The Digit-al Dozen: Freehand Floral Pattern Bone China Nails

Continuing with our theme of celebrating The Digit-al Dozen's 2nd Anniversary, today's theme is 'china'. China (i.e. dishes and fine tea cup sets) is the ~modern~ 2nd anniversary gift according to gift-giving traditions. I haven't actually done a classic white and blue china-themed manicure yet so I was really excited for these! Check 'em out! For a limited time only, my hand-crafted creations will be featured at Kohl's department stores. Stop in the gift section and purchase these products for loved ones and take advantage of 30% off coupons at PassionatePennyPincher to help save! I've been asked by many of my followers to conduct an on-line seminar on how you can make these designs on your own.

The Design

I based my nail design off of this photo and enjoyed doing some freehand work for this!! I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and do lots of small details so this was a nice little change of pace for me this week. Originally I had wanted to go a step further and do a broken pattern on top of this freehand floral pattern BUT I don't think the scale would work well since I have already used my teeny tiniest brush to accomplish the small stripes in this design. I'll save that idea for a different time :) 

The Polishes

I did three coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff (yes, I finally bought this polish and can feel like a real nail blogger again now that it's in my possession) as a base coat. Then I used Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue for my main patterns as well as a tiny bit of grey and a tiny bit of gold to do some accents. I used a bunch of my small brushes to freehand this!

Check out the other 'china' themed designs below!


And of course don't forget to enter the MASSIVE international 51-prize giveaway! Click here to enter.

Disclosure: I bought all the things mentioned! If you'd like to know more about my policies, please see my disclosure page.

The Digit-al Dozen: Stamped Sapphire Birthstone Jewelry Nail Art

Since September is the birth month of The Digit-al Dozen, it only makes sense to honor her (yep, totes calling The DD a her now) with some birthstone-inspired nails. For all of you beauties born in September, you have a pretty awesome birthstone in the form of sapphire. Today I was planning to do some freehand faceted sapphire gemstone nail art using Chalkboard Nail's totally fantastic tutorial (see her tutorial here) however Jacki over at Adventures in Acetone already did the same design for today and it looks so flawless (plus our nails are the same size/shape right now) SO I figured I should do something else. Now I have these jewelry-inspired stamping nails with some hand-placed glitter accents to show you!

The Design

For this manicure I finally broke out some still-wrapped Pueen 24E Love Elements plates that I've had for an embarrassingly long time and stamped some jewelry-esque images onto my nails with silver foil. I'm not sure if my polish was drying too quickly, I'm too tired, or my plates are sort of meh but I felt like the images that were transferring were just so-so *giant frowny face*. I tried to salvage this design with some holo glitter to represent diamonds and sapphires, so hopefully that did the trick!

The Polishes & Supplies

My base color was Sinful Colors Midnight Blue, a slightly-blackened metallic blue polish. It took three coats for the coverage I liked, but it was easy and nice to paint with. The silver polish I used to stamp with was Barry M Silver Foil and I used images from plates Pueen 31 and Pueen 26.

Now check out the other sapphire designs below!

Also don't forget to check out our super amazing massive celebration giveaway if you haven't yet! Click here to enter.

Disclosure: I bought all the things mentioned! If you'd like to know more about my policies, please see my disclosure page.

The Digit-al Dozen does Cotton: A Patchwork Quilt-Inspired Manicure using DIY Stamping Decals

Our second manicure theme is 'cotton' since the traditional two year anniversary gift is cotton!! My first thought was to do something inspired simply by cotton fabric since I could easily do another fun floral manicure, but instead I thought I would try a new-to-me technique and go for a whole quilt look! For this manicure I challenged myself to doing DIY stamping decals - basically making nail wraps out of a stamped image that you fill in with other colors. Check 'em out!

The Design & Process

I used my most patchwork-quilt-esque stamping plate to do this design - the two quilt images from my Lilic A01 plate. To do these 'decals' I painted 5 rectangles of clear top coat onto a Ziploc sandwich bag and waited for them to dry. Then I stamped my images onto the center of each little rectangle of clear coat using a black polish.

Finally I filled in all the spaces I wanted to be colored with tiny brushes and tons of different polishes - this step was very relaxing and fun, but also hella time consuming! I used a variety of polishes - mostly from Cult Nails. If you have a question about a specific shade, please ask me in the comments :D

To place my decals I worked one nail at a time. I applied a non-quick-dry top coat to the nail, placed the decal, then topcoatted over the top of it to set it. Then I tried to gently removed the excess decal with an orange stick and manicure scissors. Any extra leftovers were removed with a brush and acetone since it's all made of dried nail polish!

