Happy 'Straya Day

26 January is Australia Day, and since I live there, I thought I'd do a different take on the normal style of  "Australian" nails (i.e. the Australian flag).


I began with Australis' - Mates Rates as the dark green base.

Next, I added LA Colors - Force with a dotting tool.

Lastly, I added Sinful Colors - Snow Me White with a dotting tool over top of the previous dots.



 

 

And there you have it!  My Aboriginal dot-painting-style nails in green and gold (and white!).


NN

Blobs

Just a quick one - fiddling around late one night I thought I'd try a multi-coloured blob manicure:

I honestly can't remember all of the colours I used, but I did paint them over top of Sinful Colors - Snow Me White.


I think if I were ever to try this again, I'd pop the darker colours over the lighter ones (yes, commonsense dictates that would be the case!), but in my defence, I honestly didn't know what I was doing when I started painting.

NN

Patterns

Recently, I bought a dress for work which has a animal print type pattern (the shop calls it zebra).  I decided to see if I could replicate that pattern on my nails.

Using OPI's Did You Ear About Van Gogh as the base coat, and Sally Hansen (SH) Nail Art Pen in black I had a go at it, and was quite pleased how it turned out.

 

 

There seems to be a lot of animal prints and animal pictures out there at the moment, and can I just say, I'm loving it - and not just because it's fashionable at the moment.  It's almost a reminder to get back to/be kind to nature.  I must have about three tops that have leopards and cheetahs on them, one wolf tee, three peacock feathers tees, one nondescript feather tee, and the zebra print dress.  I feel like using my 3000-odd photos I took in South Africa a few years back and creating my own wearable art, but until then, I'll just try stuff that can fit on my nails.

 

I also found this little friend in my garden yesterday - a St Andrew's Cross spider:

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps I'll try this pattern out for size - stay tuned!

 

NN

Peacock Part 2

Hey all - back again after another absence of nearly a month, but this time it's not my fault.  Blogger was, and still is, having issues with uploading photos to posts, and so I've been avoiding posting anything for fear of complications.  Blogger technicians, can you PLEASE fix the problem ASAP?!!!!**


A month is a long time and I'm sure you would have expected me to have done a whole lot with my nails in that time, but sadly, I haven't.  I've been really struggling with getting them to grow to any length without splitting and peeling, and when I think they're strong enough, I apply the polish, only to find that a day later, they're peeling again and so I have to cut what's there. Before you ask, I have been using a strengthening coat and base coats recently in the hope that they might make a difference, but alas, no :-(


Anyway, I have done a few things, one of which I thought I might try and share with you.


BTW/FYI I am OBSESSED with everything peacock at the moment.  I know I am a bit behind with this trend, but I much rather that I follow things because "I" want to, not because everyone else is.  I'm not sure what started this obsession, but I think it's because those are my favourite colours and I did try a mani earlier on that was based on peacock feathers, and I guess the idea just stuck with me.


Using Australis' Blue Tiger, I painted the base colour.

I then applied my Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in silver to make the lines and ovals . . .

Next, I used Jordana - Boy oh Boy for the outer eye of the peacock feather . . .

And finally, I used Ulta3 - Hollywood as the inner part of the peacock eye!


Unfortunately, Sally Hansen doesn't seem to have a nail art pen in gold, otherwise I would have used that instead of silver.  Nonetheless, I think this colour scheme works well together.

Carrying on with the peacock idea, I recently got a basic version of Photoshop as a present (YAY!!!).  I had previously taken a photo of a single peacock feather and used it to familiarise myself with the tools in Photoshop.  This was the initial result:

 

 

Basically, I just used the cloning tool over and over, but look at the pretty colours!  Awesome!  Quite obviously, I need a little practice, but hopefully having Photoshop will mean tidier photos in this blog going forward.


NN

**  Since my plea above for Blogger techs to fix the photo adding tool, they have!  Thanks Blogger!