Another word ladder seeded by my kids. (Circles signify that letters have changed from the prior row.) Cover photo (which is not totally random, hint hint) is by John Matychuk on Unsplash.
loved this! the clues for NAIL and NEON are brilliant--they made me smile :) got stuck with 1A and 18A (even with 3/4 letters for each entry!), but then remembered that you usually have a picture that gives a hint to the theme, and solved it from there!