Tropical Manicure with Hummingbirds & Hibiscus'

Hello Lacquer Luvers! If you guys follow me on Facebook, you know that the past few days nail polish just was not feeling like being my friend. I decided to let it be for a while and come back to it a couple days later and guess what? It loves me again! Yay, lol!

I'm in a group on Facebook for nail art stamping and every Sunday there is a challenge. Today's theme is "The Sky's The Limit." For this theme, you can use any images you want to create a manicure that showcases anything you would see in the sky (planes, butterflies, birds, stars, etc). While going through my stamping plates I was inspired by images of hummingbirds. I Googled images of hummingbirds and was captivated by these two photos which also happened to include my most favorite flower:

Photo Credit: http://hoosiergardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/hummingbird-hibiscus-steve-byland-a-Fotolia_15250719_S.jpg

Photo Credit: http://shenthreedees.blogspot.com/2010/10/hummingbird-hibiscus-interaction.html

My manicure today began with a base of Essie Grow Faster. I used 3 polishes by Bettina to water marble all of my nails and used the same 3 polishes to do a gradient on my accent nail. The polishes I used were Peppermint, Ocean, and Marshmallow. I chose these colors to symbolize the grass, sky, and clouds. I know that Ocean isn't really green-green, it's more of a aqua/green kind of color but I liked the way this color combination worked better than when I tried it with a true green (Bettina Mojito).

Next I used M72 from a set of plates I purchased from BornPrettyStore and Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Fuchsia for the hibiscus image. Then I used my Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Green to stamp on the hummingbirds which were on the H26 image plate by Chez-Delaney. I completed this manicure with a coat of Good To Go topcoat by Essie.

I really do love the way my manicure came out today and am glad that I had the patience to wait out a couple days for nail polish to once love me again. I like the chrome/metallic in the Sally Hansen pens and how it gives the hummingbirds that bit of sheen that you see in their feathers. This manicure makes me want to take a trip to Hawaii! What do you guys think of this manicure? What would you have come up with for this Sunday's theme for the challenge? As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica