Gorse Bush…

So from the desk that I paint my nails at, I can see over in to the woods and it really is great to see the plants starting to come to life again. I was getting tired of looking out on to it’s hollowness and being able to see naked trees and grey trunks far in to the distance. It’s refreshing to see the buds popping out, the leaves starting to unfurl and the whole body of the forest start to flesh out again. (Sure, I’ve had daffodils bobbing their heads at me for literally weeks but I’ll be glad to see them go as I don’t particularly like daffodils….) My inspiration is drawn directly from a gorse bush. It is a prominent feature to my window view, and it has really exploded with colour in the last day or so, I think the warmer spell helped. I personally know this gorse bush rather well, as every now and then I relive it of some of it’s branches and place them around my garden – particularly on the parts where the soil is bare. Why? Because the gorse bush has some massive thorns which are surprisingly sharp, and this helps keep away unwanted feline visitors who like to take regular nighttime ‘dig and dumps’. Top gardening tip for you there!

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Spring Blossom…

So I purchased this stamping plate back in August, and it was most certainly bought because it was pretty: I mean cute, stereotypical Japanese images – who can resist! It is a great plate though, it has a lot of varied images and for $2.99 (price correct 31/3) it doesn’t break the bank either.

Flowers and Foil…

So I have used these dried flowers before, but I’ve not used them in a while – in a year actually, as funnily enough the last time I used them was March ’16.

(They don’t look so pretty close-up but from a regular distance, the looked quite fresh and delicate.)

Dream-catcher…

So here’s another item bought way back in April ’16, which were some ‘leaf’ metal studs. However I thought they looked way more like feathers than leaves, so I turned this one in to a dream-catcher.

I used the dry brush technique (which I seem to be a little addicted to right now) to smoosh all the colours together and then used a very fine brush to paint the dream-catcher details. It’s a very spring/summer design for this time of year!

Sprinkling of Spring Flowers…

So my index nail has kind of recovered, but it’s still a horrendous shape. At least I know it’s growing and I didn’t do much, if any, permanent damage to it. As the weather has been quite sunny lately, and my tulips and daffodils have started to grow in the garden, I decided to crack out my tiny dried flowers for this design. I think they’re really cute and delicate, even though they’re a bit of a pain to work with; bits end up everywhere, some of them crumble to dust, sometimes they don’t lie flush and so on.

It looks a lot prettier in person as the photo didn’t really pick up the glitter, booo.

Pink Lace…

So for this I used one of my stamping plates from ‘Hehe’. I’m still not great at stamping; I find achieving the correct positioning consistently quite hard and also the transfer – as it looks fine on the stamper but ends up with parts missing or patchy once put on my nails. Practice practice practice!

Spring Rose…

So I hardly ever paint roses, because I just can’t. They always end up looking weird but fortunately I know other people have issues with them too, which makes me feel a whole heap better (even if that is kinda mean). I wasn’t going for hyper-realism when I painted these so I think I can get away with them!

Drip drip drop little April shower…

So, I don’t think I actually need to point it out, but it’s April. Say whaaat, where are the months going? It’s frightening. It’s been terrible weather; rain, snow, sleet, hailstones, gale force winds so when it came to painting my nails I wanted to do something related. I chose a sponge base and then just simple black over the top, although upon reflection I kinda wished I’d went for a lovely dark blue to make it a little different and more reflective of the weather which was my initial inspiration, rather than just dripping tar or something.

Dripping Nail Art

Hoppy Easter…

So everyone knows I love a cheesy pun, sorry. This rabbit wasn’t hand painted – it was actually stamped off of a Born Pretty Store plate which you can find here. I’m starting to really enjoy stamping! I don’t think it will ever be my ‘thing’ though but I can still dabble in it right?

I feel that the yellow should have been more pastel, but I didn’t have such a shade, I think it’s a little over bearing and distracting. Even white would have worked! Hindsight is such a wonderful thing though.

BornPrettyStore: Giraffe Stamping…

So after my first experience with the BPS stamping set I couldn’t wait to use it again. This time I decided to trial it out on my mum. I’ve found that Barry M Gelly polishes work quite well, maybe because they’re a bit thicker. I now also feel super cool because I can handle the scraper and stamper correctly, or at least well enough, to make the image transfer each time. And yes, they’re still not perfect but I’m proud of them – they’re 100% better than what I was managing to achieve on my first go.

I think the giraffe design featured on the plate is really cute. It’s just right in those colours for a fresh, spring mani. If you fancy purchasing this plate, which is already super cheap, you can get 10% off (everything that’s not on sale) at the checkout using the code ‘AZYW10’. Yaay

BPS Giraffe Stamping