Australia Day Nails 2021 | Outback Nail Design

G’Day!! Australia Day is just around the corner and I’m so keen to create some themed nailed art to celebrate the day. I really enjoy creating these themed designs and this is no exception! I hope you enjoy my outback themed Australia Day Nails.

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Australia Day Nails – Ombre Outback

For this design, I really struggle with picking a base colour. I wanted to use a colour that I haven’t used for a previous Australia Day design. Eventually, I landed on an outback themed background, which had a bit of a sunset effect.

I’ve done sunset ombre’s in the past but changed this one up to have more of an Aussie outback vibe to it.

The colours I used in order were:

• OPI – Less is Norse (Dark Purple)
• Nails Inc – Porchester Place (Bright Orange)
• OPI – The IT Colour (Orange/Yellow)
• David Jones – Souzize (Light Yellow)

As always I started with a single coat of the lightest colour. When the base layer had dried I added the latex barrier to the outside of my nail of one hand. I highly recommend using something like this or tape can work a little as well. Otherwise, clean up is painful! Because it sticks to everything I recommend only doing one hand at a time.

Apply your polishes to the spouge in order and dab/roll that across the nail. Add more polish to the sponge. Don’t let the sponge get dry otherwise, it will pull up the polish that is already on your nail. For the very first nail, you may need to add a few coats to the sponge before applying it to the nail itself.

Continue to sponge on the polish until you are happy with the opaqueness. I think it took about 4-5 rounds until I was happy. Make sure you wait a short time for the polish to dry. Generally, by the time you have completed one round on your hand, the first nail should be ready for round 2.

When you’re happy add a coat of clear polish. This will also smooth the design if it looks a little rough.

I’ll go over these steps in the video below, so if your not sure check that out or pop in a comment below.

Nail Stamping

For the second part of the design, I used two Maniology plates. BM-S157 a small square plate with 6 cute Australian Animals featured including the Quokka!! If you have seen pictures of celebrities posting with cute smiling marsupials that is the Quokka, which lives on Rottnest Island in Western Australia! (pass….you can get 10% off at Maniology with code THENAILCHRONICLE).

The second plate, BM-XL160 is a part of the Around the World Series. This plate features several land and ocean creatures plus some really cool patterns.

I had intended to use a mix of basic and reverse stamping. However, once I got into the swing of things I ended up just applying basic stamping with a mix of images from both plates.

My only gripe with plate BM-XL160 is that the image of Australia is missing Tasmania!! So using a dotting tool I added that in!

After all the images were applied I added a coat of Maniology Smudge Free topcoat, followed by a coat of OPI Start to Finish.

Overall

I’m really happy with how this design turned out! It was a lot of fun to create and I loved being agile and changing the design as I created it!

Let me know in the comments what you think?

Also, don’t forget to use my code THENAILCHRONICLE for 10% off at Maniology!!

Check out my other Australia Day Nail Art:

• Blue Ombre and Stamping | Australia Day Nail Art 2020
• Cute Aussie Animals | Australia Day Nail Art 2019
• Blue Silhouette Trees | Australia Day Nail Art 2018