Easter Egg Nails for #NAILLINKUP

It’s almost Eastertime!  I feel like the holiday really snuck up on me this year.  Last year by this time I did a bunch of easter posts, including an embellished nail polish egg (see the prop in my pic below), a tutorial on how to decorate eggs with polish, and also some cutesy chick nails. I was really on a roll.

But so far, this is all I’ve come up with for 2014.  It’s a french manicure with tiny colored eggs painted over top.  Fingers crossed that you can tell that they’re eggs!

I started with a classic french mani that I free-handed.  Then I stamped a green basket weave print over top using AVON Garden Green and my MASH-39 stamping plate.  Then I made some bright easter eggs in pink, blue, purple and yellow using a dotting tool and a small brush.  I did a sparkly coat of Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope on top and then some seche vite.  I think my eggs would’ve looked more pronounced over a solid white background.  This was kind of a waste of a nice french mani since you can’t even really see it!  On the bright side, this got me in the easter mood!  And it’s just in time for our week 3 theme for the April Nail Art Ideas Linkup.

Are you planning on doing some Easter nail art?  If so, you should it add it to our inlinkz for the April Linkup >>

14th – 20th April : Easter

Embellished Nail Polish Easter Egg

I love painting easter eggs with nail polish- it’s my new fave spring project!  If you’d like to see my first attempt here’s the link to my other egg.  My first egg was decorated with just nail polish.  But today’s egg has a few other embellishments- fimo clay flowers and beads on top!

I took a few days to complete this egg because I’d paint a section… then wait for it to dry.  Then paint another section and wait for that to dry.  I set the egg on a soda cap while it was drying.  I also added some orange fimo clay nail art flowers and stuck them on with some clear nail polish.

Since I drained my egg before I painted it… it had a nice little whole on top which was perfect to slide a eyepin into (an eyepin is the metal stick that jewelery-makers use to slide beads onto when making drop earrings).  I simply placed two silver beads onto the eyepin and then slid the pin into the whole on the top of my egg.  I secured it with glue so they wouldn’t slip out.  I really like the beaded accent on top- it adds a nice touch and almost makes it look victorian.

I hope you get a chance to do some spring crafts too!  I can’t believe Easter is tomorrow!

In recent news, I have set my blog up on the Bloglovin site!  So if you use Bloglovin to view your favorite blogs- then you can add Craftynail to your list of followed blogs by clicking this link-  Follow my blog on Bloglovin!

If you have not yet setup a Bloglovin account then you can read about it here – I think it’s a great way to view all your favorite sites in one spot!

Cutesy Easter Nails

I’m wearing a silly little Easter mani today!  I decorated my nails like easter eggs and then painted a little newborn chick on my accent nail.  I used a matte topcoat too since I’ve been in love with that stuff lately!  Now is it just me… or does my chickee look like he’s scared as he stares at the brown egg I’m holding?  Poor little dude- maybe all the nail polish fumes got to him. 😦
Here’s the list of products I used…

white base ♥ wet n wild wild shine in French White Crème

pink accents ♥ Dance Baby by China Glaze

blue accents ♥ Natural Environ-mint by Sephora by OPI

yellow accents ♥ Yellow Kitty by Sally Hansen

chickadee ♥ Folk Art acrylic paint

How to decorate easter eggs with nail polish!

Lately I’ve seen tons of cool web photos of eggs painted with nail polish.  This little project has Craftynail written all over it!  It combines two of my favorite things- easter eggs and nail polish.  I am like a little kid at easter time!  I still color eggs every year even though I am 35 yrs old and I don’t even have children yet (I know, I need to get movin on that)! 

HOW TO DRAIN AN EGG- Use a sharp craft knife, a sewing needle or anything sharp.  I used a heavy duty safety pin.  Basically, you hold the pin over the top of the egg (cradling the egg in your hand as to evenly distribute pressure on it) and then tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap a bunch of times until one small hole breaks the shell.  You can stick the pin in and softly move it around to make the hole a little bigger.  Then do the same technique on the bottom of the egg.  Try to make the bottom hole a little bigger than the top hole.  Once it has two holes- then you can position your mouth over the top hole and carefully blow the liquid egg out of the large bottom hole.  I’ve heard that this part can be tricky. ( I cheated a little because I found a damaged egg in my dozen that already had a decent-sized hole/crack in the bottom.)

LET THE EGG DRY- Rinse your egg out with some water and then set it somewhere to dry.  This was the hardest part for me since I wanted to paint it ASAP!  I waited about two days and it seemed nice n dry since no water dripped out when I rotated the egg around.

HOW TO PAINT YOUR EGG- My egg was brown so I chose dense/opaque polish.  The easiest way for me was to hold the egg on the bottom, and paint the top section with nail polish.  Then I set the egg down and let it dry for a half hour or so.  Once the polish seemed dryish, then I grasped the egg on that painted part and began painting the rest of the bare egg. I’m sure there’s a way to do it all at once, but after smudging it and getting polish all over the pads of my fingers I decided to let half of it dry first.  Patience is a virtue!

EMBELLISHMENTS- I chose not to embellish my first attempt.  I’m sure you could jazz your egg up in a million different ways though- konad nail stamping, rhinestones, stripers, etc.  Next time I really want to glue on some tiny beads or loose glitter!  You could also put a topcoat on if you choose.  I considered applying a layer of laminating glue to make it nice n shiny.  But the glue bottle says it takes 24hrs to dry- and ain’t nobody got time for that!

DISPLAY- I placed my egg on a tealight candle holder which seems to cradle the egg nicely.  Or you could cutup and decorate a toilet paper roll as an egg holder.   My pretty egg is now on display by my nail polish stash.  I get to admire my eggy artwork everyday now!

 I can’t wait to try this project again!  Oh, and in case you’re wondering- I’m wearing Orly Coffee Break on my nails! Or as we say in New York- Cawfee Break.  Got the urge to see more nail polish eggs?  Check out the Small Things Made Significant blog… she has created several awesome posts with pretty eggs. 😀

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY OTHER EGG CREATION!