Silver Lining

16. Unknown lasts

1 day before

As it was getting close to the end of November, Laurel and I decided we would film a little Christmas DIY video to post sometime in December. We quite often filmed videos that we didn't post straight away, and then when we did want to post them, boom! They were already made and ready to go.

We hit Tumblr and Instagram for a bit of inspiration, and then brainstormed ideas. Within half an hour, we had decided on three things for the video; reindeer cookies, Christmas tree nail art, and snowmen ornaments for the tree. We had to go to the shops first, because we didn't have everything we needed. We were just about to pay when we found a tinsel display, so we decided to buy a bunch of tinsel to decorate so it looked more festive.

On the way back to the apartment, we went past Laurel's place so she could grab some clothes. I mean, she was wearing clothes obviously, she wasn't naked or anything, but we had decided to wear green and red for the video and Laurel was currently wearing orange. Not Christmassy.

Back at the apartment, we decided we'd film the nail art tutorial first so that we'd have Christmassy nails for the rest of the video. Me and Laurel picked out all the nail polish colours we'd need from the bathroom, then went back to the living room. Because we had never painted Christmas trees on nails before, Laurel did her right hand to practice while I set up the camera equipment. Laurel is left handed, which I just find so amusing for some reason. I know plenty of left handed people, but Laurel is the only one that seems weird. I only noticed she was left handed a couple years ago, and I'm convinced she switched hands because I'm pretty sure she used to be right handed, even though she says she has always been left handed.

I sat on the sheet just as Laurel was finishing the Christmas tree on her thumb nail. We put a huge white sheet over the carpet just in case we spilled any nail polish, and also it made a nice white backdrop. "I think it would be easier if we used two strips of masking tape to form a triangle for the tree," Laurel said, looking at her thumb. "See? Bit messy." She showed me thumb nail. It looked nice, but it was kind of sloppy.

"Good thinking, I'll go grab some tape."

Laurel nodded. "Is the nail polish remover in the cupboard under the sink?"

"Yup!"

We both stood up, and carefully walked off the sheet as not to screw it up. I went into the kitchen, and opened the drawer where we kept tape and batteries and stuff like that. I had gotten halfway down the hallway when I remembered we'd need scissors to cut the tape. I sighed dramatically, and spun around to go back. Yes, I know you can rip masking tape but Laurel hates people ripping tape. She definetly doesn't have OCD, she got tested, but it's almost like she does with people ripping tape. Even with the tape dispensers that have the spikey metal bit on the end so you can rip the tape of neatly, she doesn't use those. She has to cut tape with scissors.

I went back into the living room, where Laurel had already taken the nail polish off and had painted on a base coat, and was waving her arm around and jumping to try and get the polish to dry faster. "Nail dance?" I asked her, and she nodded.

"Okay, I think it's dry now," she said after a minute of doing the nail dance, gently touching her nail. I cut- with scissors- a piece of tape off, and then cut it in half length ways so that there was two thin strips. Laurel took one, and placed it diagonally on one side of her nail, and then the other on the other side to make a triangle. She picked up the light green nail polish, and filled in the triangle. Once the green dried, she carefully took off the masking tape, and outlined the triangle in a thin line of dark green.

"Red decorations?" She confirmed, holding up a bottle of deep red Essie nail polish. I nodded, and she started doing minuscule dots of red on the tree, like tiny little ornaments.