Friday, September 25, 2015

I Heart Oahu! Tropical Design



Hello everyone! As you all know lately I have really been doing a lot of tropical themed nail designs, seeing how I just went to Hawaii in July. Yes, yet again I have another tropical nail design to share with all of you. If you have been following M.M.M blog, then you know that I just recently got married in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, and the island will always hold a special place in my heart because my husband and I got married there. So I thought I would create an Oahu nail design to share with all of you!

Oahu, Hawaii nail design
Diamond Head in Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. 


Here are the polishes and tools used for this Oahu nail design:


Base and Top coat- Nicole OPI-  3in1- base, top, & strengthener and Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat.

Nail polishes- Colors by llarowe- Arturo, Color Club- Daisy Does it, Revlon- Gold Coin, OPI Hawaii- Go with the lava flow, and Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Black Heart.

Acrylic paint- black, white, blue, red, green, and yellow.

Nail tools- a glass jar with nail polish remover in it for cleaning your nail art brushes, a small and large dotting tool, small flat nail art brush, thin slanted brush, and a longer thin brush.


The skill level for this Oahu nail design is:

 Intermediate to Advanced 

This design can be difficult, due to the small details that are included in creating diamond head and the letter for Oahu and Aloha. The other parts of the design are a little bit easier, depending on your skill level.


Let's start this Oahu design!   

1. Start off with a base coat.

2. After your base coat is dried, apply a holographic polish that has more of a subtle holo. This polish might be part of a review that I will be doing about some new polishes that I just bought, I once again got too excited to wait.

3. We will first start off with a well known land mark on Oahu in the city of Honolulu, that is Diamond head, which is a crater that you can see as soon as you get close to Oahu. Also you can climb up Diamond head and see an amazing view of Honolulu.
On the thumb nail, we will start off with the water. First mix blue and black to make a dark blue, then mix blue and white to make a light blue. Paint a strip at the bottom of your nail for the water, starting from darkest blue to lightest. 

4. Now for Diamond head it's self, take your red, yellow, and blue acrylic paint and mix them together to make a brown. Also add just a little more blue to the color you just made to make a darker brown, this will be for some small details that we will put on Diamond head. As for the shape I really don't know how to explain it, other then to look at the photo above or the photo of the real Diamond head. For the small details we will add small lines to Diamond head. Take your darker brown and make small lines on Diamond head (you can refer to the final photo.)  

5. Next on the ring finger nail we will write Aloha. Aloha has a few means it means hello, goodbye, and love or compassion. As for letters, this can be a little bit tricky but I found that using acrylic paint made is much easier. For this take your thin nail art brush dipped into black paint and carefully write Aloha.

6. Right under Aloha we will make a heart.Take your large dotting tool dipped into a red or pinkish red (I used Go with the Lava flow because this was the color I wore on my nails on my wedding, and it is extra special to me.) and slowly drag the doting tool down. Do this on the other side as well to make a heart.

7. Next we will make a sea shell on the middle finger nail. Take your large dotting tool dipped into a gold polish and drag the dotting tool down, do this a as  many times as you would like to make a shell shape.

8. On the index finger nail we will make a cute pineapple. If you have ever been to Hawaii then you now that the pineapple there is so good, very fresh and juicy. For the pineapple shape take your small flat nail art brush dipped into yellow acrylic paint, fill in the bottom half of your nail and then make it curved at the top. You may need to go over this two or three times to be opaque enough.

9. As we let the pineapple shape dry we will make the leaves at the top. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into green paint and make four leaves at the top of the pineapple.

10. For a little bit more detail in the pineapple we will make intersecting lines. Take a yellow nail polish that is a little bit darker then the paint you used, then take your thin nail art brush dipped in the yellow polish and make three lines going up the pineapple, then two lines going down to make intersecting lines.  

11. To make your pineapple cute, we will make a happy face on the pineapple. Take your large dotting tool dipped into black nail polish (acrylic paint did not work well for this) and dot two eyes. 

12. An optional step for the sea shell is to add more detail is to outline the shell. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into black acrylic paint and carefully outline the shell, I thought this helped to make the shell stand out more.

13. For the last design on the pinky nail we will make a sunshine. Hawaii is know for there sunny warm weather, it does rain on and off there but really for only 10 to 20 minutes at a time, at lest when we were there. To make your sunshine take a shimmery yellow polish and the brush that comes with the polish, and make a curved line and fill in the bottom part of the nail all the way to the tip of the nail. You may need to apply two or three coats to make the yellow opaque enough.

Oahu, Hawaii nail design
 Final Oahu nail design

14. For the final touches, on the pineapple we will add a smile. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into black nail polish and make a curved line for the smile.

For the sun, take the small end of your dotting tool dipped into yellow polish and drag the dotting tool down to the sun shape to make the sun raises. 

Lastly for the thumb nail with Diamond Head, we will write Oahu and just add a green line for the grass. Take your thin nail brush dipped into black paint and slowly write Oahu over Diamond head. Then for the grass just take your thin nail art brush dipped into green paint, and just make a green line under Diamond Head.

After your Oahu design has dried apply a top coat to seal in your design.

Have another favorite Island in Hawaii that is your favorite or special to you? You can always change the thumb nail to fit the island that you love; with a landmark, the Island shape or anything that is special to that island.

Hope all of you enjoyed this Oahu nail design and I am glad that I could share my love for nails and the beautiful island of Oahu with all of you!  

See you next time for more fun and bright nail tutorials!           

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