Oftentimes when I'm trying to work within a theme for nail art I try to look for paintings and photographs that fit with that theme until something sparks my creativity. Today's mani was directly inspired by the Google image results from searching "Neon Tropical Leaves". Like... literally, all of the results. Immediately, I wanted a black base with bright neon stamping in these rich jewel tones. This mani actually took a couple of tries and I HATED the results the first time (my own bad decisions are to blame, if we're being honest) but I'm kind of in love with the final product. 

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Sometimes when I end up doing a skittle mani, it's literally just because I'm looking at a bunch of polishes and I want them all on my nails - and that's exactly what happened with this mani. I have A LOT of polishes out on my nail desk at the moment - I really, really need to do some organizing! - and a lot of those polishes are the neons from Color Club that I reach for so consistently during the hotter months of the year. I just kept looking at this sort of jewel toned gradient of polishes and thought... "Well, might as well put them all on and pair them with some black graphic stamping, right?" Right.

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There's something about a summer smoosh, I find, and as I was thinking about ways I could use the mermaid silhouette images from the Whats Up Nails B038 Lost At Sea Stamping Plate it occurred to me that a neon smoosh could be just the ticket. I love the smoosh technique for a few reasons, but the versatility of it is really the thing that drives it the most. Depending on the colors you choose and how you apply them to your stamper head or nail art mat, you can get a completely and totally different look. For this one, I kept it pretty simple and straightforward and the results are pretty much exactly what I was hoping for.

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One of my favorite types of mani's to do during the hotter months of the year are the really warm toned sunset gradients. I think there's a lot you can do with them - and actually a lot of ways to do them - but for this mani I really wanted to just keep it simple and almost a little bit expected. I went with a purple to orange neon gradient with some beachy stamping and I'm a little bit in love. 

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I wish I could remember who it was that inspired the gradient in this mani, but I can't for the life of me remember the artist. However, I did see a mani that had this gorgeous diagonal gradient of a soft pink and peach and my mind immediately went to neon pink and orange moving across the nails and it sort of all came together really smoothly in my head. I decided to pair it with some high contrast black stamping, which is one of my favorite ways to really pop a neon base, and I'm obsessed. 

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I have to admit that today's mani wasn't actually planned at all, even as I applied my base polish I honestly had no idea what I was going to do with it and it sort of spiraled out of neon control. And, I mean, I think we can all acknowledge that going balls to the wall with neon isn't exactly hard to do. Of course, it's even easier to do when you go all in and make a pairing of neon and leopard print, but it's summer and I'm fully vaccinated, so let's go! Also, this month's #CBBxManiMonday theme is Summer, leaving it wide open to just go mad with neon power. Am I right?

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Today's mani was directly inspired by one of my favorite nail artists -  @iv_juli. I try to take more loose inspiration from other artists, generally, but as soon as I saw the mani that inspired this one I got full on grabby hands and I knew I wanted to put my spin on her design. I think sometimes one of the most valuable things about looking at other people's work, especially when it comes to nail stamping, is that they can really inspire you to use a plate in a way you might not have thought of, and that's definitely what happened here. 

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Now, I will admit that there's a thing in my brain that gets maybe a little bit too on the nose when it comes to themes and seasons and there will absolutely be a fair share of bright neons and beachy themed summer mani's coming up, but for this one I wanted something a little bit softer. Recently I've been going back in time to my childhood a lot, accessing memories I hadn't really thought about in a long time and there's something incredibly soft about my memories of childhood summers and that's where this mani lives for me. 

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For our July #CBBxManiMonday theme, we went with a general Summer theme and I am HERE for it. Although I absolutely know that this is going to turn into an explosion of neon in coming weeks, I'm starting out the month a little bit softer. I've been in love with mermaid scales nails for years and somehow didn't get a stamping plate with a mermaid scales image that worked on my nails until very recently. Don't get me wrong, I've managed to fake it in the past, but I finally got my hands on the Whats Up Nails B038 Stamping Plate, which actually has both a simple mermaid scales image and the more fancy, art deco sort of vibe that I used for this mani and I AM SO EXCITED. Honestly, keep an eye out for more manis using this plate coming up this summer.

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Have I wanted to do today's mani for an obscenely long time? Yes. Have I been holding off and waiting for the perfect deep blue pond-y base polish to get the under the sea look I wanted? Also yes. Did I finally accidentally get the perfect polish for what this looked like in my mind? I sure did! I'm certainly not the first person to use this design in this way, but it's such a fun and easy and playful mani that I would happily do it every summer. I mean... Who doesn't love octopus nails?

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