First Place Winner #2 of The Easy-Nail Art's Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest

Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles) here, and I'm excited to share the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently hosted. We actually ended up having two contestants tied for first place! Rose was one of those two winners, as chosen by the fans on Facebook who liked her photo. Her little chick nails are so adorable!

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Hi guys, I’m Rose from Manicured and Marvelous and today I’m sharing this really cute Easter mani. Thank you for the ladies of The Digital Art for hosting this awesome contest without which I probably wouldn't have pushed myself into doing this design. At the end of the day that’s what really matters when you enter a contest, pushing yourself to achieving your next artist plateau. Let me show you guys what I came up with:

Cuteness explosion! I was actually inspired by a photo I found on Google when I searched ‘kawaii easter’, haha. In this post, I’ll be covering step-by-step how to create one of the three baby chicks onto your own nails.

I started off this design by creating the background of white polka dots on a green base. The polishes I used were Butter London Jaded Jack for the base and Sinful Colors Snow Me White for the dots. To make it easier, I use a dotting tool for the dots. Once I’m done I add a fast-drying topcoat, but be careful not to smear your dots.

I like using acrylics paint to design the majority of my nail art because it’s much easier for me to control. It also leaves so much more room for mistakes. So using black acrylic paint, I did a rough outline of the shape for the baby chick. Don’t worry about it being perfect, it’s a very rough outline. Make sure you add a few lines on the top to give the little guy some hair.

 

Then I go in with white acrylic paint and fill in body but make sure leave a thin black outline.

Now take your yellow paint and go over the white. Doing the white first before just going in with the yellow creates a more opaque and smoother look.

 

All that’s left now is the small details of the face. Using a dotting tool create two black circles for his eyes. For the peak, take a orange color and make three smaller dots in a triangle and then drag the dotting tool to connect them. And his little feet in black of course!

 

Add either a matte or glossy topcoat and you’re done!

 

It’s a pretty simple but very cute design that will make your friends gush over your nails for sure. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and I hope to see some recreations, be sure to tag me @roselynn787 on Instagram.

Thank you once again to the ladies from The Digital Art for having me.  

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Congratulations to all our winners, and thanks to everyone who participated! I'm sure we will have more nail art contests in the future, so keep a look out for the next one. :)

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Dj Donk Easter, How To, nail art contest

First Place Winner #1 of The Easy-Nail Art's Egg-cellent Nail Art Contest

Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles) here, and I'm excited to share the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently hosted. We actually ended up having two contestants tied for first place! Marie-Luise was one of those two winners, as chosen by the fans on Facebook who liked her photo. The bunny and chick pastel gradient design she made is just perfect for Easter!

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Holy Moly, this is really an honour, thank you all for voting for me, if it weren't for you I wouldn't be here!

I am Marie-Luise from Lauriestrodes Fun with Nails, a very small corner of the nail blogosphere. I've been a follower of most of the girls in the Digital Art for a long time and the Digital Art Does *insert appropriate challenge here* is always something I look forward to. Between these lovely ladies there is a constantly flowing fountain of inspiration!!

It was with some trepidation I decided to enter the Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest since my nail art is still a journey of struggle for me. Sometimes I excel and sometimes I fail epically - and I've been doing nail art for the better part of two years now.

And since I didn't think I would win I didn't take pictures of the process - which I really regret now. I haven't even taken bottle pictures :D.

But let's get to the point of this post: How I made this mani. The very first thing I did was cutting out a piece of tape in an egg shape and then painted my nails white. Next I did a sponge gradient on my pinky, middle finger and thumb with four really easter appropriate nail polishes from BarryM: Lemon Ice Cream, Strawberry Ice Cream, Blueberry Ice Cream, and Mint Green. I did it twice to get proper coverage and while I was actually aiming for a more smooth gradient I am really pleased with the rough edges this got.

I then painted my ring and index fingers with BarryM Mint Green and top coated the gradients with a fast drying top coat. This gets me to the next step a lot faster: The reverse gradient!

As mentioned I cut out the egg at the beginning - trust me, you do NOT want to do it at this point in the process ;). To have something to grab onto with my tweezers, I cut it a little longer than I wanted the final shape to be and then folded the extra edge under my nail.

