piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013

Celebrating the Year of the Blogger

Hello peeps,

Today I have to share with you my FIRST piCture pOlish shades AND my FIRST tutorial!!! 

I was SO STOKED to be chosen to be a part of this year's Blog Fest by piCture pOlish, which entailed piCture pOlish sending me (free of charge) THREE shades to create a mani and a tutorial to go along with it. 

The three shades I was sent. 'antique', 'beige', and 'pshiiit'.

First, though, here is a picture with swatches of the shades. I did this first to get a feel for the colours and to see how quickly they built up to opactity so I could plan my mani.

All three shades took 2 coats to reach opacity. 'antique' is the biggest pic here as it turned out to be my favourite!

I should point out that for this mani, I did use fake nails as I had a few bad breaks, and had to trim down to nubs, and I felt my lil nubs just did not do justice to these three fabulous shades.

OK, down to the nitty gritty (the tutorial). Check it all out after the JUMP!

This is the mani I came up with. Water-spotting and craft punching, oh my!

First of all, you need to gather your supplies and make sure everything is within reach. You need to be close to a water supply also. I set up a desk in my kitchen near my sink. LOL.

 You will need:

• The polishes you want to use ('antique', 'beige' and 'pshiiit' are what I used)
• Baking paper
• Craft punch (I used a Fiskars star shaped one)
• alcohol spray (other tutorials have said that you can use perfume or hand sanitizer spray but I have never been able to get my water spotting to work with those. So I use Diggers Isopropyl Alcohol. You can get it at Big W in the hardware section.)
• Plastic cup filled with regular tap water (at the temperature it comes out of the tap when you turn the COLD on is fine)
• Toothpicks or skewers
• Polish remover
• Cleanup brush
• Normal clear polish
• Quick dry top coat (I used Seche Vite)
• Some tissues

Also, something I didn't use that you may need, is some Scotch tape to put around your nails when you are doing the water-spotting to reduce cleanup time.

I started with the design on my middle finger which was a base of 2 coats of 'beige' with 2 stars that I made from 'antique' and 'pshiiit'. I called this part of the mani, 'Craft Punching, oh my!'. I recommend doing the first step the DAY BEFORE you want to create this mani.

1. Paint a coat of each colour onto some baking paper. Make sure it is VERY DRY before doing a second coat. I painted the first coat in the morning and waited until after lunchtime before doing the second coat.

2. Once the polish is COMPLETLY DRY (up to 24 hrs), take a toothpick and start to 'scratch' at the edges. At first it will crumble a little, but just keep swiping the toothpick from side to side, aiming to lift the polish off the baking paper and it should come right up. Keep the scrap of baking paper (you'll see why soon)

3. BE VERY GENTLE with the 'flap' of polish because it can get quite brittle. Next, take the craft punch and punch out a few stars. I recommend that you punch out more stars than you need in case you make any mistakes.

4. Paint your base colour and bring it to opacity. In this case, the colour was 'beige' and it took 2 coats to opacity. Clean up around your nail.

5. On your scrap of baking paper, place a glob of clear polish.

6. Working quickly (so your clear polish doesn't get gloopy) get your toothpick and place a dot of clear polish on your nail.

7. With what ever clear polish is left on the toothpick, pick up one of the stars and place it on top of the dot of clear polish. Press the star down GENTLY with the length (not the tip!) of the toothpick.

8. Repeat steps 5 - 7 with the other star.

9. Use your quick dry top coat to 'seal' the stars to your nail and smooth it all out and give it some shine.

10. Admire your crafty-ness, oh my!

Craft punching, oh my!

Next, I did the 'Water-Spotting' part of my mani.

1. Paint your base colour and bring it to opacity. In this case, on my pointer and ring fingers, the colour was 'beige' (it took 2 coats to opacity), on my thumb, the colour was 'antique' (2 coats) and on my pinky the colour was 'pshiiit' (2 coats).You can clean up around your nail if you like but you will have to clean up around it again later, so you could give it a miss for now.

2. Put scotch tape around your nail.

3. Place a drop of the polish you want as the top colour (pointer- 'pshiiit', ring- 'antique', thumb and pinky- 'beige').

Here, I am using 'beige'

4. Let the drop spread over the surface of the water, but don't wait too long as you don't want it to dry.

5. Hold your alcohol spray as shown in the picture below and spray ONE pump and let the droplets 'fall' into the cup.

6. QUICKLY look at the water-spotted polish and choose the best section for your nail.

7. Dunk your nail into the water-spotted polish at a slight angle.

8. BEFORE pulling your finger/nail out of the water use your toothpick/skewer to pull the excess polish away from your nail, (If you don't do this, the excess polish can stick to your nail, ruining the awesome pattern you just created.) Then take your finger out.

9. Wait a minute for the polish to dry, then pat your nail GENTLY with a tissue to blot the water away.

10. Using your toothpick/skewer, drag all of the left over polish out of the cup. I generally got 2 water-spotted nails to one cup of water. After that, there was too many ' floaters', so I dumped that cup of water and refilled with some fresh water.

11. Once all of your water-spotted nails are done, clean up around your nails, then, finish with a coat of your quick dry top coat to smooth it all out and give it some shine.

12. Admire your watery/spottery nails. LOL

From top to bottom: thumb, pointer, ring finger, pinky.

I had SOOOOOOO much fun creating this mani and doing this tutorial for piCture pOlish and for Blog Fest 2013.

Everyone (minus anyone that won previously) who was involved with creating a mani for piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013 is in the running to WIN a chance to create one of THREE collaboration shades with piCture pOlish. You can vote for my mani on their Pinterest page. The awards are as follows:

·         1 x Award - as voted by piCture pOlish's friends and fans 

·         1 x Award  - as voted by all participants of Blog Fest 2013 

·         1 x Award - as voted by Jules & Megs the girls behind piCture pOlish

According to piCture pOlish's website:

piCture pOlish was created when two Australian girls desired a gift that would capture a special occasion  What better way to relive a moment than with a personalised nail polish  That is quirky & vibrant that stands out from the rest...
piCture pOlish now includes our own range of colour and unique collaboration shades  With an extensive collection of fashion forward colours you will find a shade for every occasion  Every shade tells a story inspired by you our wonderful customerss!

piCture pOlish also does two great deals available online everyday, which I, personally, have not seen any other indie brand do.

If you need any info on shipping prices of piCture pOlish, check out their Shipping page.

If you live in a country other than Australia, check out piCture pOlish's Network page to find a stockist near you.

You can find piCture pOlish on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube and Google+