piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013

Celebrating the year of the blogger.

Welcome to piCture pOlish blog fest 2013. It's the year of the blogger! Hey...that's me! I'm so honoured to have been chosen to participate this year. Jules and I are HUGE personal fans of piCture pOlish and own many of the colours from their amazing range. And with such a great theme this year - create your most amazing nail art -  it wasn't hard to get inspired. I thought long and hard about my style as a nail artist, and with a quick swipe back through my Instagram account it was blatantly obvious...I love a good stripe and I love piCture pOlish!

PPBF is an annual event run by piCture pOlish to showcase their exciting new shades. All across the world bloggers post on the same day at the same time about PP....so exciting! 2013 is the first year DQN has been involved in PPBF. I cant wait to go and look at everyone's posts to see all the beautiful colours PP has in their current collection used to create amazing nail art. 

piCture pOlish are Aussie indie polish makers who have shown great support for bloggers both here in Australia and overseas. They understand the power of "the nail network" and customer recommendations to spread the news about their high quality polishes. This years blog fest awards are a too good to be true prize - create a collaboration shade of nail polish to be released in 2014! Imagine having a nail polish inspired by you and your blog......ZOMG! MAJOR! So stick around to find out about the shades I got, a tutorial for how to recreate this funky striped nail art and how you can vote for Drama Queen Nails to receive an award in PPBF 2013.

This year participants received 3 nail polishes from PP to use with black or white to create unique nail art that reflected their style as a nail artist and blogger and allowed the beautiful polishes to shine through. The 3 gorgeous colours I got to play with: Sea Jewel, Whimsy and Sunset. 

Sea Jewel is a collaboration shade created with Anuika from Waki Laki. Her inspiration was sea glass and a beautiful pair of earrings. Its a luminous green metallic textured shade with silver particles. The formula is devine, the glitter spreads evenly for full coverage and opacity in 2 coats. My favourite of the bunch...its luscious!

Whimsy is another collaboration shade created with Lindsey from Neverland Nail Blog. Her inspiration was a favourite blue dress with a touch of gold bling. Whimsy is a blue creme polish with a hint of gold shimmer. I used this colour as the base for my nail art. Its a lovely vibrant sky blue. I used 2 coats for opacity and it applied well with no streaking.

The final colour is Sunset. An amazing coral orange neon jelly. It is so neon it was impossible to capture its true colour even in direct sunlight. It has a pink undertone and is an extremely striking colour. I used 3 coats on my ring finger for full opacity. The formula was again flawless. Neons can be finicky  to apply, however because this polish is sheer it doesn't streak or pull like a creme would. I really wanted to feature this colour without it taking over my design, so that's when the idea of creating custom coloured studs popped into my head....for a little pop of colour! The name sunset also really inspired this art, rays of the sun coming from a bright orange point!

Fans of DQN will know that I often use my striping brushes to create a whole range of designs but I couldn't go past converging lines to showcase my colours. To recreate my blog fest nails these are the things you will need. 3 colours; one glitter, one creme and one neon. Black and white striping polishes or a medium sized striping brush and some light coloured studs. So lets start with the stripes.

1. Place a dot in the centre of your nail down near your cuticle.  This is the anchor point for your stripes. 2. Do 2 strokes to create a black V shape by moving your striping brush from the dot outwards to the tip of your nail. 3. Add a white stripe in between the black V but place it closer to one side to allow room to add the glitter stripe. Add 2 more white stripes on the outside of the black V. 4. Add in your glitter stripes. 5. Add one or two more black and white stripes on each side. 6. Go back over your black and white stripes where they collide at the point to neaten them up. 

Now glue on the studs that you want to use to create your custom coloured stud. Use light coloured studs or you wont be able to truly match the shade you are trying to feature as the original stud colour will show through. Silver and gold studs do not work for this technique, the polish doesn't apply evenly or stick well to the surface. 

