Poppy Extravaganza!


Today I have a design that I did a few months ago for the Rite Aid Nail Extravaganza nail art competition. The judges were Suzi Weiss-Fischmann of OPI, Essie Weingarten of Essie, and Julie G of Julie G Beauty. Needless to say, I wanted to IMPRESS. With this design I made it to the finalist round, where I was sent a box of products that I had to use to create a new nail design. Here's the catch, I could ONLY use the tools/polishes in the box. Unfortunately this did not include A. topcoat B. a nail art brush. I did contact the PR people handling the contest to make sure I was not allowed to use topcoat or brushes, and they said if it's not in the box...no.

The kit included: a set of 5 polishes from the Jesse's Girl Julie G line, 2 Essies, a NOPI red, and 5 Sally Hansen Nail Art Pens. I spent 4 hours. FOUR. HOURS. trying to make these products work. Sure, the polishes were all AWESOME. Unfortunately not many of them coordinated, and on top of that, the lack of topcoat meant that anything I drew with the nail art pens wiped off. After several failed attempts (every time I drew something I was mildly OK with, the pen would shit on my nail and make a big splotch...there was a lot of unparliamentary language goin' on that night), I came up with something that I wasn't horribly embarrassed to submit. This round was voted on by the public... needless to say, my design didn't win.  You can view the other submissions on the Rite Aid Nail Extravaganza site.

In any event, I was REALLY happy with my initial submission. I tried a new watercolor technique where I painted the shape of where the color was the boldest/most opaque, then dipped my brush in acetone and 'pulled' the color to create the other shapes.



I used:

White: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On
Red: Nicole by OPI Red-y to Runaway Love, sometimes mixed with Zoya Arizona
Darker Red: Essie Blood Curdling
Yellow: CND Bicycle Yellow
Green: Essie Pretty Edgy, sometimes mixed with CND Bicycle Yellow

Topcoat: Seche Vite

The OTHER design. 


I used:

Silver, Black, and White Sally Hansen Nail Art pens


16 comments

  1. You are a trooper for sticking with it though. I would have given up after a time. Ugh. 4 hours! I like both of the designs though! Shame that the box didn't come with a top coat. :/

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  2. Those poppies are gorgeous ! The second design is pretty cool, it's a shame about the lack of topcoat in the box though !

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  3. I remember seeing your original design when the contest was going on but wasn't aware it was your's. I think it's awesome that you were a top 10 finalist. I entered too but didn't place or anything lol.

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  4. I have a Sally Hansen nail art pen I purchased early in my new found nail art addiction. It's totally useless. It doesn't show up at all and, like you said, it rubs off. :( You are such an amazing nail artist that it's a shame you weren't able to use any brushes. The poppies are amazing!

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  5. the winning artwork was umm... not great, I hate contests that are purely popularity contests. I usually avoid any contests because they tend to be a waste of time. uhh there were so many more awesome designs i still can't get over how uninspiring the winning nails are!

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  6. My 5 year old daughter's name is Poppy so I of course adore this manicure. It's beautiful. I will have to (badly) attempt this soon.

    If you're ever in Toronto and have a hankering to do someone else's nails, give me a call!

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  7. I was also a finalist in the contest (the under the sea design that had the octopus!) I didn't realize that these were yours right away so it was surprising when I saw that it was you! (I'm somewhat of a beginner, so I was just surprised that I was even in the top ten) Anyways, the whole end voting was sort of strange, there were a couple of problems with how the voting was done to where you could vote multiple times for someone, even though you could only vote once.. which may have been why there was a huge jump in the votes between the first couple of designs and the last few...oh well I guess :P

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  8. Those poppy nails are amazing!

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  9. I'm gonna try poppy design!:)

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  10. The poppy design is amazing! Not way some of those top designs beat yours. But your other design is great too - congratulations on being a finalist :)

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  11. how did you not win?! haha i think this is a beautiful design!

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  12. it's beautiful! amazing design!!

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Go on, comment... you know you want to. ;-P