piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2013 !

Good evening everyone, I have something very very VERY special for you all in today's post.. my contribution to the piCture pOlish 2013 Blog Fest ! I am so honoured to have been chosen to participate this year, as I have loved reading all the different posts that everyone else who has taken part has posted over the past couple of years ! Basically, loads of different bloggers from all around the world are chosen to participate and create some nail art with different piCture pOlish shades, all posting their creations on the same day !

Our challenge for this year's blog fest was to come up with a nail art design using the three piCture pOlish shades we were sent and provide a step-by-step tutorial for said design, to be in with the chance of being one of three bloggers to be chosen through the Blog Fest Awards, to collaborate with piCture pOlish and create a custom nail polish... that's a pretty amazing prize, right ?!

So I'll start off with swatches of all three shades that I was sent, and then we'll move on to the nail art and the tutorial.. enjoy !

Above sample photos courtesy of piCture pOlish

First up is Ocean, a collaboration shade with Kelly's Kolors, inspired by, you guessed it, the ocean ! This nail varnish is really just AMAZING, possibly one of my favourite polishes ever ! It's a beautiful teal/turquoise jelly filled with loads of scattered shredded silver holographic particles with deep blue reflections. I used three coats with no top coat for this swatch, and the formula was absolutely amazing as well, no clean up required at all !

Next up is Focus, the collaboration shade with Pointless Cafe, which is inspired by the colour of wine cups, a flower that grows in southern Texas. This nail varnish is a deep reddish-purple-pink shade, very difficult to describe, with a combination of red and magenta micro flakes and a touch of purple and pink shimmer throughout, super complex ! This swatch shows two coats of Focus without top coat, I found the formula to be slightly on the thick side but it was still very workable !

And last but not least, Atomic, Samarium's Swatches collaboration shade, inspired by the eponymous element samarium which has an incredible silver-white metallic colour and reflection. This polish has a definitely white-silver colour and a not-so-noticeable champagne pink tone to it in some lights, with tiny scattered silver holographic particles and silver shimmer running through it. I used three thin coats for this swatch, although you can easily get away two coats and no top coat. The finish of this polish isn't glossy like the other two piCture pOlish shades I've swatched, and the formula on this was great !

So that's it for all the swatches... now it's time for the nail art ! It took me a while to work out what I wanted to do for my nail art design, all sorts of ideas went through my mind but I was never happy with the end result. I tried needle dragging but that ended up looking too messy, then I tried painting the Australian flag as I had all the right colours for it, but it just didn't look right and the beauty of each shade was getting lost in the design ! In the end I settled with my favourite cartoon flowers, and I'm so glad I did as I really love the design !

So what do you all think of the design ? I loved the way that the flowers pop against the silvery background in the photos, but in real life the holographic particles are so much more visible than I was able to capture in my photos and the whole design is just sparklier in general ! You just have to believe me on this one !

Now, here's the tutorial, my first ever may I add ! I hope you all like it ! Don't forget to click on the photo to make it bigger so you can read the instructions !

So that's it for my post for this piCture pOlish blog fest, I hope you've all enjoyed this rather long post, but I've had great fun getting everything together for today !

All the different blogger's Blog Fest nail art will be posted on the piCture pOlish pinterest board and is open to public voting, so don't forget to go and look (and maybe even vote for me, if you deem me worthy) !

You can find piCture pOlish and their huge range of shades, as well as Ozotic polishes at their website, and the great news is that they ship worldwide ! Happy days ! You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube, so you can keep up to date with new releases and perhaps the odd giveaway !