The Lazy Days of Summer 12: Summer Nights

Yay, only three more manicures for the Lazy Days of Summer Challenge and one of them, I want to show you today! For this mani, I initially felt like doing a jelly sandwich again. I have done a blue one a couple of times already, so there had to be another aspect to this one.

I guess some of you (at least) also go inspiration hunting on Pinterest. From time to time there's a striped/border mani with palm trees showing up that feels very summery to me. But well, my theme is summer nights and that involves other colors than yellow, orange, pink and violet. Since I really find this mani pretty, I decided to use it as my inspiration anyway and change the colors so they fit my theme.

I applied this mani over Kiko 401 Peacock Green, which I still had on after the swatches.

For the jelly sandwich I used
- Kiko 401
- Kiko 336
- OPI Last Friday Night

and for the stripes (top-->down)
- China Glaze Midnight Mission
- Catrice Pool Party at Night
- Unnamed Color Club (violet)
- Unnamed beauty uk
- Unnamed Color Club (brown)
- black acrylic paint

On my pointer and pinky, I applied a coat of Kiko 336 Ink Blue over Kiko 401 Peacock Green. It's a bright blue jelly polish, which I find a little bit more difficult to apply compared to essence Cool and the Gang. On top of the jelly, I applied a coat of OPI Last Friday Night, topped it with a coat of diluted Kiko 336 and then applied another coat of OPI, because I found that the diluted Kiko covered up too much of the glitter.

I freehanded the stripes using a striper brush. I used cream polishes for the almost dark sunset sky and China Glaze Midnight Mission to hint a sky already showing stars. Kiko 401 is supposed to represent the sea, glittering in the moonlight. To hint the beach, I dabbed on a bit of a brown Color Club glitter.

For the black borders and the palm trees, I used acrylic paint, because it is easier to handle. I really suck at painting palm trees... Only once, I painted a couple decent ones on the nails of a colleague...

I have to admit that the pictures show this mani really well. In RL, most people could not see what I tried to paint. But okay... they wouldn't look as close up as my camera lens anyway.

So what do  you think of my dark palm trees against an almost dark sunset border mani? :D