Fangirl was my first Rainbow Rowell book, and has been one of my favorite contemporaries since that moment. What is there not to love about cute boys, nerdy girls, fan fiction and a Harry Potter inspired book within a book (side note – who is STOKED for Carry On??)! So when I found out about the new special edition versions, I seriously had to talk myself out of buying all THREE. I settled on the salmon cover from Target, and I’m very pleased!
Now comes the fun part!
I put a ton of pressure on myself not to mess these guys up because I’m so in love with both the story and the covers. That’s probably what took me so long to actually do them after reading the book – but now I’m ready. Let’s start with the original!
Mint and Fangirl – you can’t have one without the other. I don’t think I can count the number of times I’ve taken a pic for Instagram of mint/pastel/rainbow books and Fangirl is ALWAYS in there!
To get the iconic minty color, I used two coats Essie Fashion Playground. A couple of details that stood out to me on this cover were the thought and speech bubbles, as well as the adorable Levi illustration. I played with minimalist versions of the bubbles and plaid pattern of his shirt for the accent nail.
When I first sat down to paint this mani, I had trouble finding the perfect way to interpret the cover differently than the previous design. I didn’t want to take the easy route of same design, different colors. And it’s actually really funny the random places inspiration hits. I was walking out of Ulta after buying the teal I needed for the cover and BOOM, I knew what I wanted to do! Color blocked stripes that are inspired by the block letters of the title.
I got the perfect salmon with two coats of Julep Alicia, and painted a diagonal color block accent nail with China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and Zoya Selene. From the start, I’ve never been into actual people on my nails, but Cath and Levi are highlighted so much more on the special edition cover. To pull from them, I painted Cath’s top knot and a heart on my middle finger using the Julep Plie Wand, which is seriously a lifesaver when it comes to painting detail!
