Tropical Tuesday: Leafy and Bright

Hi everyone! Please help me think of a better name for this post... Today's nail art is simple but I am quite pleased with it. The only bit that didn't quite work out was the flower image on one of my thumbs not quite coming out right.

On my middle fingers I used a layer of gold metallic polish (colours listed below pictures) followed my sponging on some gold glitter. My thumb and little finger nails have floral images from Mo You London's Tropical 07 stamping plate. On my index and ring fingernails I started with a white base and then some leaf images from their Tropical 10 plate. I used a gradient technique for this with two Barry M polishes. I find this surprisingly easy to do as you can blend the colours a bit by swiping the card across the stamping plate a few times.

Definitely tempted to try more leafy designs. I think they make good accent nails and leaf patterns seem to be around a lot at the moment on clothes and things.
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Flip Flop Fantasy - China Glaze, Key Lime - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M, Bright Lights - Barry M, Million Dollar Dream - Fun Lacquer

Tropical Tuesday: Fresh Fruit

So some time ago when I'd just started this blog, and had a big backlog of pictures to use, I did a weekly 'Tropical Tuesday' with various brightly coloured tropical themed nail art ideas. I've not been so good this year, I've had way less tropical themed manicures, but at least I can squeeze one in before the weather gets cold!

My inspiration for this nail art came from Wah Nails on Instagram. They did a lovely design with peaches over pale purpley glitter. I considered doing peaches on all my nails, but decided to go for more variety, sort of fruit machine style.

To make these I drew the fruit onto my Uber Mat, coloured them in with nail polish and a dotting tool, added clear polish, and then peeled them off to stick onto my  nails. I had real diffuclty as I used a nail art pen to draw them on, which had gone a bit funny. It was taking so long to do them that the outlines started to dry and crack a little, you can see that on some of the picture below.

So overall I think these are OK but not majorly successful. The peaches came out best so I think I should have stuck to them!
Colours used: Nimbus - Illyrian Polish, Nail Art Pen in Black - Barry M, Passion Fruit - Barry M, Dead Heat - Barry M, Peach Melba - Barry M, Seven Dials - Nails Inc, Marylebone Road - Nails Inc, Papaya - Barry M

Tropical Tuesday: Toucan Play that Game!

Happy Tuesday! Tonight I am bringing you a terrible/wonderful pun! I've pretty much had Two Can Play That Game in my head every time I've looked at these nails! This was just a quick bit of advanced stamping on accent nails but I really loved the way it turned out. I used Dead Heat from Barry M's speedy collection for a really vibrant summery red. I'm not accepting summer as over till the end of September! (unless it gets really cold I guess)

I used my Uber Mat and Mo You London Tropical Plate 06 for this adorable Toucan pattern and stamped the image in black. I used white stamping polish for the Toucans tummies as I wanted something that would show up well against the red. It's not obvious but before the orange of the beaks I used a little yellow as well to give them a bit more dimension, Only obvious close up though!
Colours used: Dead Heat - Barry M, Black Knight - Mo You London, White Knight - Mo You London, W18 - Color Cosmetic, Yellow - Barry M

Tropical Tuesday: Neon Palm Tree Smoosh!

Tropical Tuesday is back! Finally it is that time of year again :) I definitely don't think I can keep this up for every Tuesday like I did last summer. At the time I'd just started blogging, and had a nice hefty backlog of pictres to go through.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed having really vibrant summery colours on my nails again. It's been a while. I started with a white base to really make the colours pop. I then used a stamper to use the 'smoosh' technique. This involves putting blobs of nail polish on the stamper, and then dabbing it around on the nail, to get a random splotchy effect. I love the kind of nail art where you can be as messy as you like and it still turns out pretty!

When I first splotched the colours on I wasn't sure about the combination, but as I did some more and finished the design and grew on me quickly! For the palm trees I used a small nail art brush and black nail polish - colours listed below the pictures.
Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Seven Dials - Nails Inc, Flip Flop Fantasy - China Glaze, Uptown Glamour - Nails Inc, Lady In Black - OPI

Tropical Tuesday: When Life Gives You Lemons, Paint Your Nails!

Todays tropical Tuesday is my last one for this year, which makes me a little sad! I've really enjoyed this theme and will hopefully be able to do it again next year, and for a little longer. Bring on the gradients and fruit! All that being said, I am gearing up to that autumnal feeling, and looking forward to getting the darks and glitters out. The autumn collections this year are right up my street with all the purples, reds and blues too, much more so than last year. Yay!

So, on to the nail varnish.This is one of my favourite designs I've done this year altogether. One of those ones I just did not want to take off! Inspiration was taken from Pinterest and Instagram. I can't credit it to one particular person as there are a few of this style, but whoever started these lemons designs thank you!

For the lemons I actually used two different shades of yellow, though I don't think you can really tell once the black outlines are on there. For the first yellow, a nice bright Barry M, I painted the shapes on with the brush that comes out of the bottle. I then used a nail art brush for the centres of the lemon slices and a little shading with a paler yellow. Once this was all dry I used a black nail art pen to finish off the design, and my favourite top coat (Nails Inc's Kensington Caviar - it's so good!).


On the right I've included the design before any of the pale yellow or black, sorry for the blurryness, I just thought there was something quite nice and simple about it, perhaps would look nice with a paler blue for a more subtle look. I'm definitely all for the bright bold lemons though! Please see them again below, this is after it's been on Instargram so has a filter on, but I rather liked it so didn't want to leave it out!

Colours Used: Bruton Place - Nails Inc, White - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M, Notting Hill Carnival - Nails Inc, Nail Art Pen in Black - Barry M, Kensington Caviar - Nails Inc

Tropical tuesday: Double pineapple!

Today I have something bright to compensate for all this rain! I'm very fond of fruit, and think that pineapples are a excellent subject for nail art as they are so interesting to look at. Therefore for this design I am practicing freehand pineapples. The fruit were painted with a small nail art brush (from ebay!). I like the look it's created, but would like to be able to achieve those beautifully neat designs I've seen on Instagram, they may or may not be stencils, but I think I will need much finer brushes and a bit more practice!

Below I've included a picture of them with my awesome pineapple t-shirt (still available from H&M), because lets face it, who needs double denim when you can have DOUBLE PINEAPPLE!!

Colours Used: Sunny Days - Rimmel, Alpine snow - OPI, Cappuccino - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M

Tropical Tuesday: Five A Day!

Fantastic Mr Fruit for you today! This one is from a couple of months back, I'd been in quite a long phase of wearing plain colours, and decided I wanted to go all out on the nail art again, glad to say I've not stopped since! The design was done freehand with a little help from a nail art pen for the seeds on the melons, kiwi's and strawberry's. It was great fun to do and I liked the kiwi's expecially as for something so simple to do it looked quite striking. Inspiration was taken from a wide variety of different fruit nails on Pinterest.

When I do this design next I think I will switch the watermelons and strawberries around as it would suit the nail sizes better. That was the orginial plan but I got carried away and started the watermelons on my ring finger without thinking!

Colours used: Passion Fruit - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M, Coconut - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Cocoa - Barry M, Block Your Green - Rimmel, Nail Art Pen in Black - Barry M