October nail art challenge Day 13: Ghosts

Last year's Halloween challenge also had a day of ghosts, and to be totally honest I didn't do much different this year.  But that's okay because ghosts!

I did use some new polishes this year, thanks to the Monster Mash-themed Mani of the Month box that I got last month.  Heather's Hues Witches & Werewolves & Ghosts, Oh My! is the embodiment of Halloween: a black background with purple, green, and orange glitters.  And Proper Polish Dr. Franken-sparkle is another awesome Halloween glitter polish with its assortment of different shaped glitters.

You might recognize the third ghostly background as Twisted Colors P.S. I Enjoy Acid Pops.  I used that one as a background on my entire left hand last year.  It's the perfect toxic-green for Halloween!  I guess its green pigmentation is extra strong, because the green shows through and turned my ghosts on those nails greenish themselves.

I did spice things up a little bit this year by using some water decals from Naildrobe.  I love all of the Halloween decals I got this year!  Don't worry, you'll definitely be seeing the rest of the designs throughout the rest of this challenge. ;)

The white and black that I used for the hand-painted ghosts are Salon Perfect Sugar Cube and Nina Ultra Pro Black, respectively.  This design was pretty simple but a lot of fun - especially since I got to use such awesome background colors for my ghosties!

As always, here's the giveaway image.  The month may be almost half over, but it's never too late to join in the fun!  Have you been participating in this challenge?  Let me know in the comments!

Update 10/14!

HOLD THE PHONE.  Dr. Frankensparkle GLOWS IN THE DARK.  Whaaaat!

I noticed this when I went to bed last night, and there was an odd glowing coming from some of my nails.  You can even almost make out the outline of the ghosts on two of my nails, since the ghost decals are on a clear background!  So cool!!!

(The ghost nails in question are the two at the bottom left.)

I even woke up in the middle of the night for whatever reason and found my nails still glowing.  How is that even possible?!  Thanks, Proper Polish, for giving me a super fun surprise! :D

October nail art challenge Day 7: Pattern

Today's nail art challenge was another pretty open-ended one.  There are tons of different patterns that one could apply to Halloween!  I opted to go for a witch sock-type pattern.

 

I love, love, love these chevron vinyls from KBShimmer.  They made this pattern so easy!  The purple I used is Sally Hansen CSM Trouble Maker, the green is Spoiled by Wet N' Wild Green To Be Heard, and the orange is the most absolutely perfect orange.  I've been searching high and low for a rusty orange creme for months, and all I've been able to find is either a metallic or far too bright/neon.  But FINALLY, OPI has come out with a lovely deep, rusty orange - It's A Piazza Cake, from their fall 2015 collection called Venice.  Finally, the black that I used is Nina Ultra Pro Black.

I've been making a point of watching Halloween-related things while doing these polish challenges.  While I did this design, I watched an episode of Psych called Shawn (and Gus) of the Dead - it's not strictly a Halloween-themed episode, but it's about a mummy, so that's close enough for me!

Here's the giveaway image for you.  Have you been participating in this challenge? or are you thinking about jumping in late?  Let me know in the comments!

Holy Late Posts, Batman: New Year's Eve 2014

I have been SO lazy when it comes to editing photos and writing blog posts!  Boo!

For New Year's Eve this (last?) year, I decided to go with the classic black and gold, and add a touch of silver.  I also decided to pick up on the 3D trend and use some little studs on my nails!

The black I used is Nina Ultra Pro "Black," and the silver and gold are Zoya "Trixie" and "Ziv," respectively.

The design ended up looking a little more stripe-y than I'd hoped; what I wanted was a half-moon-and-French mani.  But my half-moons ended up a lot thicker than I wanted.  Eh... oh well!

I'm not very happy with the quality of these pictures.  I took them hurriedly on my phone, without setting up my usual lamp and white pillowcase background.  Believe me when I say that I will not allow such sub-par photos on my blog any more. :)

What was your NYE style?  Did you go glitzy or chic?  Let me know (or show me) in the comments!

ALL the Christmas Nail Arts!!!

I spent a lot of time this month NOT painting my nails.  But there were TONS of Christmas-themed nail art designs that I wanted to try out, so I decided to do ALL of them on my nails at once! :D

I used ALL the colors for this, and rather than describe them in order of appearance, I'll just list them all at the bottom of this post (which is going to be pretty photo-heavy).

