Australia Day Nail Art

Before I get into my Australia Day Nail Art for 2018, I thought I would share what Australia Day means to me.

As a child, Australia Day would typically mark the last few days of holidays. Celebrations ranged from going down to the river to watch the local fireworks or just having a bbq at home. As I grew older, celebrations consisted of pool parties and listening to the Tripple J Top 100. Now as I’m working full time its a nice break and chance to catch up with friends. Particularly those who I couldn’t see over the Christmas break.

I know that there are many mixed feelings about this day at the moment, and I’d not rather than get into politics. Instead, I’m only interested in using the day as inspiration for creating my design.

My Design Process

When designing my Australia Day nails I was struggling to work out what I wanted to do. Initially, all I knew was that I didn’t want to repeat my design from last year. I wanted to attempt an Aussie flag. However my freehand skills…well let’s just say I shouldn’t stray too far from stick figures. I did give this a go but it failed miserably.

My second idea for achieving the flag was to print the emblems from each state and somehow attach this to my nails. I tried two methods and neither of them worked. I was glad I posted the failed experiment on my IG account as I received a few comments on how I could create my own decals! It just goes to show that sometimes to improve you need to share your failures and seek help.

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Luckily design attempt 3 (not that I’m counting :p ) was a success.

Australia Day Nail Design for 2018

After chatting with my partner he suggested that I attempted to create wattle. Knowing my lack of freehand skills I turned to my stamping plate collection (learn how I organise my plates here). I found the perfect branches however because I had already painted my nails a dark blue, it was hard to see the branches. Even when using black stamping polish.

Admittedly I was quite disheartened and called it for the day.

Whilst getting ready for bed I finally came to the realisation that I should do an ombre to lighten the colour so that the branches would show more clearly. This option worked a treat! The use of the latex barrier meant clean up was quick and I was able to move onto stamping almost straight away.

I love the result of the ombre and dark branches. It reminded me of the sun setting in the outback when the sky turns to a beautiful blue colour and all you can see is the silhouette of the trees.

I had planned to add in some yellow wattle but as I was happy with the result I felt it was best to leave it alone. Afterall sometimes keeping things simple works best.

I hope you enjoyed my story on my journey to this design. If you did leave me a comment below!
If you would like me to check out your latest design pop your IG or twitter link below