions are to pick something, or some things, in nature that inspire you.  I didn't want to do the regular flowers and such, so I mixed it up a bit.

I started with ChG 2nite from their OMG collection.  I got this gorgeous holo from Nailstah's blog sale for a pretty good price.  I can't find this collection in stores around here so I jumped at the chance to pick it up.  I wore this mani for a day before I did anything with it.  I was a little afraid that the wear wouldn't last until the next day without chipping (holos are notorious for bad wear), but I didn't have any problems.  Both photos are indoors with flash.

 The next morning I decided to put a diagonal rainbow on my ring finger on my right hand.  I liked it, but it needed more.  Either way, I wore this all day on Wednesday.  Even with all the work I do with my hands at work (not to mention making dinner and giving both boys a bath), I didn't have any chipping.  I'm pretty impressed at this point. 

And this is more.  I grabbed my acrylic paints and striping brush and applied a line of each color on the other nails.  The end result kinda reminds me of a prism.  OK - so maybe *technically* a prism isn't found in nature, but rainbows definitely are.  I'm anxious to see the other submissions - we'll see how out of sync I was with this one.  The top photo is outdoors with cloudy skies.  The bottom photo is indoors with flash.  Today (Friday) is the third full day of wear for this holo and even though I do have some chipping on my right hand, I have *very* minimal wear on the left with no chips at all.  I'm pretty impressed with the wear of this polish, especially considering the fact it's a holo. 

While we're on the topic of nature, we had a beautiful sunset the other night.  This is one of the reasons I love New Mexico.  Click on photos to make them bigger.

This photo was taken looking northwest from our backyard.  I played with the filters a little in Photoshop, so that's why it has that grainy appearance.  I like the filter because it gives it a sort of "old" photo look.

This second photo was taken looking southeast from our backyard.  I didn't adjust the colors or apply any filters with this one.  This was one gorgeous sunset!  Incidentally, we had a pretty good thunderstorm around 12:30 that night.  It was a long one - it lasted about 45 minutes - and I have no idea how Nate and Mason slept through some of the crashes of thunder.

I hope you are all enjoy your Friday night and weekend.  We don't have any exciting plans for the weekend, but I hope to get out to the park at least a couple times to run out some of the boys' energy.  Anything exciting planned for you?

Oh, and before I forget - keep an extra keen eye open at my blog over the next week.  I'll be hosting a giveaway!!

Listening to: Well Thought Out Twinkles by Silversun Pickups (appropriate given the topic of this post)
Mood: relaxed