Blue Gradient Dots and WINNERS

WOWEEE! I cannot believe the amount of entries in my 1000 Facebook likes contest! You guys are so cool, thank you for your awesome support. Here are the winners who will each get 1 bottle of "1000 FB Likes" the commemorative polish I made to celebrate my big milestone:

Lori Hill Shadow
Shalon Bell
Molly T
Paulina Mayhem
Nicole Drong

Each of these winners has until Friday to get me their mailing address info, or I will select another person as a winner. Congrats to all the winners, and I can't tell you ALL how much it meant to me to read your awesome comments about where you live. It made me feel really connected and happy about how we are spread all across the globe, but we can all have this great connection. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing with me!!! GROUP HUG!

Here is a manicure I did a while ago as an entry for a Rite Aid contest. I didn't win (click here on the winner tab to see the winning manicure), but I do really like how this turned out. It is fairly simple and works with just stripes and dots. I used mostly Color Club polishes to make this design. Have a great day polish friends!

Frog Eats Cupcake and a Giveaway

Hello! I am cramming a bunch of stuff into this post so I hope you have a minute or two to check it out. First of all, the Frog Eats Cupcake mani. What the.... okay, so my friend Amber is having a nail art contest and you can  create a mani using her favorite things as themes. Her favorite things include: frogs, pink, cupcakes, animal print,  and stars. I crammed almost all of those things into this mani. :D

See!? It's a frog on a pink background eating a cupcake. There's even a little fly buzzing next to him and he don't care, he just wants the cupcake! And really, who doesn't love cupcakes?! (This is actually the first time I have even done a cupcake mani and it was kind of fun!) I did not take any pics during the painting of this manicure, but I started with the frog, then did the cupcake, and finally added his little tongue zipping out, and the fly on my pinkie. The base of the cupcake is China Glaze For Audrey, but everything else was done with acrylic paints.

I started the mani with this bright pink shade from Sally Hansen. It is called Speedy Sunburst. This is two coats and it has great coverage and is easy to apply. (And look, I am just like Sarah of Chalkboard Nails. She doesn't own this hand pose you know, so I am rockin' it! Moo hoo ha ha ha ha! I kid, I kid. I love Sarah, so I have to give her a hard time.)

And to seal the deal and hopefully help me win Amber's contest, I added stars. What the heck, why not?!? Now I have to win. :D This was with a Bundle Monster stamp and Konad special white polish.

Here are the polishes I used in this manicure: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Speedy Sunburst, and China Glaze For Audrey. Ok, now for some fun! Every 20 posts I make a donation to a local women's shelter as a way to give back to my community and make my blog do some good. We all know a little makeup or a nice manicure can really boost ones self esteem. And for women transitioning out of substance abuse, a little boost in self esteem is so important. With my 100th post I am donating another $10 to Women's Recovery Services. I encourage you to find a way to make your blog help your community. 

And to celebrate my 100th post even MORE, I am giving away one bottle of my Sonoma Nail Art custom polish: Sister Sparkle The Exalted One! I just did my first sale of polishes on etsy and it was an overwhelming success. Thanks to everyone for your support. To win this bottle of polish, you need to follow my blog. You can also enter by following Sonoma Nail Art on Facebook. Entry deadline is Tuesday, May 1st at 9:01pm Pacific Time. Open to everyone, international entries welcome! 

You could win this! ^^

Writer's Block Nails and 500 Followers Winner!

I laughingly call this mani my Writer's Block Nails because I painted my digits with Essie Blanc, meaning to do something for my friend Sarah's Dotting Tool Contest, and this is what I ended up wearing for 3 days. o.O

Yeah, not very inspired. I am happy to report that I did eventually come up with a design for Sarah's contest and I will post those soon. Meanwhile, I am thrilled to announce that Courtney Young is the winner of my 500 Follower contest! I asked you to paint your nails using your favorite color (you didn't have to do any artwork, but it certainly was welcome) and submit it for voting on Facebook. Courtney's nails received the most likes and she has won a selection of 6 nail polishes in my favorite hue: blue!

Here is what Courtney said about her sushi nails: "I used Zoya Apple and did some sushi nail art over it. Thanks so much for the contest. I can't wait to see everyone else's favorites!"

There really were some great entries and I thank everyone for sending in your photos and for voting on your favorites. I loved every single entry. 

Sully from Monsters Inc. and a GIVEAWAY!

I have been meaning to do this manicure for a while now, and I finally had the perfect polish to do it. China Glaze Aquadelic from their new Electropop collection is the exact shade of Sully's fur. :)

This photo that I took outside shows the best representation of the true color of this polish. I love blue polishes so much, but sadly they do not photograph well. This is James "Sully" Sullivan from the Pixar movie Monsters Inc. This manicure has a Sonoma County connection, because the Chief Creative Officer of Pixar lives in Sonoma County! John Lasseter, director of such great movies as "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," and "Cars," lives in beautiful Sonoma County. 

Here is a shot of the base color (again, this is not color correct, see the above photo for a more accurate pic).

I used acrylic paints to make the artwork on top of the base polish color. Sully is a fun character to paint, and I have his little pal Mike Wazowski on my list to do as well. 

Here is Sully pretty much done. His eyes were pretty hard to do since they are so tiny, but luckily I was able to manage it on the first try and not start over again. 

Then I added splotches of purple paint across the other nails to mimic Sully's fur. Or as Boo likes to call him, "Kitty!"

Ok, now for the fun part. I recently hit 500 followers on my blog and I am super thrilled! Your comments really mean a lot to me and encourage me to keep challenging myself with new nail art ideas. I would like to show my appreciation by giving you a chance to win some polishes in my favorite color: BLUE! Here are the  beauties you could win:

Sinful Colors Cinderella, China Glaze Aquadelic, Finger Paints Twisted (ok, this one isn't' blue, but it's AWESOME!), OPI Simmer and Shimmer, Love & Beauty Blue Multi, and Milani Jewel FX Teal. These are all brand new polishes, never used. I purchased all of these polishes for this giveaway.

OPI Simmer and Shimmer is from the Burlesque collection. It's a really pretty glitter with lots of blue. Finger Paints Twisted is an awesome flakie topcoat with multicolored flakes. 

Sinful Colors Cinderella is a gorgeous light blue polish with glass flecks and a pink to yellow shimmer. The Milani Jewel FX Teal glitter is incredible! There're holo glitters, multiple sizes of blue glitter, green glitter, ...just WOW!

China Glaze Aquadelic is from the Electropop collection and is much brighter and more teal than this picture shows. The Love & Beauty polish from Forever 21 has a golden sheen to it that is really pretty.

So how do you win these 6 polishes? I want to do something interactive, but I know not everyone likes to do nail art. So here's the contest: I want to see photos of your favorite color on your nails! You can submit one photo of your nails painted in your favorite shade. You can do nail art if you like, even do multiple polishes in your favorite color! Please watermark your photo with your GFC follower name. I will post all of the submitted photos on my Sonoma Nail Art Facebook page next week, and the photo with the most likes will win the polish! 

You must be a follower of this blog. Send only ONE (1) photo of your nails to me at marquesmaverick@gmail.com. Be sure to watermark your photo with your GFC follower name. Deadline to enter your photo is Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 5pm Pacific Time. All entries will be posted on the Sonoma Nail Art Facebook page on Monday, February 20th, 2012. Vote for your favorites by 'liking' the photo. The photo with the most likes on Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 5pm Pacific Time will win the contest! This contest is open to everyone (including international entries). 

Thanks for following me and have fun with this contest!