It is much easier to paint the studs when they are already attached to your nail. So add them to the striped point by sticking on with topcoat or glue.  Allow to dry then use a small brush to colour them in with your polish of choice. I painted these studs with two coats of PP sunset. I then sealed the studs by adding a layer of topcoat to the entire nail.

I hope you have enjoyed this epic blog fest post. Thanks for sticking around to the end. A HUGE thank you to PP for creating and running this great event and for supplying all the participants with 3 beautiful polishes to add to our collections. If you would like to vote for Drama Queen Nails here's how. Head to PPs Pinterest page and look for the 2013 blog fest board. Pin our picture and vote for DQNs stripy look! There are 3 awards this year: 

• 1 x Award - as voted by PP friends and fans
• 1 x Award  - as voted by all (you) participants of Blog Fest 2013
• 1 x Award - as voted by Jules & Megs of piCture pOlish

If you like the look of my three colours or any of the other colours you see during PPBF, head on over to the piCture pOlish website or any of their social media sites for more information on how you can get your hands on these polishes wherever you are in the world via the Network . PP often has great daily deals which you can find on their Everyday Deals page. If you are in Australia check out PPs Shipping information page. Here are the links for PP.

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Mr and Mrs.

The past few weeks have whizzed by in a flash with lots of exciting things on the DQ calender. Last Saturday Jules and I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of our good friend and fellow DQer Miss Tamra, to the man of her dreams, Dan. It was a gorgeous ceremony and a super fun reception. Thank you both for inviting us, it was an honour to be a part of your special day.

So what do my nails have to do with the wedding? Well I did them to match my outfit of course!

To create this design was really simple. I started with a white base coat. I then painted messy rainbow stripes using my medium sized striping brush. The polishes I used were:

• OPI Red my fortune cookie (red)
• BC 22 (jade)
• BC 6 (purple)
• Barry M Lemon Icecream (yellow) 
• China Glaze Japanese Koi (orange)

To add the pattern I used a Pueen plate from their first generation stamping set: 25F Sumptuous Gallery which is available here.  Amazingly this was the exact pattern of my very OTT dress. I used Konad special polish in black to stamp with.

I didn't have any good photos of my outfit to share at the time that I wrote this post but I promise to add one soon. The holographic red heart is from a stud set which is available here. 

 

Thank you again Tamra and Dan for allowing us to be a part of your big day. Here's to a lifetime of happiness and good fortune for you, Dan and that little spunk Mr K.

Crafty Hearts - Making Nail Decals part 2

Today is part 2 of how to make your own nail decals. Previously we looked at how to create zig zags using pinking shears. This time we are using another common craft tool, the hole punch. With a large varsity of shapes and images available in most scrapbooking aisles, the possibilities are endless! So if you like the look of these glitter heart decals here's how you do it.......

Start off by painting nail polish onto baking paper. Do one thick coat and let it dry. Apply another thick coat then let it dry overnight to ensure it is hard. Painting the polish in 4 cm width squares or rectangles is the ideal shape as you can maximise the area you can put through the craft punch.

You can use a variety of polishes, smooth or chunky glitters, cremes, and liquids sands. Stay away from using sheer polishes as the base colour you apply under the decals will show through with your final result. 

After leaving your polish strips overnight, gently peel them off the baking paper. Use you craft punch to punch out the shapes. The brand I used was Fiskers. They are great as they have a little catcher on the top of them that catches the shapes you punch out so when you are done you open the lid and tip all the shapes out rather than them ending up all over the place. 

Out of these size polish squares I got 12 decals of each colour.

I store my decals in these nail wheels so they are ready to go whenever I am in the mood to use them. To apply them I start with 2 coats of my base colour and then 1 coat of fast drying topcoat. When that is completely dry I use a small dab of top coat under the heart to stick it to the nail. Applying that layer of top coat first allows you to move the heart into position without dinting your base colour. Apply another thick layer of topcoat over the decal to seal it down.

