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:

Jan Weiss 'Yellow Petals' Inspired Nail Art

Hello!  Rocking some 'art-inspired' nail art right now:

I'm hardly what you'd call an art buff - although I wish I was more knowledgeable in the subject - but I found myself browsing art.com for inspiration, where I came across this Jan Weiss print, 'Yellow Petals 4':

I absolutely loved it - it was just begging to be made into a manicure!  I'm always trying to convince myself that floral designs are 'too girlie' for me, but every time I do something flowery I end up really liking it.   What I dig about this series of Jan Weiss prints, I think, is that they're a bit 'edgier' (seriously judging myself for using that word) than my idea of a more classic floral, and not very cutesy at all!  I love the freshness of the colours, too.

I began this design by painting my nails white.  Whilst I love nail art on a white base, I do NOT enjoy the act of painting it.  White polish just seems to be consistently annoying, so if you have one you love, let me know!  

I used Barry M 'Acid Yellow' for the outer colour of the petals, which I just painted using the brush in the bottle.  Then I added the accent colours with a little brush, in Barielle 'Lemondrops' and Illamasqua 'Blow'.  After that, I went in with my smallest dotting tool to try to replicate the 'dotty' look of the petals round the outside at and the borders between the different colours, but that's really not apparent in the finished look unless you go eyeball-to-nail, so I probably wouldn't bother if I did it again!

Next, I added dots on the petals using Sinful Colors 'Exotic Green', and more in the centre with Barielle 'Sweet Addiction' and Sinful 'Last Chance'.  Up until this point I thought my flowers looked a bit daft and I really didn't think they were going to work!  However, the addition of the black lines (with a cut down striper) finally pulled the look together.

I did have a couple of ideas for the rest of my fingers, but I felt anything I put on them might detract from the impact of the flowers.  At first I thought they looked a bit stark or incomplete but actually,  I really like the clean aesthetic of the white next to the bolder, fresh-coloured flowers.  Despite the fact that it has been snowing here for about a week, I do love how springy these feel!

What do you think?  Are florals your thing?  And if you have any white polish recommendations, do let me know!