Here's my left hand:

And my left thumb, because I was too proud of it to only show it at the horrible angle above:

 

I took inspiration from a few different sources for this nail art.  The Christmas tree and Santa coat are from this awesome nail art compliation off of FabArtDIY.com.  The Santa corset was inspired by Instagram user arita888.

On my right hand:

Okay, this did not go as I had planned.  The Santa hat (also inspired by the FabArtDIY list) turned out awesome, but my cable knit sweaters... Not so much.  I got the idea from this image, and found this YouTube tutorial on how to do it with gel polish.  What I actually used was 3D fabric paint on top of one coat of normal polish, then one coat of polish on top of that.  I think the technique was good, but the execution was ah... less than good.  It ended up looking far less delicate and much more messy than I'd been hoping.

And then, since I used my glue basecoat, my pointer finger design ended up falling off very quickly.  So I redid it with a different pattern:

This one turned out messy too, because I'm not so great at stamping.  It was perfect in my head: red, green, and silver snowflakes stamped over white and then matte-d for wrapping paper, and then a very sparkly purple ribbon.  The overall design was inspired by Instagram user anas_manis.

By the way - do you recognize the pattern on my left ring finger?  Like, REALLY recognize it?  I did that same design on my nails last Christmas!  Here's the original, complete with my super-short, pre-Biotin nails:

I loved this design so much that I decided to redo it this year.  It's a simple enough design that there isn't too much obvious skill improvement between the years, but it's always nice to have a visual reminder of how much nicer my nails are now. :)

Aaaand I absolutely adore my tiny little Christmas tree, so I decided to show off my nails in front of it. :D

 

This nail art took me a whomping three and a half hours and 18 nail polishes.  WOW.  But it was tons of fun, and I watched such Christmas classics as The Muppets Christmas Carol and American Horror Story while doing this! ;) 

Sigh.  My right thumb, middle, AND ring finger nail designs all fell off too, so I had to redo them!  I liked the Santa hat so much that I kept that design, but I decided against redoing the sweater designs and instead chose two more Christmasy patterns: a Santa face and a penguin!

 

 The Santa face turned out pretty nicely, though his eyes smeared a little when I put on my top coat.  And sorry about my messy cuticles - I was too excited to take these last two pictures to bother waiting until my cuticles were clean!

This penguin...  Poor little guy.  His right eye was a little bit lopsided, so I tried to even it out by making it a little bigger.  But instead, my hand slipped and now he's a mutant penguin with two and a half eyes.  I can't stop laughing every time I look at him. :) :(

Which design is your favorite?  Is there another Christmas/winter design that you love doing?  Let me know in the comments!  And Merry Christmas Eve :D 

As promised, here's a list of everything that I used for this:
Zoya Trixie
China Glaze Innocence
China Glaze White on White
Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips
Sally Hansen White striper
Twisted Colors All Spruced Up
Zoya Nyssa
Zoya Ziv
OPI How Great Is Your Dane
OPI An Affair In Red Square
Essie Bikini So Teeny
Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel
Heather's Hues Santa Baby
Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black
China Glaze Fairy Dust
Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard
Julep Bunny
Zoya Haven

Zoya Posh

Nina Ultra Pro Black

Finger Paints Master Muse
Cheeky Beauty Jumbo Plate 10
Scribbles 3D Fabric Paint in White
ULTA Sweet&Shimmer studs

LPL Glamghouls Day 7: Jack O' Lanterns

It's October 7th!  Know what that means?  It's one day until my four-year anniversary with my boyfriend, for one thing.  But this post is about what's today - the next design for the Laidback Polish Lovers October nail art challenge!

Today's challenge is another classic symbol of October and Halloween season: Jack O'Lanterns!

 

Doing today's challenge made me realize that my orange nail polish is severely limited.  I only have five orange polishes, and only two of them are cremes!  Looks like I have some buying to do! ;)  The one I decided to use is Sally Girl "Crazy," a mini so small that I think I pretty much used up the whole bottle in this one manicure!