For the reverse gradient you have to wait until the first gradient is totally dry before applying tape otherwise the nether layers will be dragged off when removing the tape. I reversed the colours on my sponge, dabbed my nails and immediately pulled off the taped egg. This makes certain that you get crisp edges which they were before I top coated the design. Somehow - and for the life of me I have no idea why - the egg ended out with jagged edges. And don't ask me why I didn't outline it - I actually have NO idea why!

The Easter Bunny and the Easter Chick are perfect examples of how my skills can combine in excellence and fail - all in one mani.

I painted a white half moon with nails inc. floral street and then painted two ears. To draw the inner ears I used a medium sized dotting tool and Strawberry Ice Cream, then dotted two eyes with black polish - but instead of leaving them like that I went for the more detailed look. I dotted with white and then it all pear shaped: since my dotting tool was too large I ended up covering most of the white. The nose was dotted using my largest dotting tool with Strawberry Ice Cream again. Lastly I painted the whiskers but my brush work was kinda shaky so the left ones got all wonky.

However, the chick worked out perfectly, using the same techniques as with the bunny for outline and eyes. The polish used for the chick is Cult Nails Feel Me Up. To make the beak I used my small dotting tool and Elevation Polish Sarychev, drawing two opposite triangles. I also used Sarychev to draw the comb.
Not one thing ended up wrong here.

Then I top coated the rest of the design - and Voila, that is how I made this Easter Nail Art. Needless to say my girls loved it.

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Check back in tomorrow for the final winning mani!

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Dj Donk Easter, nail art contest

Third Place Winner of The Easy-Nail Art's Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest

Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles) here, and I'm excited to share the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently hosted. Monica was the third place winner, as chosen by the fans on Facebook who liked her photo. I can certainly see why, these little chicks are adorable!

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Hi girls!!! 

This is Monica from Moni’sMani and I am SO excited and honored to have won the third place on this wonderful competition. All the manis were so beautiful! My little chicks in love is my first ever Easter mani and I really enjoyed doing it. 

For the base I used my favorite yellow polish (China Glaze Lemon Fizz) and the white used for the middle finger and eggs is Sinful’s Snow me white.  Added a couple of cute details like the eyelashes and bow on the girl and we were done. The patched hearts were very fun and easy to do using a dotting tool and a toothpick for the lines.

You will find all polish details on this link from my original blog post: http://monismani.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/chicks-in-love-pollitos-enamorados/

  THANK YOU to the lovely people that liked my design and especially to The Digital Art for the huge honor!  You’ve made me a very very happy girl!  

Please visit my blog for some easy to-do fun designs.  http://monismani.wordpress.com/  Thank you!!

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Tomorrow we are going to have the first of our winners who were tied for first place, so keep an eye out for that!

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Dj Donk Easter, nail art contest

Editor's Choice Winner #2 of The Easy-Nail Art's Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest

Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles) here, and I'm excited to share the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently hosted. Enigmatic Rambles was the second of the two editor's choice winners, which were selected by myself, Heather (Peace, Love, & Polish), and Debbie (The Crumpet). We loved this creative funky french technique which made great use of the negative space trend.

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When I saw an Easter themed competition I had to enter these nails. It is such a shame I couldn't find any actual Cadbury Mini Eggs to pose with! I am so happy to have been chosen to have one of my nail art designs shown on The Easy-Nail Art! How exciting! I began with a coat of ELF Nude polish and went on to use; W7 - Sheer Lemon, ELF - Mint, Avon - Street Beige, Franken - Angels Delight and Revlon - Cloud to make freehand egg shapes on the nails. Then I used ELF - Smoky Brown and a dotting tool to create the speckles on the eggs.

enigmatic-rambles.com

 

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Dj Donk Easter, nail art contest

Editor's Choice Winner #1 of The Easy-Nail Art's Egg-cellent Easter Nail Art Contest

Hi DD fans! Ashley (Smashley Sparkles) here, and I'm excited to share the first of the winners from the Easter nail art contest we recently hosted. Marie here was one of the two editor's choice winners, which were selected by myself, Heather (Peace, Love, & Polish), and Debbie (The Crumpet). We really enjoyed the simplicity of this cute design.

