Nail Art Contest - Dotting Tool!

The awesome Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails is hosting a nail art contest. The rules? The only tools you can use are the brush in the polish bottles and a dotting tool. Whether your tool is an "actual" nail art tool, a bobby pin, the head of a sewing pin, or a broken off toothpick. She wants to see what you can make with the humble dot. (Entries are due by March 5, so if you haven't entered, you need to hurry up! :)

However, nowhere in the rules did it say you had to draw dots with the dotting tools. I really didn't. There's a dot or two in here, somewhere. Well, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. The name of this, by the way, is Freedom of Flight.

Left hand, obviously. And...

Right hand. I realized after taking these pictures that the individual pictures end up upside down looking at my nail this way, so I turned one upside down for you:

Close-ups of the thumbs:

Yes, I placed flakies individually on those wings. Pulled the brush out of the bottle, picked up individual flakes from the brush with the dotting tool, and placed them semi-precisely. :) Green Ocean for that dragonfly, I think. Not sure, though - I used a LOT of flakies and glitters in this mani!

And then the fingers alone of each hand:

And one blurry one for the awesome sparklies!

Well, it never comes out in reality quite like it was in your head, but I'm pretty pleased with this for my current skill level. Opinions? Likes, dislikes, constructive criticism? I had a LOT of fun making this! Should've seen my desk...had all my polishes out on my desk like an weird glass-enclosed artist's palette.

Things I Love... 100 Follower Giveaway!

Illustrated Lady may only be giving away two bottles of polish in this giveaway, but this is a clear case of quality versus quantity. She's giving one luck follower two bottles of Lacquistry nail polish! Woohoo! Not only that, it's not just whatever two she picks, it's whatever two the winner picks! Imagine having your two favorite, I wish...gotta haves! from Lacquistry's amazing assortment!

So head on over to Things I Love at the Moment, follow a great blog and enter a great giveaway all at the same time!

I'm Still Thinking's Blue Giveaway!

Jenna Froggy over at I'm Still Thinking... is having a "Blue Tastes the Best" giveaway! You'll just have to check out her post for the explanation on the title. ::teasetease::


Seriously, this has been one of my favorite blogs for a while (yeah, 'cause I've been in the nail blogosphere for soooo long) and you get to find a great blog to read and enter a great giveaway all in one place! What's not to like?

Holographic Giveaway!

Glam Polish is having a 1000-follower giveaway! That's right folks, this blogger has over 1000 people reading her every post, and for good reason! And to celebrate her own popularity (that's such a wrong way to say it, isn't it? ;) she's giving one of her lucky followers these three awesome holographic polishes: China Glaze OMG, LOL, and DV8. YAY!

Why *wouldn't* you want to enter this giveaway? Have a chance to win great polish by following an even greater blog? That's a win-win situation if there ever was one. ^_^

Hunger Games Giveaway!

That's right, the whole collection! Emerald Sparkled is offering this giveaway, sponsored by China Glaze Turkey. She doesn't say whether it's limited to her country, her continent, or at all, so I'm entering anyway, even though I'm in the U.S.

You can't get much better than this giveaway, so click here or on the picture to enter!!

From the File Drawer: Feb. 2 - Marbled Waves

I couldn't find which blogger put this idea in my head, but they linked to a Robin Moses tutorial, which is actually what I used to learn to do this, so I'll give you the link for that at the end of the post. I only have the one picture of this manicure, so without further delay:

Obviously I should have put another coat (or two!) of the base colour but I was clearly impatient that day. :P Here are the polishes I used:

Sally Hansen's Sheer French Color for a base, and drops of Celeb City, Pure Ice Splash, and SH White On were swirled together to make the marbled effect. When I showed this mani to my husband he asked if I was going for an ocean look, hence today's title. My sister's comment was, "It's pretty, but I think I'd like it better if it was the whole nail." Well, you can't please everyone! ^_^

So head on over to Robin Moses' youtube channel and check out the tutorial for this technique:

Giveaway Grabbag!

Because I haven't had the time to sit down at my desktop computer and fill out forms for the past few days, I've been saving off the URLs to a whole slew of giveaways that have popped up in that short amount of time, so I'm going to post all of them here in one handy place! :)

It's a long list (EIGHT giveaways!) so click if you want to see the list.