A Cactus Glitter Explosion!

Finally getting round to sharing my holiday nails! A week ago yesterday we got back from our two week trip to Canada and the US. We travelled flew to Toronto and travelled from there to New York, stopping at many places on the way. We squeezed a lot in so though amazing, it was also quite tiring! I feel like I've fully recovered from the jet lag now, though I wouldn't say no to a three day weekend just to be sure!

So this is the nail art I had on for that full two weeks. I wanted something that would last well, and as chunky glitter is so hard to get off I thought that would do the trick - and indeed it is! I was intending to go for a bit of a negative space look, with sheer pale pink under the glitter, as any chips would then be less obvious, but I did go a tad overboard with the glitter so it was reasonably solid.

For the cacti I used the Uber Chic Succulents and Mo You London Hipster 18 plates and created decals using the advanced stamping technique (you can see how here). It took a while as I created a lot of decals (most of the cactus images have been separated as decals so I could place them side by side on my nails, showing in different positions than they were on the stamping plate). I was inspired by someone on Instagram for this nail art but I can't remember who! They definitely went more subtle with the glitter! I was fairly pleased with these and enjoyed being super sparkly, I was pleasantly surprised by how long they lasted too, only one chip in two weeks!

Colours used: Bashful - Barry M, Yellow Topaz - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Green Park - Nails Inc, Can't Find My Czechbook - OPI, Pomegranate - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: When Life Gives You Lemons Part 2!

Hey everyone! Today I'm back (already!) with some more fruit themed nail art using the Maniology Fruit Deco M028 stamping plate. Having used the watermelon layered stamping images I was keen to try out the lemon ones too, I love stuff with lemons on at the moment, and particularly enjoyed pairing these with a lemon printed top yesterday, who needs double denim when you can have double lemon?

I chose bright blue to go with the lemon print as I think the colour combination really works. I used the exact same shade for some other lemon themed nail art I tried a few years ago which you can see here. This time I wanted to add some zig-zags for some more contrast, for this I used the Tropical 34 plate from Mo You London. This stamping plate has got a cute lemon image on it too but when I've tried to layer it up over zig-zags before it hasn't worked too well, even when stamping over the zig-zags in white first. For the lemons I started with outline image in black, then went in with the yellow and green using a clear stamper. I find it really satisfying using the layered images, and it's definitely quicker than making decals!

So despite the title life is not giving me lemons right now :) I just can't resist a pun! In summary I'm really happy with this nail art, and think that it suits my newly filed down nails. I'm enjoying the novelty of having them a bit shorter, the length was starting to annoy me a little before.
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Bruton Place - Nails Inc, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Yellow - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M