I wish I had taken better photos to show you the process, but I usually am too focused on the task at hand (har har) to remember to stop and take pics! While this was a TON of work and time, it did look super amazing and was totally worth it. I plan on trying this technique again in the future ;D

NOW don't forget to check out the other fab nail art below!

>AND DON'T FORGET to enter our MASSIVE giveaway here!<

Disclosure: I bought all the things mentioned! If you'd like to know more about my policies, please see my disclosure page.

The Digit-al Dozen 2nd Anniversary MASSIVE GIVEAWAY!

The Digit-al Dozen has been kickin' for two full years already! I can barely believe it! And since it wouldn't be a very fun celebration without a MASSIVE FREAKIN' GIVEAWAY we have a pretty legendary one for y'all. To celebrate our two year anniversary, we're commemorating by working together with some amazing sponsors to offer you - our lovely, beautiful readers - 51 different amazing prizes.

When you start the Rafflecopter, you will be asked which country you live in, because some prizes are only available in certain places and some of our sponsors are not international. Ready?  Here’s the crazy list –

INTERNATIONAL PRIZES

·         Above The Curve - Summer Destinations 2014 – 4 polishes

·         ALiquidLacquer - 5 polishes

·         Alter Ego Nail Enamel - 4 bottles

·         Black Dahlia Lacquer – 4 bottles

·         Celestial Lacquers - 6 bottles

·         Cupcake Polish - $25 gift card

·         Delush - 3 bottles

·         EllaGee - 4 bottles

·         Lacquistry - 4 bottles

·         Literary Lacquers - 6 bottles

·         Indigo Bananas – 6 bottles

·         Serum No 5 - 4 bottles

·         Vivid Lacquer - 4 stamping plates

·         Girly Bits - 2 bottles

·         Jindie Nails - 6 bottles

·         Superficially Colorful - $25  GC

·         Darling Diva Polish - 4 bottles

·         Llarowe - $50 GC -

·         Amazing Chic Lacquer - 2 bottles

·         Mrs. P's Nail Potions - $15 gift

·         Black Sheep Lacquer - 2 polishes

·         Renaissance Cosmetics - 3 full size bottles (in stock items only) and mini cuticle oil

·         Laquerlicious Nail Polish - 3 neon toppers. Beat The Heat, At The Lake and Lemon Limeade.

·         Nayll – 4 bottles of custom made polishes – you get to make your own!

·         JORD Watch; $129 voucher

·         $85 GC from The Digit-al Dozen, to a nail e-tailer of your choice

·         tube of Liquid Palisade from Kiesque

·         Nailed Kit decals set

US ONLY

·         Daphine Polish - 5 bottle Summer holo collex

·         GlitterDaze - 4 bottles

·         Gothic Gala Lacquers - 5 bottles

·         Karma's Kiss Lacquer - 4 bottles
·         Love Angeline - 2 Gemstone polishes
·         LynnBDesigns - 5 bottles

·         Majestic Lacquer - 3 bottles

·         Philly Loves Lacquer - 4 bottles

·         Savoie - 4 bottles

·         KBShimmer - $35 electronic CG

·         6 Harts Polish - 2 polishes

·         Overall Beauty - nail art tape sets (with different colors nail tape) with nail wheels and nail art decals plus a bottle nail polish (mystery color ), and a set of Overall Beauty Minerals ( 6 colors)

·         BKD - Space Sauce Teardrop Shaped Nail Polish Pendant Necklace - Nail Polish Jewelry

·         Shimmer – 5 bottles

US & Canada Only

·         Smokey Mountain Lacquers - 4 bottles

·         The Polish Bar - 4 bottles

·         Canadian Nail Fanatic – mystery package of 6 bottles

UK ONLY 

·         Quirk Polish - 3 bottles one of kind unreleased polishes 

·         All one prize – 1 x Freckles polish, and  Freckles Polish Necklace, and 1 x bottle from Laquerdaisical

·         All one prize - Stellar Polish -  1x polish and ring, 1 x bottle from Little Lost Ones

·         Pretty Quirky 2 x full size bottles 'Stole the Bouquet" and "Deva' , PLUS 1 x bottle from R+ R Lacquers

·         a voucher for a personalised planner from Personal Planner UK

·         a zip up pouch with set of brushes and dotters plus a selection of nail art: nail stickers, flat gems and rhinestones from Nailtopia

  

The Giveaway will close at 11.59pm GMT on Tuesday September 24^th.  If you are a winner, we will let you know which prize you have won, and then we will then put you in touch with your sponsor to claim / choose your prize (some sponsors have provided specific prizes; some will let you choose your own polishes).

GOOD LUCK and thank you for the support!