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

#31DC2013- Metallic Nails

I’ve been participating in Chalkboard Nails’ 31 Day Challenge (31DC2013)… but so far I’ve only done every other day.  Normally I like to do a challenge full force and I try to do every single theme… but I’m also running Nail Art Ideas Linkup (NAIL) with Brijit’s Digits and Eeeek! Nail Polish! and tomorrow our SPORTS theme opens up.  So I hope you’ll all forgive me for only doing half of the 31 day challenge days.  😉  I don’t wanna over-do it and lose my spark!

Day 8 of the 31DC2013 is METALLIC and I’m wearing a Sally Hansen Lustre Shine polish called Gilt.  I guess it’s considered a metallic duochrome, but I don’t see too many flashes of color.  Sometimes it leans a little green or a little rose-gold, but mostly it’s just a bronzey gold shade.  I’m glad I got it on clearance for $2.00 because it dries so slow.  Even with seche vite it was still tacky and vulnerable to dings.  After my Lustre Shine was as dry as it would get, I started some nail art by painting a skinny black strip down each nail.  Then I built up the black at the top and bottom of my nails to form a curved shape.  It’s almost like a french mani on the bottom, a halfmoon on the top, with a line connecting them.  I dunno- it’s fun and futuristic looking!  I like to call it a ‘split mani’ and I sorta discovered it when I was working on my Missoni-inspired nails.  This is a design that’s relatively easy to do on both hands too Yippee!  I hope you like my quick n easy metallic split mani!  It sorta reminds me of an hourglass.  Maybe I could try one of those sometime. 🙂

View some of the other metallic manis by clicking this Inlinkz for #31DC2013:

naughty and nice french mani w/ scotch tape!

Naughty~ my tips are painted with an oxblood shade of Orly called Naughty.

Nice~ my pink topcoat is a pretty little bottle of Zoya flakies called Chloe.

NAUGHTY- Orly Naughty on tips

I used the scotch tape technique for this mani. Why have I not tried transparent tape til today??  I applied it on my bare nails and it was fool-proof!  The taping process took just seconds…

NICE- Zoya Chloe pink flakies

I just tore off a piece (maybe an inch long) and then placed it near my nail line.  Before I pressed down hard to secure the tape… I tugged up a lil bit on the sides of the tape to make a slight curve to the line.  Once my tape was pressed down nice and tight, I painted a base coat on the tips and then two coats of Naughty.  I was nervous when I peeled the tape off but I got a beautiful clean line! Scotch tape- I LOVE YOU. So much easier than those tiny nail guide stickers!  Then to finish it off I applied a single topcoat of Zoya Chloe.

in the shade

FYI~I ran out of Scotch brand tape and had to switch to Rite Aid invisible tape in the middle of my manicure.  What a difference!  The Scotch worked way better than the store brand! Who woulda thunkit?