Oakland Athletics Manicure 2014 Edition

I’m not a sporty girl by any stretch of the imagination, but growing up in Berkeley and Alameda, my parents raised me with a healthy (okay, obsessive) love of the Oakland Athletics and baseball.  So for years now I’ve looked at the schedule at the beginning of the season and plotted out all the games I wanted to go to based on opponent and promotion and put them on my calendar months in advance.  I’m die hard.  I go all out for games and don’t play around.

Naturally, I do my nails appropriately.  Last year I went searching high & low all over my city for a gold shatter or crackle to use over my green.  I finally found it at the 5th store for half the price I would have at any other store (which, sadly, has since closed).  You can see that manicure in my first nail post, Manicure Madness, from almost a year ago (it’s the last one in the post).  For the first game of this year I wanted to do something different, but appropriate and easily recognizable as an Oakland Athletics manicure.  I don’t have a wide selection of yellow, something I actually want to change soon.  The color yellow I do have, Orly Hook Up, is not quite the right shade of yellow.  Of course, I procrastinated doing my manicure because of other chores that could ruin it, so by the time I started all the beauty supply stores were closed and I couldn’t find a closer shade at my nearby 24-hour Walgreens either.  So I had to just use it and hope no one would call me out on it (which of course they didn’t.)

I did some research on Pinterest and saw a baseball theme that seemed really easy to do – the ball.  So, I endeavored to do my best with my new nail art brushes and some red polish.  I used Zoya Purity as the ball white, Julep Myrtle for the red “stitching”, the alternating green is Julep Valerie and, as I already mentioned, the yellow is Orly Hook Up.  I used the barrette as a guide to which green to use.  In the past, without holding my swatches up to any reference, I’ve used Wet N Wild Fast Dry SaGreena The Teenage Witch as my green, but upon holding them both up to the reference I think Valerie is closer.  I know a year ago I didn’t have Valerie, so I can’t be accused of bad matching!

The baseball stitching is the real “art” of this manicure.  It’s not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but no one had any doubt when glancing at my nails that it was a baseball.  I think next time I do it, which I will do again, I’ll either have better control with my Julep Plié Wand or I might enlist my hubby to do it.  Which sounds odd, but when you consider that he’s very talented at painting small model train scenery and Warhammer miniatures, it actually makes a lot more sense (take a look at his stuff at Railroad Redux).

What did I learn?  Well, before my next game I’ll definitely take my barrette reference to a beauty store or two in search of a better yellow, just to satisfy my OCD.  I’ll also either pony up the dough for these Baseball Thread Nail Art decals (not likely) or make sure the hubs can try his hand at doing the painting.  Overall this was a strong showing for my team and I’ll be sure to “nailgate” again for my next Oakland Athletics game!

Let’s Go Oakland!