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.

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!