I didn't quite feel like drawing faces on all ten nails, so I used a bunch of different YouTube videos for inspiration.  My right hand was inspired by Totally Cool Nails' video, though I didn't feel like doing a French tip on every nail.  I especially like the scary monster face on my ring finger. :)

I LOVE these three!  This look was inspired by My Simple Little Pleasures' video, and the thumb and pinky on my left hand were inspired by MissGlamasaurus1's video.  The basic jack o' lantern faces were inspired by cutepolish's Halloween guide - I expect I'll have that one linked in just about all of these challenge posts!

My white and black polishes are the same as always: China Glaze "White on White" and Nina Ultra Pro "Black."  Though I did also use my Finger Paints "Ch-art-coal Black" striping polish, and I also tried using my Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art pen in black.  (The pen didn't work so well for me - I find it easier to paint with my left hand than to draw!)

Once again, here's the challenge image for you:

 

Are any of you participating in this?  Which design are you most excited to do (or see me do)?  Let me know in the comments!

October Laid Back Nail Art Challenge Day 4: Blood!

I wasn't super excited about the timing of this design - I've been out of town visiting with my boyfriend's family, so I painted my nails on Friday.  Which means, of course, that I've been sporting this look all weekend.  That's not exactly a problem for me, except that it just felt weird to have blood-themed nails, with the black-and-red thing, when I'm seeing the boyfriend's parents.  It's just that the whole blood and black and red thing brings me back to my semi-emo middle school days, when my family lamented the fact that I liked wearing black nail polish and asked me why I didn't wear the blue nail polish more often.

Anyway, that all isn't too big of a deal because I'm not wearing the black nail polish so I can feel deep and brooding like Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  Just like with the ghosts, I didn't want to have the same pattern on every nail, plus I figured I'd feel even weirder about having drippy-blood nails around my boyfriend's parents.  So I compromised and did a little of both!

The French tips on my ring and pointer fingers are inspired by Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because I still adore that show.

My thumb and pinky were inspired by this cutepolish video, although I made it more interesting by using 3D fabric paint for the dripping blood!  I'm not sure how well you can tell based on the photos, but I think it's a pretty awesome effect.  My middle fingers were inspired by this video that a friend shared on my Facebook wall, though it didn't turn out very well on my left hand.

My black polish is Nina Ultra Pro "Black," the white is China Glaze "White on White," the red is Sally Hansen CSM "Red My Lips," and the black glitter polish is China Glaze "Lubu Heels."

I had fun with this design, but I'm definitely looking forward to Jack-O-Lanterns on the 7th and Candy Corn on the 22nd!!  In case you want to see it again, here's the challenge image:

P.S. I'm sorry if this blog post reads differently than usual.  I sort of wrote this post in a hurry before we went out to dinner, and my priority was editing the photos and placing the necessary links!

Laidback Polish Lovers October Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Ghosts!

Recently, while browsing the nail polish community on reddit, I came across a nail art challenge for the month of October.  I've never taken part in a nail art challenge before, largely because painting my nails every day for a month sounds exhausting!  But this one is a "laid back" challenge, with 3 days between manicures, so I decided to give it a go!  Here's the original image detailing the challenge:

I just want to note how awesome it is that #10 is Frankenstein's Monster, not just Frankenstein.  That's

a pet peeve of mine!

Apparently Laidback Polish Lovers is a Facebook group, but unfortunately I can't find it, not even through Google.  If any of my readers know how I can find this group, please let me know!

Anyway, as today is October 1, here's my ghost nail art!

 

I decided to mix it up a bit, and not do only white ghosts on top of black.  The green you see on my left hand is Twisted Colors' "P.S. I Enjoy Acid Pops," a color from the We'll Take The Lot collection that I've been waiting for!  My order of the whole collection came in today, and I decided to use it as a background for some of my ghosties.  (You'll see the color swatched with the rest of the collection in the next week or so!)

 

I used a lot of different nail art tutorials as inspiration for my ghost shapes - including ones by Naileditnz, SaraBeautyCorner, and BeautifulYouTV.  The white I used is China Glaze "White on White."

 

The face on my middle finger is based off of Ghostface from Scream!  I like these multicolored little guys.  I think they kinda turned out like the ghosts in PacMan!  My black polish is Nina Ultra Pro "Black."  From left to right, the ghost colors are Sephora "Pink Bikini," ORLY "Saturated," Sephora "Caipi Freeze," and ORLY "Ablaze."  (The Sephora colors are part of a mini collection, called "Paint Rio in Neon.")

