Halloween tv or movie

I was trying to think back to my childhood to think of a Halloween themed tv or movie. It was harder than I thought. But when I remembered It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, I just knew that was the right one!

I started with the background colours for each nail. I then added the stripe for Charlie Brown's shirt and the eyes for the ghost.

 I also started right away making a nail decal. I figured that it would be an easier way to put the writing for the sign on my thumb. It was easier to make. I just did a few layers of white nail polish on the piece of baggie that I use for polish drops for my nail art. I then added the words using my small dotting tool.

It was easy to make, but tricky to take off. I was unable to peel it off with my hands, so I tried using the dotting tool to get under the polish to separate it from the baggie. It was easy to peel off once it got started.

While the decal was drying, I started drawing Snoopy. I used a dotting tool for the outline.

Then  I filled in the white.

Then I added the details.

The next step was the pumpkin. I don't have an orange that I really like, so I mixed my orange jelly with white. I knew that the jelly would be too transparent on top of the dark blue without it. I ended up really liking the colour. I added the darker orange using a dotting tool to create the lines and stem.

Then I took off the sign and cut the edges.

I placed the sign onto my thumb. It's easy enough to stick the dried polish to my already polished nail. The tricky part was getting it in the correct position. Although I tried to make it small enough to fit all of the words on my thumb, it was still a bit too big. I had to do my best to get it mostly on.

I first used a dotting tool to poke the excess decal off. Then I used some top coat and my small brush and remover to clean it up.

The polishes used were Snow Me White by Sinful Colours, Blackest Black by Designer Brands, Bond-tastic by China Glaze magnetix, Jail Bait by Spoiled, Bananarama by Kmart, Tiramisu by Sephora, No Room for the Blues by OPI, and Radiant Violet by Three Beauties.

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Halloween villans

For the theme of Halloween villians I decided to go with a variety. 

I hate spiders, so I created a spider web on my pinkie. I also had a spider, but it was hard to see since I did it in black and the background for my pinkie was a metallic black. The spider was an afterthought, though, so I didn't mind much that it was hard to see.

I went with some kind of monster for my index ring finger. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a zombie or Frankenstein's monster, but either works for Halloween. The stitching on his mouth and cuts was made with a combination of red and brown. He was made using my small dotting tool.

The ghost on my middle finger is pretty self explanatory.

The mummy on my index finger did not turn out as planned. I painted it brown and wanted to use a wider brush to stroke on the white wrappings. The brown ended up completely disappearing. I then had to add in brown stripes after the fact. The eyes were created with a dotting tool.

My thumb was just painted with Bond-tastic, so it is not shown.

The colours used were Snow me White by Sinful Colours, Blackest Black by Designer Brands, Bond-tastic by China Glaze magnetix, Low Tide by Spa Ritual, Metallica by Wet n Wild, A-piers to be Tan by OPI, unnamed black by Chi Chi magnetic, Tiramisu by Sephora, Radiant Violet by Three Beauties, and Scarlet by ulta 3.

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Pumpkin faces

I had a bit of trial and error for this manicure.The colours were Snow Me White by Sinful Colours, Jail Bait by Spoiled, and Blackest Black by Designer Brands. I also tried mixing in a glow in the dark polish to the black, because I wanted my pumpkins to glow. It ended up not being enough to glow, so I left it out of the picture.

I started off wanting an orange base. From past experiences, I know that my orange is very transparent. I started with white for that reason. Then I layered orange on top. I realised that I had to clean up the white before I kept adding orange. Again that's from experience because otherwise I will take off some of the orange before the white when I go to clean up. I think I did about two layers of white and about five layers of orange until I was happy with the coverage.

Then I wanted to "carve" my pumpkin. This was another reason for the many layers. I saw a manicure on pinterest a while back where they do cheese and use acetone to make holes/dents. I wanted to do the same thing, but it didn't end up working very well. Instead I just painted over it with black. I wanted to do just one giant pumpkin on each hand. I did my left first, as I usually do. It didn't work as well as it did when I was drawing it out. I guess I didn't account enough for the curving of my nails and the gaps between them. But if you use your imagination, you can sort of see it.

I decided to switch it up into every nail being a pumpkin for my right hand. That looks A LOT better. I'm quite pleased with my right hand.

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Orange and Black

It's been a while since I've been able to participate in the Challenge Your Nail Art facebook group. But I'm finally not doing a daily manicure challenge and have time! Plus this month's theme is Halloween and I had to do that. As an American living in Australia, it really is sad to not have festive celebrations. In fact, Halloween isn't celebrated at all. I'll just have to celebrate it on my nails and eat my own candy!

For this prompt, I decided to go with a gradient. I really do love them. I painted my nails orange. Then I used a sponge for the gradient with more of the orange and my black. The colours that I used were Bond-tastic from China Glaze Magnetix and my unknown black. This was officially my last time using that black because it finally ran out and I got a new one. Now I have one that has a name!

Then something sad happened. The beautiful burnt orange just looked brown. I did them at night and thought that maybe they would look better in the sunlight. That usually helps colours look like they're supposed to. Alas, that didn't help and I had to think of what else to do.

