Feelin' Hot Hot Hot | Chilli Pepper Nail Art

...So we can rum boom boom boom!  

Hiya!  Getting all spicy with this hot little chilli (or 'chili' for my American friends) number!  

I honestly have no explanation for how this happened.  I had intended to do something entirely different but it just didn't work out quite exactly as I wanted and then this idea just popped into my head.  I'm really glad it did.  These nails are pretty different (I think) from most of things I've done before, but I think they're rather cute & fun.  I like them!

[An aside: do you get yellow chillis?  If not, those ones are just ordinary peppers...] 

I started with a white base (always a joy...) then painted the pepper-y shapes in Kikos 236 & 239 (lighter & darker reds, respectively), Barielle 'Lemondrops' and Sinful Colors 'Exotic Green'.  I added the stalks with Sinful Colors 'Last Chance' and then outlined & detailed with a skinny brush using a black Orly (Liquid Leather?).

Overall, I'm really happy with these.  I wanted them kind of 'arty' looking and they might be a bit too 'sketchy' in places and insufficiently so in others but I think it's a relatively forgiving design in that regard.  I also wonder if it might have been better with the chillis 'peppered' about (BOOM) a little more sparsely; if you try it, make sure you take into account the stalks & outlining when spacing your chillis!

If you've been following my nails for a little while, you may have noticed that I've changed my nail shape; I fancied a wee change & I'd broken corners off a couple of nails on my other hand, so the time seemed ripe.  I quite like them when they're painted but they do look a bit odd to me when they're not!  What do you think?  Does it suit me?  Is there another shape I should experiment with?  I'll almost definitely end up back with my trusty squares sooner or later...

Final thought: I think a print similar to this could be really cute for summer skirts/shorts/dresses...then you'd be looking HOT (and again!) all the time!  What do you think?  Could peppers be the new bananas?  Chilli jokes appreciated.

Hope you've had a top notch weekend.  I leave you with this:

Zig Zags/Floral Tribal Mish Mash

Hello!  I'm back!  We had a very busy (in a good way!) Easter weekend last weekend but I have now had a chance to paint my nails & take photos etc. soooo yay!  Nails!  

I think this looks kind of like an Easter manicure (cute colours + zig zags = Easter?) but that really wasn't my intention!  Guess I still have Easter on my subconscious brain.  I started out with base colours of China Glaze 'Re-Fresh Mint' & Color Club 'Sweet Pea'.  I hadn't really decided in advance what I would do next, but zig zags just seemed an appropriate choice!  For the other nails, I was going for a tribal-esque vibe, but with little flowers instead of dots (am I still making sense?!).

I picked out Essie 'Blanc', Barry M 'Blackberry' Gelly (the purple one) & Barry M 'Gold Foil' (which I use a LOT for nail art) and added the details with some striper brushes and my second smallest dotting tool.  It was starting to get dark when I painted these so I rushed them a little, but thankfully I don't mind the 'hand painted' look, haha.

I was pretty disappointed with these at first - I absolutely love Re-Fresh Mint & Sweet Pea together and I think I felt that the busyness of the design kind of detracted from that.  They have definitely grown on me, though.  What do you think?

Got some bonus Easter photos for you, too!

Heilan' Coo

The top photo is of some nails I did for the delightful Maddy while she and my sister, Alison, were up staying with us over Easter.  I think nail art looks super cute on wee nails.

The bottom photo is of a heilan' coo (highland cow) at Pollock Country Park because HIGHLAND COWS ARE AWESOME.  Seriously, so cute, I love them.  This one is a 'baby' - look at its little teeny tiny horns just starting to poke out!

Hope you enjoyed these little extras & that you all had as splendid an Easter as I did!  As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.