 

Here's a closeup of my thumbs, since you can hardly see them in the picture of both hands.  The one on my right hand is actually 3D - I used Scribbles 3D fabric paint to draw on the face, then painted over it.  I think it really makes the ghost face pop!  And I like the little guy on my left thumb - I think he looks like he's singing. :)

I had a ton of fun with this manicure and I'm super stoked to paint the rest of the challenges!  If you choose to partake, even in just one of the challenges, be sure to include the hashtag #LPLGlamghouls in your social media posts!  Which design are you most excited for?  Let me know in the comments!

Fall-colored Retro Dots

Before I started this blog, I always posted my nail art designs to a Facebook photo album to share them with my family and friends.  One design that was a HUGE hit turned out to me one of my favorites to paint, a rather retro-looking lines-and-dots design.  I originally did it in neon-lime green with the design in black and white:

This is five months ago - my nails were so much shorter and less nicely shaped!!

That green is Zoya "Mitzi."

My friends were really excited about this pattern, and I said back then that I might make a tutorial video for it some time.  I tried once, but was disappointed in my camera's video capabilities.  You see, as a filmmaker, I'm rather committed to producing high-quality audio and video.  While my camera creates great photos, it's really not very good for video.  The largest possible size that I can record at is only 640x480 pixels.  (I think my cell phone takes higher quality video than that!)

But, as a nail blogger and a nail art enthusiast, I really wanted to make at least this one tutorial video.  So I gritted my teeth and bared with the low quality video and the mostly-decent audio.

So without further ado, I present to you my very first nail art tutorial video!  Watch it embedded here or view it on YouTube here.

This time, I decided to use some fall colors for the design.  I used OPI "How Great Is Your Dane?" for the background, Nina Ultra Pro "Gladiator" for the gold, and Sally Hansen CSM "Hi Ho Silver" for the silver.  The song in the background is called "Learn to Fly," and it's by a good internet-friend of mine, Josh Woodward.

Because I'm not crazy about my matte top coat - it chips and cracks within 24 hours - I only used it on my middle finger for the sake of photos.  But I really like how this design looks in matte, no matter the color scheme.  I think it makes it look like wallpaper from the 70s!

 

In general, this design looks best when the textures of the accent colors match - whether they're both cremes or both metallics.

 

I had a lot of fun creating this design - you'll likely see it on this blog again, perhaps in next season's colors!  I also had fun making the video.  You just might see me making more tutorial videos.  Maybe.  Keep reading my posts and my Facebook page to find out if I make more! ;)

Fun With Nails Inc, London

I was at ULTA last Wednesday - dangerous territory, I know, but I dropped below my next weight loss marker so I deserved a reward!  They had a deal on Nails Inc, London polishes for a free mini set of their Kensington Caviar base+top coats if you bought any two items (that deal is continuing until 9/27/14!).  I already knew I was going to get Knightsbridge from the Special Effects collection* - basically a disco ball in a bottle - so I decided to pick out another color by the same company.  I was tempted by a bunch of them, but decided that I wanted a nice deep red creme for fall, so I went with Kensington High Street.
*Normally, I'd include a link to Knightsbridge, but this polish is proving impossible to find online.  Nails Inc makes a polish called Knightsbridge Road, which is from the Galaxy collection and is a gold-based color.  That's the only one I can find online.  I will definitely be swatching the Knightsbridge that I bought soon, and when that happens I'll edit in a link to that post!

I also recently saw a really awesome black lace nail art design on reddit, and found this tutorial for one like it on YouTube by elleandish.  The tutorial mentions Big Smoky Top Coat by Sally Hansen, and I was like well, I gotta get me some of that.  So I got that, too.

I was really torn on what I should paint for today.  Knightsbridge over some awesome bright colors because it's still sort of summer here?  Kensington High Street and Big Smoky and maybe some stamping because it's basically fall?  One on each hand?  I decided to compromise between summer and fall by wearing an obnoxiously neon shirt and painting a deep red on my nails.