So I decided to do more nail art to make them look more Halloween-y. The silver is Metallica by Wet 'n' Wild Shine. It melted on my nails before, but I figured I may as well use it up at some point. At least I wasn't in the humidity, which is what I think did it last time.

With the silver, I added some spiderwebs to a couple of my nails on each hand. I wasn't as happy with them as I thought that I would be because they ended up too thick. I wanted thinner lines. I was actually happier with the first one that I did, my left index finger, than I was with the rest. Go figure!

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Craft night manicures

My friend from uni invited me over on Friday for a craft night. Since nail art is my craft of choice, I packed up most of my plastic tub on nail polish into a duffel bag type purse for easy travel. When I showed them my collection, all of the girls wanted manicures, but I only got to do two before leaving. Unfortunately I couldn't get great pictures because it wasn't great lighting.

I showed them my pictures from previous nail art and the first girl wanted a gradient with purple.

 The colours that I chose for her were Plugged-in Plum by OPI and Summer Rose by boe.

 The second girl wanted a rainbow manicure. I gave her a few options on how she'd like to have it done and she also wanted to do a gradient. The first gradient that I ever tried was also a rainbow and I'm happy to say that this one went MUCH better. I also love how the sponge gradient makes the orange and green out of just the primary colours.

The colours I chose were Scarlet by ulta3, Bananarama by Kmart, and Shark Attack by Sephora.

Born Pretty

I have decided to team up with Born Pretty. They are an online store that I love. Their products are so well priced and they have free shipping worldwide! As someone living in Australia, I understand just how awesome that is. Shipping can be so expensive here!

They will be sending me things to review and have also given me a banner with a 10% discount code for anyone who reads my blog. It can be found on the following picture or the banner at the bottom.

I can't wait to receive my first things to review!

French inspired gradient

I finally had a job interview! I normally have some very outlandish nails, so I decided to go with something more subtle and work-appropriate manicure. I was thinking trying my hand *ba dum tiss* at another French manicure, but I decided to go with a gradient. Ever since I realised how easy they are, I want to do them all the time! I love them! I still stuck with a French manicure theme, but with a twist.

For good luck, and because it's my favourite neutral, I went with Canberra't Without You by OPI, my wedding nail polish, for the neutral and Snow Me White by Sinful Colors for the white. I used Top Coat plus from Nicole by OPI for my top coat to smooth it all out.

I was really happy with how they turned out, although I'm glad that I've changed up my hand position so that you can't see my thumbs. For some reason I managed to mess up my thumbs on both hands! At least the core four look nice!

Fight like a Girl

I wanted to redo my nails and decided to do another pink mani for breast cancer awareness since this month is breast cancer awareness month. And yes, I do realise that I already have done a couple this year. My Aunt Sharon is currently fighting breast cancer and hopes to be done with chemo by the end of next month. She's been so strong through it and I'm so proud of her!

I wanted to do a gradient. I looked at my nail polish collection and was kind of surprised by my lack of pinks that would go well together. Then I realised that a lot of my pinks were either my mom's or they were crappy small bottles that I threw away when I moved to Australia.

The colours that I chose are my unnamed pink from Chi Chi magnetic, Summer Rose from boe, a top coat from Nicole by OPI and Koala Bear-y from OPI.

I started by painting my nails with Summer Rose. I then used a makeup sponge to create a gradient of the pink from Chi Chi and Summer Rose. (For some reason the pictures don't seem to show the gradient as well when they are on my computer as they do on my phone. I'm not sure why because they are the same pictures, but my instagram shows the colours well.) The pink ribbon is Koala Bear-y.

Honour Nails You Love

I knew immediately that I had to do something from morenailpolish.com because I love her work and her blog inspired me to start my own blog. She's also from Canberra, which is pretty awesome!

I really love her fish manicure from May 2013, especially since it was the first jelly sandwich manicure that I had ever seen. But I sadly don't have a blue jelly and had to choose something else. I went through her blog and remembered how much I loved her dot manicure for this challenge. You can see it here.

There were a lot of colours involved in this manicure! A-piers to be Tan by OPI, Envious by Kmart, No Room for the Blues by OPI, Snow Me White by Sinful Colors, Glowstick by Wet n Wild Fergie, Summer Rose by boe, Plugged-in Plum by OPI, Con-fused? by China Glaze Magnetix, Bonna Blue by Fresh Paint, Belsize Park by nails inc, my unknown black, and Ginger Melon by Revlon Parfumerie.

I started with a background colour of Bonna Blue.

The original manicure from morenailpolish.com had a slight gradient, so I used a sponge with some more Bonna Blue and No Room for the Blues. I really do love gradients and they're so easy!

I added the clouds next.

My first dots were for the tree trunks. I forgot about the thumb when I took this picture, but I added it right after.

I used the three greens to make the grass and the trees. I just used Envious to make the flower stems.

I chose Belsize Park for the yellow here. The reason that I chose that instead of Bananarama was because I only had to use a bit. I only have a bit of it left and it's getting thick but I don't want to waste it.

Ginger Melon was a great choice for the pink flowers. Now my nails smell a bit yummy!

I then added Plugged-in Plum for the purple flowers and a bit of Summer Rose into the blooming tree on my pinky.

I finished off with adding the birds and cleaning up any stray dots.

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