I entered my first nail art contest!

I recently entered my very first nail art contest! I saw it on Facebook, and I figured I'll just try my hand at it. The contest was by Dazzle Dry Philippines, and it was entitled "Newsworthy Nails".

Each person was allowed to have three entries for the contest, and since I paint my nails regularly anyway, I submitted three nail arts. But for this nail art tutorial, I'd like to focus on my main entry.  I called my entry "Flowers for Ronald Gadayan", in honor of Mr. Gadayan's honesty when he returned a designer bag filled with Php600,000 while he was working as a glass cleaner at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (the contest is called "Newsworthy Nails", after all).

My main entry for the Newsworthy Nails nail art challenge :)

Creating this design was quite complicated, since I wanted it to look like a painting.  I actually used a total of 10 nail polish colors to make this design!

My army of colors in creating this nail art (from The Face Shop, Revlon, and Orly c/o Polished in the City)

For those who are patient enough to try making this design, here goes my little tutorial!

Materials:

1. Base Coat
2. Top Coat
3. Nail polish in: white, pale yellow, pale orange, bright orange, light green, dark green, sky blue, lavender, brown, black
4. Thin paint brush
5. Cotton
6. Nail polish remover

Procedure:

After applying base coat, paint all nails sky blue.

Blend dark and light green together on a piece of paper or plastic and use a paint brush to make random stripes. The combination of dark and light green will add texture to the grass (picture does not do it justice!!)

Use lavender to make petals.

Now add white over the lavender, but making sure the lavender is still slightly visible.  The lavender will look like shadow underneath the white petals.

Mix brown and pale orange to create the color of the centers.  Dot in the center of each flower.

To create the butterfly, I first painted the shape of the wings with bright orange polish.  I then added the black details, and finished off with tiny spots of pale yellow.  Monarch butterfly :)

As always, finish with top coat, and you're done!

Helpful Tips:

• When painting with a brush, clean it once in a while with a cotton dampened with nail polish remover to keep it soft and fine.  
• If you do not have any of the colors that I used, remember that you can always blend your own colors.  They might even turn out nicer!
• I used lavender because I didn't have light grey, and that shade would be too hard to mix.  If you have off white or very light grey, those colors will look better as "shadow petals". :)

By the way, here are my other two entries for the contest:

Wild Animals

Fruits and Vegetables (Dazzle Dry is a vegan nail polish brand. Lol)

Thanks for reading!! :)