Fill your nails, and your time!

Now that I'm out of school and in employment limbo, I have rather a lot of empty time slots. I've been reading, catching up with my friends, baking chocolate chip cookies with Oreos inside (I KNOW), singing, and doing the three things that are impossible to regularly participate in with a heavy courseload:

(1) Sleeping

(2) Eating

(3) My nails

And I have been so inspired by nail art lately! I'll post when I try them (none of the following are my nails), but here are a few techniques I can't wait to use:

Hawaiian flowers: essentially applying petal-like stripes and removing the center.

Water marbling: swirl a couple shades together in water, dip, and have fun cleaning up. :P

Newsprint nails: dip dry, painted nails in vodka (if you're legal) or alcohol and press onto newspaper.

Crackle polish: possibly the biggest trend and most difficult to obtain since Chanel's Black Satin hit the market, OPI has brought back crackle polish (with others following suit) in black and more recently silver. Apply and let dry.

Pre-dried polish strips: I have tried these and a review is on the way. Press and stick, more or less, for designs previously reserved for false nails or hours with a professional.

Gel nail polish: while not technically nail art, brands such as Shellac (CND) and Axxium (OPI) are fairly new to the market. These are intended to be applied by a professional. Coats of polish are dried instantly under a UV or LED lamp and are completely chip- and peel-free, only needing to be removed when they grow out (or if you really want you could get them filled like gel nails). The distinguishing features between gel nail polish and actual gel nails are (A) any aesthetician can apply it, as opposed to nail technicians only, and (B) it can be soaked off, which is far less damaging than filing off gel nails (along with parts of your natural nails). I just want to try these because hardly anything will stay on my nails what with all the shampooing I do at work.