Celebrating the Year of the Blogger!

Today is piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013, and I am so happy to announce that I was once again able to participate in this world-wide blogger event!

This year was a little bit different than last year’s Blog Fest, with it celebrating bloggers and all we do. (Thank you, piCture pOlish!) And with that, this year’s challenge was to create the most ‘amazing nail art manicure ever’ using three piCture pOlish shades. My three shades are:

• O’Hara, a gorgeous bright red crelly (cream/jelly) scattered holographic,
• Electric Blue, a vampy midnight blue cream with a gorgeous blue shimmer ribbon through it,
• and Ruby Blou, a red, white and blue glitter in a clear base.

All Blog Fest 2013 participants will be entered into the Blog Fest Awards to be eligible to win the incredible prize of creating a collaboration shade with piCture pOlish in 2014!!! There will be three winners, voted on by going to the special Pinterest Blog Fest 2013 board, with one voted on by piCture pOlish friends and fans, another voted on by all Blog Fest 2013 participants (bloggers), and a final award as selected by Jules and Megs, the creators of piCture pOlish! How incredible is that!

Without further ado, here is my creation using O’Hara, Electric Blue and Ruby Blou:

Having recently discovered a knack for (and love of) gradients, I took the risk of using the two bright and contrasting shades of Electric Blue and O’Hara in a sponged-on gradient, with a sparkly finish.

Now let’s look at how I created my piCture pOlish Blog Fest nail art!

1. Start by selecting your polishes for your gradient mani:

2. Then gather all necessary tools. In my case, I laid out some foil over my work surface, a sponge (or two), a brush for clean-up, and an orangewood stick, if you require:

3. Apply base coat and paint your nails a base colour. I chose white as my clean, bare canvas:

4. Once your white coat is dry, you can begin sponging! Using your foil work surface, drop your two polish shades (in my case, O’Hara and Electric Blue) side by side, almost touching. To better allow my contrasting colours to fade into each other, I added a drop of white between the two polishes to soften the edges. See photo.
You can blend the polish drops into each other slightly by using a toothpick, if you wish.
Now gently touch your sponge to the polish, and sponge onto your first nail. You may need to repeat multiple times on one nail in order to fully cover it.

5. Repeat sponging each nail until your nails are fully covered with the gradient, and you should have something like this when you’re finished:

6. Now the clean-up: dip your brush (I like to use a short, firm brush) into nail polish remover, dab on a paper towel to remove excess, and start wiping the edges of your nails and fingers to remove the polish. This is the most time-consuming part of a gradient mani, so be patient. Wipe your brush on your paper towel every few wipes to remove any colour, then dip and wipe again.

7. Add a coat of top coat to bring back the shine to your polish. (You can skip this step if adding a clear-base glitter, like I did.)

8. Add your chosen glitter polish, in my case, the spectacular, sparkly Ruby Blou.

9. Add a coat of quick-drying top coat…

…and voila!

As a final touch, taking a cue from Adele’s Louboutin-inspired tips, I decided to paint the underside of my nails in O’Hara:

What do you think of my nail art?

Don’t forget to follow piCture pOlish on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and check out their new YouTube channel! To get any of the shades used here (or other piCture pOlish and Ozotic polishes) check out the piCture pOlish Network page. You can also buy direct from them! Check out their Shipping page for more info. And make sure to check out their Everyday Deals page to find daily deals!

(disclaimer from piCture pOlish re Blog Fest Awards: bloggers that have already produced a collaboration shade are exempt from winning a prize this year, to make it fair to all participants and provide a chance for other bloggers.)

~xo

Feel free to add your Blog Fest 2013 mani to the list and grab the code to add it to your blog!