The Digit-al Dozen Does Books: The Giving Tree

Purchased by Me

Goooood Morning ladies, gents and lacquerheads!

Today starts yet another theme week in the Digit-al Dozen, with this weeks theme being BOOKS! I am an avid reader, when I'm not having to read 6,000 papers at a time for school lol. I've been a speed reader my whole life and when I start reading I generally devour a book until I've finished the whole thing. For this week I actually had a hard time deciding what I was going to replicate on my nails. My favourite kinds of books are ones with serial killers and detectives chasing after them and finding all the clues. So I wasn't going to be creating any of those!

I remembered one book from my childhood by the illustrious Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree.

If you have never read The Giving Tree, the basic plot is this; there is a boy and a female apple tree that are able to communicate with each other. When the boy is young he enjoys playing with the tree, swinging from its branches and eating her apples. As he starts to grow up he makes requests of the tree, first for money so the tree suggests that he pick her apples to sell. Then he wants a house, so the tree suggests cutting down her branches. Then he wants a boat, so the tree suggests cutting her trunk to make the boat, which he does. Finally as an old man he just wants a quiet place to sit, which the stump provides. The book ends by saying that the tree was happy. Here is the cover art of the book.

For my nails I chose to recreate the cover art. I started with China Glaze Gaga For Green on all of my nails. Then I used a striping brush and Essie Pretty Edgy to create the tree and its leaves. For the little boy I used Cult Nails Tempest and Cult Nails Evil Queen and then went over everything in black creme with a detail brush to create the actual leaves and outline of the tree.

This book was actually pretty controversial as to whether or not the relationship should be conceived as positive, in that the tree gave selflessly for the boy or a negative relationship between the two. I think the book is quite simple and it's beautiful because we should give selflessly every now and then to the ones that we love and care about.

I created an easily pinable image with the cover art embedded in it for all you lovely folks!

What do you think of these Giving Tree nails?

I'm really excited for the rest of Book Week and I can't wait to see what else my fabulous friends have come up with! Make sure to check them out below :D