And since I got the free samples, I decided to try them out.  They're apparently infused with caviar oil to prevent staining and chipping.  The base coat is really pink.  I don't know if it would show through on a lighter color, but it didn't show through the darkness of Kensington High Street.  The top coat is INSANELY smooth and shiny.  It definitely gives my nails that wet, glossy look that a lot of people crave.  The top coat also has a little bit of a pink tint to it, but it didn't tint the polish at all.

Nails Inc, London: Kensington High Street

This is a gorgeous, sort of brick-red polish - it photographed WAY brighter and redder than it is in person.  It almost looks like a bright cherry red here, but in person it's deep and dark, closer to a black cherry.

Application is pretty good.  It got a tiny bit streaky on the first coat, but those evened out completely on the second coat.  I always really struggle with reds, because they stain the CRAP out of my skin if the brush gets anywhere near it.  This one was no different, but I managed to mop up the skin stains before taking pictures.

It's a really great color for fall!  And aside from a few nudes and Zoya Remy & Ryan, my seasonally-appropriate colors for fall are severely lacking, so I'm really glad I got this one.

Sally Hansen: Big Smoky Top Coat plus Stamping

Sally Hansen has a number of fun top coats, all with "Big ___ Top Coat" names.  Matte, Shiny, Smoky, Glitter (which comes in a few different colors), Crackle, and Shimmer - I think that's all of them.  Anyway, Smoky is a really cool sheer black polish with a not-quite-holo shimmer effect.  I decided to try playing with stamping under and over Smoky, all on top of Kensington.

I would have been happier with the process if my stamping kit wasn't kind of blah.  It was only $4, and it's just really hard to work with.  Nevertheless, I really like the results that I got!  I used Nina Ultra Pro "Black" for the black on my left hand, and China Glaze "White on White" for the white on my right.

I like the stamps on top of Smoky better than the ones that went under it - especially when I stamped in black, the design gets really covered up and hard to see.  But I really, really like the look of stamping over Smoky over Kensington!  It just looks so fancy and elegant.  I think that without Big Smoky, I like stamping over Kensington better in black; with Big Smoky, I like using white better because it stands out more.  Which do you like best?  What's your favorite fall color or design?  Let me know in the comments!

Zoya Pixie Dust: Liberty plus Some Other Stuff

I mentioned Zoya's Pixie Dust in my post on the eight blue-green-golds, so I figured I'd do a swatch of it!  I, of course, have my Pixie Dust in the brightest blue possible, "Liberty."

Zoya Liberty

Pixie Dust is the most sparkly polish I've seen yet.  It's like having tiny crushed blue diamonds on my nails!  It actually doesn't work well with a top coat, even a shiny one like Out The Door.  A top coat flattens out the texture of the glitters, which mutes the sparkle.

Application is, as always with Zoya, really nice.  Two coats is perfect.

Taken in feeble evening sunlight.

A cool thing about Pixie Dust is how dark the color is, but with the sparkles it's incredibly bright.  I love it and I can't stop staring at my nails!

Taken on my cell phone in the car - don't worry, I was parked!  Direct sunlight.

The best part about the texture of Pixie Dust is that it's very forgiving.  If you miss a spot, if you smear it while it's still wet, or if it chips when dry and you go over it with a few little dabs, you can barely tell!  That makes me really happy because I used my glue basecoat for this, and it chipped a lot sooner than I would have liked.  I dabbed a tiny bit over the chipped spots and you have to really be looking closely at my nails to be able to tell that I patched any chips!

Nail Stains

Liberty stained the CRAP out of my nails.  Really, really blue.  I used this color when I first got it with my usual basecoat, and I don't recall it staining; I think that the glue basecoat is just really porous and allows staining.  Maybe in the future I'll try using a coat or two of my usual basecoat on top of the glue and see how that goes.  In any case, I wanted to take this opportunity to share my solution to stained nails, and it's really simple: toothpaste!

"*gasp* I'm naked!!" - My nails

I can't remember where online I read or heard this, but somewhere out there somebody recommended using normal toothpaste to get rid of polish stains on nails.  I wanted to try it out, but I don't own a nail brush.  I DO, however, have like 5 extra toothbrushes laying around, so I grabbed a fresh one and used that to scrub away my nail stains.  And it totally worked!  These stains were really bad, and they were on all ten nails, so it took a good 10-15 minutes to work the stains away.  But that's a heck of a lot better than waiting two months for the stains to grow out, feeling sad and embarrassed about my naked nails in the mean time!