This is such a simple technique that gives incredible results, its really striking! I hope you decide to give it a go with your favourite polishes.

Pueen 25F Sumptuous Gallery Stamping Set

Today we explore the first generation stamping plate set from Pueen. I am a big fan of their second set of plates so I had high hopes for this collection. It's another great set with modern images and thankfully not a french tip in sight. The set is called Sumptuous Gallery as it contains many iconic fashion and decor prints, think romantic antique wallpaper and art deco accents! This set is available now from Drama Queen Nails.

The plates are 5.5cm in diametre. The images are slightly smaller than the ones in the 2nd set. If you have longer nails than mine you would need to double stamp the full nail prints.

Zig zags! 

Butterflies, and the lines...me likey!

I love all the images on this plate, especially the triangles and of course the crowns.

Love this plate too.

Another favourite plate, love the geometric prints and the little flower bunny...awww!

The rubber ducky and the bow are super cute.

Loving the swirls.

This is probably my favourite print from the set, the fan shaped art deco image is really pretty, cant wait to try it.

The flower and butterfly lace is too cute!

This plate gives me a wallpaper feel, or beautiful turkish rugs.

This is the best reindeer image, so cutesy! And the rose lace print is another winner.

The set comes in a little swivel slip pouch with pockets for each plate.

If you like this set it is available now from here. 

Crafty Zig Zags - Making Nail Decals Part 1

Today is the first in a series of upcoming posts about how to make your own nail decals. So what exactly are decals?  Basically they are images you stick on your nail that are made out of nail polish or in some cases special paper, called decal paper. For today's tutorial we are going to have a go at making zigzag polish decals with pinking shears to create this modern and very popular nail art look.

To create this look you need to prepare the polish beforehand to allow it to dry. If the polish isn't completely dry this technique will not work so realistically give your polish at least 6 hours dry time. I left mine overnight. So here's what you do. Cut strips of baking paper that are approx 3 cm wide. This size fits through the pinking shears perfectly and will create zig zags that are wide enough to cover even your thumb nails. 

I chose to paint squares of a range of polishes because I had no idea which polish would work the best so I  wanted to try a few different ones. There are cremes, liquid sands, glitters, jellies and indie polishes in the mix. You need to paint two coats of polish on the baking paper allowing the first coat to dry before applying the 2nd. Leave overnight. 

The next day I used these pinking shears to cut the decals. The plastic craft version of these scissors did not work for me, they weren't sharp enough. I got these from Spotlight for around $20. I cut my decals with the baking paper still attached to the polish however you can also peel the polish off the paper and cut it on its own. A good trick to help you line up the shears is to work with a lamp in front of you. Hold up the paper with the polish on it and the light with shine through creating a guide shadow so you can line up the shears and control the thickness of your decal. It took me many oddly shaped diagonal decal failures before I figured this out!

From the above sized sqaures I ended up with 6 zigzag decals but not all of them were usable as you may end up with a few that are too thick or too thin. So if you are set on a colour I would paint at least double the width to ensure you have enough.  The colours I used in this mani are:

• OPI Skull and Glossbones (grey)
• Essie Where's My chauffeur (aqua)
• Picture Polish Heavy Metal (glitter)

To apply the decals to your nail peel off the paper if it isn't already. For best results ensure your base colour is completely dry or apply a fast drying topcoat before applying the decals. I used base coat to stick my decals on and because I had top coated my nails it was easy to move the decal and make adjustments to straighten them without damaging my base colour. Gently press down on the decals to stick it to your nails, especially at the sides. Use your fingernail from your other hand to press into the decals on the side of your nail to cut them to the correct width. Apply topcoat to seal down the decals. I used 2 coats to really flatten mine.

I cut up a whole heap of colours and left most with the paper on to use another time. Once I figured out how to line the scissors up I was on a roll! I hope you guys give this technique a try, its heaps of fun and looks really great. Stay tuned for part 2 of making nail decals.....