Australia Day manicure

I haven’t painted my nails with any special designs for a while, so with Australia Day tomorrow, I decided it was time 🙂

I didn’t have much of an idea as to what the design should be, but it needed to be red/white/blue or green/yellow. Why does a country need two sets of colours? Who knows…

Anyway, I am more likely to be wearing some combination of red, white and/or blue tomorrow, so I started with a blue base.

I apologise now for these photos. I painted my nails while sitting on the lounge tonight watching tv, and I just used my phone to take them.

We have a good selection of Australia Day paper plates, bunting, hats etc and they all have the flag on them, so I wanted to incorporate that somehow. Far too detailed to have the whole flag on a nail, so…how to do it?

I added some inspiration to my ‘nails‘ Pinterest board, and also had a close look at our flag

Source http://www.australianflag.org.au/flag-images/

The flag has a blue background, with three symbols:

-The Union Jack, acknowledging our history of British settlement

-The Commonwealth Star, a seven pointed star representing our states and territories

-The Southern Cross, a constellation only visible in the Southern Hemisphere

I gathered some nail colours

They are:

(not shown) Sally Hansen base coat

Australis – Blue Tiger (blue)

Sally Hansen – Super Strong Micro-fibre basecoat. (I didn’t use this as a basecoat, I needed white, and that’s what this is!)

Essence – Fame fatal (red)

P.M.U – Elegant Beauty (silver stars)

Sally Hansen – Mega Shine Top Coat (I either use this, or the Diamond Shine Base or Top Coat. I believe they are the best!)

I decided not to decorate each nail, instead choosing three nails to show the three flag elements.

On my thumb I did the Union Jack, middle finger has the Southern Cross, and my little finger has the Commonwealth Star.

For the Union Jack I painted the cross with white, then topped it with red. It’s not perfect, so don’t look too closely 😉

The Southern Cross is supposed to be 4 seven pointed stars and 1 five pointed star, however I used the P.M.U polish with stars in it to represent this. They are all five pointed stars. There’s not enough room on your nails to have that amount of detail!

I started the Commonwealth Star with a blob of white, then teased it into seven points using a nail art tool which I didn’t take a photo of and I have no idea what it’s called, but it has a fine point. It worked ok!

Then I gave all my nails a coat of my favourite Sally Hansen top coat. It’s really thick, makes your nails look like glass, and protects them well. And I get nothing for saying that, I say it because it is true!

Again, apologies for the for the quality of the photos, it’s getting late…

I think it turned out well, and I am happy with it.

Tomorrow we’ll be joining the rest of my family for a celebration barbeque in the National Park. Are you doing something special for Australia Day?

* You can find all my manicures here

* I contributed to Mimi’s Five Star Frugal linkup at her blog A Tray of Bliss, and Pin-n-Tell.  Pop over and say ‘Hi!’