I posted a photo of my blue and blue nails with my badge on Instagram a few weeks ago while I was en route to my Founder’s Day ceremony in NYC. I wanted to give a little context to the fraternity and sisters that inspired this manicure.
On October 13, 1870 at a small college in Illinois, a women’s fraternity named Kappa Kappa Gamma was formed. At least, that’s the simplified version – KKG celebrates 10/13 as our Founder’s Day because those are the oldest records we have from the fraternity. Regardless, we have been celebrating our Founders and honoring all of our sisters for 145 years and it is a truly beautiful thing.
I was not the most active Kappa sister when I attended the University of Miami, but I certainly cherished every moment I spent with my sisters, especially my biggie, smallses, and pseudo-twin. Since becoming an alumnae though, I have been in search and craving the same sisterhood that I took advantage of while I was at school. My local alumni chapter is an absolutely lovely group of women that I have enjoyed spending time with, but as they have familial and work obligations that I have yet to know, we get together much less than I would like (seriously, I’m the youngest member by 20-30 years). Combine that with my dedication to work and awkward work/home location, I also wasn’t able to be as involved as I would have liked.
It wasn’t until my pledge sister, Morgan got back to the states (specifically our lovely home of New Jersey) that I’ve been more involved. She and her little have been sure to include me in all NYC KKG Alumni chapter events and outings. Not only has it been amazing reconnecting with the sisters from my chapter (hoot hoot, Delta Kappa), it has been an absolute pleasure meeting other Delta Kappas in NYC as well as sisters from across the country. That being said, any time I have the time to join the NYC Kappas for an event, I jump at the chance.
Founder’s Day is a huge celebration for Kappas across the states and the NYU chapter of KKG (Eta Pi) did an amazing job of hosting this year’s event. Knowing how special this event would be (and having Morgan in the back of my head being disappointed I didn’t have my nails done for the occasion) I wanted to paint my nails blue and blue for the occasion.
Originally, I wanted to use both Cosmo and Manhattan from the Love, Angeline “Let’s Grab a Drink!” collection because they are both brilliant, beautiful blues, but unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough contrast between the two to do the mani that I wanted.
Having worn Manhattan out the night before and it having more teal flecks that a true blue, I wanted to give Cosmo a try. This was the best decision. While both colors are exceedingly beautiful, Cosmo with a top coat is the perfect sapphire color, which is just what I was looking for with my Kappa inspired mani. I then whipped out my Jolie Polish Turquoise Blue Flower stamping polish to complete the look; it provided the perfect contrast and was just the color I was looking for. I used the Harry Potter Gryffindor stamping plate with a pattern I used before. The way I saw it was that the pattern best fit what I was going for and that the different color combination would protect me from being too repetitive. More specifically, I did not have the time to figure out how to get a fleur de lis on my nails and the pattern was the closest match!
What made this process even better was that I got to try it all out on my brand new Uber Chic Uber Mat before putting it on my nails. I think the Uber Mat gave me the confidence to stamp like I’ve never stamped before because that pattern came out the clearest I’ve ever seen. I always thought it was because the plates weren’t etched deep enough, but maybe I just needed the security of knowing that I wouldn’t ruin any of my furniture with the stamping process.
With my mani and dress blue and blue and blue and on fleek, I took the train into New York City to join up with my fellow sisters to celebrate Founder’s Day for KKG. It was a lovely time and I am so proud to be a part of such an amazing sisterhood of wonderful, inspirational, dynamic women. I’m so happy that I was able to honor these ladies with a worthy little bit of nail art.
Nail Lasagna 