Summer Challenge Catchup, Day 4: Palm Trees

I think for this theme, most people did something along the same lines. That being, a gradient of either a sunset or a sunrise with the black silhouette of palm trees. Which is exactly what I've done. I did have other ideas in mind too, but I couldn't quite figure out how I would put them onto my nails, so I just stuck with the obvious.

 

The colours I used for this design were Barry M's "Strawberry Ice Cream", Rimmel's "Ultra Violet" and Rimmel's "Aqua Cool". Then, I used Barry M's "Black" and a thin paintbrush to add the silhouette details. I think the details could have been done more neatly but my brush is losing it's original shape so isn't as thin as it was originally. Looks like I'll have to get a new one, or maybe try some actual nail art brushes. What do you guys think?

Summer Challenge, Day 9: Favourite Summer Memory

I think everyone will agree, this was a hard challenge. Everyone has some memories from the summer that really stand out but it's hard to transfer those into some nail art. Then again, with a theme like this then it more than likely guarantees everyone will do something different.

Outside my house when I was growing up, there was a HUGE tree where I would play and hang out with my friends. It was a good meeting place, and so I have a lot of memories attached to that tree. So, that's what I based my nail art on.

I did a gradient as a background to make a sunset, to show those days where we would play outside all day until it got dark and our parents called us in. Then, on my ring finger painted the tree. In hindsight, perhaps I should have done some stick people on the other nails and under the tree. Oh well, I still like how it turned out. The colours I used for the background were Barry M's "Bright Red", Nails Inc "Atomic", Barry M's "Yellow" over a base of Barry M's "Lemon Ice Cream". Then, I used a small paintbrush and Barry M's "Black" to make the trunk and branches of the tree. After that dried, I used the brush again to stipple leaves over the branches using Barbara Daly's "Kiwi".

Pink and Green circle stamping

Before I start today's post, I want to apologise for  the terrible stamping on my nails. Hayfever has been killing me all weekend, and it doesn't help that I live right across the road from a field of rapeseed. Lining up the stamp with the nail isn't easy when you have streaming eyes and a running nose, y'know!

Anyway, I'll stop with the whining. The base colour I used was Barabra Daly Make Up's "Kiwi" and the stamping colour was Nails Inc's "OMP!". The stamping plate was BM206.

The pink didn't come out quite as bright as I'd have hoped, but I think the manicure still looks good. Lining up the stamp is definitely something I need to improve on... Does anyone have any tips?

Yellow and Blue gradients

A trend that is sweeping the nail-world right now is gradients. I think a part of this style gaining popularity is through Sammy from The Nailasaurus posting her tutorial which makes creating gradients a hell of a lot easier. You can find that here. This is the technique I used to paint my nails.

The yellow is Barry M's "Lemon Ice Cream" and the blue is Max Factor's "Candy Blue".

I've still not decided whether or not this combination is something I like. The colours are very bright and "in-your-face", but at the same time there's something hypnotising and summer-y about them.

Thoughts?