Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles)
here, and I'm excited to share
the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently
hosted. We actually ended up having two contestants tied for first place! Marie-Luise was one of those two winners, as chosen by the fans on
Facebook who liked her photo. The bunny and chick pastel gradient design she made is just perfect for Easter!
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Holy Moly, this is really an honour, thank you all for voting for me, if it weren't for you I wouldn't be here!
I am Marie-Luise from Lauriestrodes Fun with Nails, a very small corner of the nail blogosphere. I've been a follower of most of the girls in the Digital Dozen for a long time and the Digital Dozen Does *insert appropriate challenge here* is always something I look forward to. Between these lovely ladies there is a constantly flowing fountain of inspiration!!
It was with some trepidation I decided to enter the Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest since my nail art is still a journey of struggle for me. Sometimes I excel and sometimes I fail epically - and I've been doing nail art for the better part of two years now.
And since I didn't think I would win I didn't take pictures of the process - which I really regret now. I haven't even taken bottle pictures :D.
But let's get to the point of this post: How I made this mani. The very first thing I did was cutting out a piece of tape in an egg shape and then painted my nails white. Next I did a sponge gradient on my pinky, middle finger and thumb with four really easter appropriate nail polishes from BarryM: Lemon Ice Cream, Strawberry Ice Cream, Blueberry Ice Cream, and Mint Green. I did it twice to get proper coverage and while I was actually aiming for a more smooth gradient I am really pleased with the rough edges this got.
I then painted my ring and index fingers with BarryM Mint Green and top coated the gradients with a fast drying top coat. This gets me to the next step a lot faster: The reverse gradient!
As mentioned I cut out the egg at the beginning - trust me, you do NOT want to do it at this point in the process ;). To have something to grab onto with my tweezers, I cut it a little longer than I wanted the final shape to be and then folded the extra edge under my nail.
For the reverse gradient you have to wait until the first gradient is totally dry before applying tape otherwise the nether layers will be dragged off when removing the tape. I reversed the colours on my sponge, dabbed my nails and immediately pulled off the taped egg. This makes certain that you get crisp edges which they were before I top coated the design. Somehow - and for the life of me I have no idea why - the egg ended out with jagged edges. And don't ask me why I didn't outline it - I actually have NO idea why!
The Easter Bunny and the Easter Chick are perfect examples of how my skills can combine in excellence and fail - all in one mani.
I painted a white half moon with nails inc. floral street and then painted two ears. To draw the inner ears I used a medium sized dotting tool and Strawberry Ice Cream, then dotted two eyes with black polish - but instead of leaving them like that I went for the more detailed look. I dotted with white and then it all pear shaped: since my dotting tool was too large I ended up covering most of the white. The nose was dotted using my largest dotting tool with Strawberry Ice Cream again. Lastly I painted the whiskers but my brush work was kinda shaky so the left ones got all wonky.
However, the chick worked out perfectly, using the same techniques as with the bunny for outline and eyes. The polish used for the chick is Cult Nails Feel Me Up. To make the beak I used my small dotting tool and Elevation Polish Sarychev, drawing two opposite triangles. I also used Sarychev to draw the comb.
Not one thing ended up wrong here.
Then I top coated the rest of the design - and Voila, that is how I made this Easter Nail Art. Needless to say my girls loved it.
Check back in tomorrow for the final winning mani!
