Aussie Nails - Australian Native Flowers

Something a little more classy for you today, beautiful Australian native flowers. I hope you're ready for a little lesson in Australian flora.

I created these nails using good old print at home temporary tattoo paper. I really love using temporary tattoo paper because I can easily create the designs I want and they apply very quickly - plus they last quite well and protect my nails. The colours are bright and vivid, and you can still see through to the polish you wear underneath (in this instance Layla Mercury Twilight)

The image on my thumb is a Waratah - the New South Wales floral emblem. These are large flowers, about the size of a softball which are commonly bright red.

The index finger is Golden Wattle - Australia's national floral emblem. With trees and bushes growing between 2 and 8 metres high, these yellow flowering plants are a stunning mass of yellow in spring. Each individual blossom is smaller than a pea, but it's like a little fluffy yellow pompom.

The middle finger is the Sturt Desert Pea - the South Australian floral emblem. A facinating flower with bright red vertical flowesr with a dark blackened eye in the centre. My tattoo got a little crinkled when I tried to move it, so you can't see the centres too well.

The ring finger is the Royal Bluebell - the floral emblem for the Australian Capital Territory (where I live). Pretty violet blue flowers are up to 2-3 cm in diameter and can either be erect or nodding. Despite being our floral emblem, I don't see many of these around town.

The pinky finger is the Kangaroo Paw - the floral emblem for Western Australia. These are very interesting flowers, but I usually only get to see them at Floriade or the Botanic Gardens. They have tubular flowers that are coated with dense hairs and open at the top to create the claw-like appearance.

As I only have five fingers, and I wanted them to match on each hand, I hand to miss out on the floral emblems for Victoria, NT, Queensland and Tassie, but there's always next year. And while it's actually really difficult to see what these are on my nails, the overall bright and contrasting colours were really pretty.