I trimmed and filed my nails a bit before taking this after photo.  Toothpaste didn't make my nails shorter!

The glue basecoat didn't work very well with Liberty, anyway.  Rather than pop off in one big piece, it flaked off only with the use of an orangewood stick dipped in acetone.  I ended up removing it the usual way - the Deborah Lippman method - and it was still a struggle, but it worked better and faster than scraping it all off.

I painted my toe nails!

Sandal season is coming to an end, and I wanted to send it off with a bang by painting my toe nails to match my favorite pair of sandals ever.

When I saw these gladiator-style sandals in the store with my mom, I was like "Haha, those are CRAZY, I just have to try them on!"  The moment I zipped them up (the zippers have little tassels on them!), Mom and I were totally baffled at how awesome they were.  Isn't it awesome how sometimes you can think something is way outside your style comfort zone, only to turn around and completely adore it within moments?

Anyway, five years later, I'm looking for a gold metallic nail polish and I find "Gladiator" by Nina Ultra Pro.  It's a great brassy-gold, and since it's called Gladiator, I wanted to wear it to match my gladiator sandals.  It's also a really nice way to transition into fall, since it's not super bright but not quite as deep as most fall colors.

Back to School Nail Art!

I may not be a student anymore, and I'm not a teacher either, but it being back-to-school season, I wanted to do some school-themed nail art!  I had tons of fun with this, and it didn't even take as much time as I thought it would.  Only about two hours from applying basecoat to applying top coat!

   

 

More details ahead:

Left thumb: Converse again!  I used Nina Ultra Pro "Black" and China Glaze "White on White."  Instead of using a striper brush for the laces like I did last time, I used my new Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art White nail art pen!

Left pointer: A simple piece of paper, complete with stupid smears from applying my top coat.  It had been dry for at LEAST twenty minutes.  Whatever.  I used the same white as before, Essie "Strut Your Stuff" for the blue lines, and Sephora "Pink Bikini" for the pink stripe.

Left middle: Chalkboard!  Same black as before, same white nail art pen, and a thin strip of OPI "How Great Is Your Dane?" for the wooden panel thingy where you put the chalk and the eraser.  This one got a matte top coat to simulate the matte-ness of a chalk board.  (I use OPI's matte top coat.)

Left ring: Dry erase board!  Same white as before, same blue as before, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Hi Ho Silver" for the metal panel thingy where you put the markers and eraser.

Left pinky: A ruler!  China Glaze "Happy Go Lucky" as the background, and my Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art Black nail art pen.

Right thumb: A locker!  I chose Finger Paints "Magritte's Masterpiece" as the blue, because it's the closest color I have to my high school's blue.  Same silver as before for the locker vents, and the same black and white nail art pens for the lock.

Right pointer: Another Converse!  Zoya "Robyn", along with the same black and white paints as before.

Right middle: The eraser end of a pencil!  Same yellow as before, with stripes of Finger Paints "Master Muse", the same silver as before, and the same pink as before.  The eraser part got a matte top coat as well, to better represent the texture of an eraser.

Right ring: A crayon, inspired by reddit user vanillabean's post.  I used Spoiled by Wet n'Wild "Green To Be Heard" for the green, and somehow managed to do the crayon stripeys by using a combination of my nail art pen and Finger Paints "Ch-Art-Coal Black," which is a striper polish.  What design would be complete without topcoat smears? :(

 a detail of my pinky because the darned finger is too short to play nice in the other photos.

Right pinky: An apple!  My nails are still stained yellow from a previous mani, so I used one coat of China Glaze "Innocence" as the background - otherwise, I wouldn't have used a background color.  The apple is composed of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Red My Lips," and the same brown, green, and white as before.  And, of course, some of the red from the apple picked up onto my top coat brush and smeared above the apple.  Sigh.  The apple design was inspired by YouTuber cutepolish.

I love, love, love these nails, and I'm kinda tempted to show up to a random college class at the nearby University of Maryland just to see if anyone notices my nails!  What's your favorite design?  Is there a symbol of back-to-school that I left out?  Let me know what you think!