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Hello there! I am Marie from Ten Colorful Nails. I am so happy that I get to guest post here today =) Today I am sharing with you some cute Easter bunny nail art, that I used as an accent nail on top of a french tip manicure.

Now, this was my fist time doing a french manicure using the nail polish brush to make the white tip. So, the tips are not perfect, especially not that crooked tip on the pinky finger, but I hope the cute bunny makes up for that =)

To show you all how I painted the bunny, I put together an illustrated tutorial. I even put two variations to this nail art on there =)

I hope you like this nail art, and that you find the tutorial helpful! To see more of my nail art, nail art tutorials and nail polish swatches, please visit my blog: http://tencolorfulnails.blogspot.com

Thanks to The Digital Art team for allowing me to guest post here today!
- Marie

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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see the second Editor's Choice winner with some sweet Easter candy inspired nail art!

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Dj Donk Easter, How To, nail art contest

Easter Manicures To Inspire You!

Hello all you lovely people!  Welcome to April!  Hopefully you are getting over the winter blues and starting to enjoy some Spring weather!  If not, maybe the designs I have to share today will lift your spirits!  With Easter right around the corner this post will provide you with some inspiration for your Easter manicure.  

Lindsey created this adorable Chick manicure. I would rate this high on the skill-o-meter, but a great challenge for the more adventurous nail artist!

Wondrously Polished

If you are looking for something non-traditional, why not try this brilliant manicure from Bee.  

Bee Polished

How about turning you nails into Easter Eggs? Meghan created these fantastic Pysanky inspired nails.

Will Paint Nails for Food

I am a sucker for a stamped design and this manicure created by T.I. is perfect!

Canadian Nail Fanatic

I used some images to create an Easter Basket manicure.

A Girl and Her Polish

Kirsten created this fun stamped accent manicure. Adding glitter is an easy way to make any manicure pop!

Geeky Owl

I also used glitter to create an Easter Half-Moon manicure.

A Girl and Her Polish

If you are looking for Easter animals, why not try Debbie's Easter Bunny design.

The Crumpet

Heather added some dots and carrots to her Easter Bunny manicure.

Peace, Love and Polish

Heather and I also created some cute and easy Easter Chick manicures.

A Girl and Her Polish

Peace, Love and Polish

Emily thought outside the box and created an Easter carrot manicure.

The Lacquerologist

Ashley's dots and stripes Easter manicure is simple yet fantastic.

Smashley Sparkles

I hope you find some inspiration in this post to create your own fabulous Easter manicure.  As we get closer to Easter I am sure these ladies will have more Easter nail art to inspire you!

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Dj Donk Dot manicure, Easter, Freehand, Holidays, Nail Art, Stamping, Stripes

Chicken and egg nail art for Easter!

Happy Easter! I felt like getting one more Easter mani in before I have to pack away my colourful pastels. I wanted to do another look with the new butter London spring polishes and this is what I came up with:

Fiver is a gorgeous mint green and although it's looking a little bluer above, I can assure you it's minty goodness.

I really felt like I needed 3 coats of Fiver because it was a little streaky. Oh how I wish it was spring here, but alas we are heading into autumn and winter.

Obligatory over filtered and prettied up instagram shot above. Today was one of those 'start painting and see where it takes you' days. I didn't think chickens would quite fit on all nails so I decided to finish with eggies. The brown used was actually another button London polish fave of mine - Yummy Mummy.

Well that wraps up Easter nail art, I hope you enjoyed them! Now time for CHOCOLATE! Until next time...

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Dj Donk butter London, Easter, Nail Art

Easter Bunny with Carrots nail art!

I'm feeling inspired this Easter so I decided to go for an orange look for my first Easter mani. And what is orange? Carrots! Yes, I decided to upgrade from my previous silly carrot nail art and go with a more, er, respectable look. Ha I do not know it was midnight ;-)

I wasn't originally planning on painting bunnies, I quite liked the half carrot look I finished with late last night:

But I have some spare time this week so I decided to continue on with bunnies!

Then I just drew the outline/silhouette of bunnies and I really liked THAT look but I have this incessant need to draw eyes on things ;-)

Which is why I added some pink ears/feet and drew a small face. Not the best face I've done but still super cute. Well I hope you enjoyed this look and I'll see you next time!

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Dj Donk Easter, Nail Art, OPI