Halloween Night Sky

I realized at the last minute that if I didn't do another Halloween mani this year, I'd have to wait til next year for a proper chance to try out the rest of the themed stamps on BM13. So I got on it!

The base is Nicole by OPI Denim to Earth, topped with Pure Ice Oh Baby.

For the stamping I used BM13 and Wet & Wild Black Creme for all but the spiderweb on my thumb, which I stamped with L.A. Colors Energy Source.

Spooky spiderwebs

It's time for some Halloween nail art! And also, a perfect opportunity to play with my stamping plates! 

Yikes, I didn't realize how sheer this polish was until I got it in the sunlight to take pictures! Definitely needed a third coat or a black base. Whoops! Now I know! 

The sheer jelly-and-glitters is two coats of Wet & Wild Fergie Make Them Boys Go Loco. I'm pretty sure I've also seen the same polish in the Fantasy Makers Halloween display (considering it's all made by Wet & Wild, no surprise there). This is the red cousin of Revlon Scandalous (Facets of Fuchsia), which I love, so... it had to come home with me when I first saw it. Of course I'm only just now getting around to actually using it!

The webs are stamped with BM13 and L.A. Colors Energy Source. I'm not such a fan of Energy Source as a base white, I prefer Wet & Wild French White Creme, but it works fine for stamping.

Got any fun plans for Halloween? Parties? Trick-or-treating (taking kids or going yourself... I won't judge)?

Easter grass

There's a giveaway over at Gorgeois where you can earn a big chunk of entries by doing a mani with a fun color combination. Here's what I came up with:

I started with Color Club - Sheer Sugar (which, they're not kidding on the sheer part... three coats and I'd have needed another if I hadn't put something else over the tips!) Over that I used the dry-brushing technique with a striper brush and Nina Ultra Pro - Emerald City.

What do you think of this combination? The brushy green kinda ended up looking like grass to me, this  mani totally makes me think of Easter!

I liked it a little better in my head, but it still turned out pretty neat looking IMO!

Dotted half moons

More dotting practice, and the first one that I'm really happy with! I think I aced the dots on this one :D

It helps that I love the color combination to pieces of course!

I did the half moon freehand over the base, rather than using hole reinforcers as a guide, which doesn't work well for me due to my nails having a high curve. 

The base is Orly Fowl Play, which OMG LOVE. Purple and color shifting flakies and shimmer! So glad I bought this, might need a backup bottle.

For the moons I used Wet & Wild Mauve Frost, and the dots are the light brown shimmer from that Simple Pleasures set I despise for shitty formula (but hey, they work ok for nail art details). 

Simple dotting

I've struggled so much with the dotting, maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist but it's never quite as good as I wish it would be! So I decided to try something super simple this time. 

The base for this manicure is Sally Hansen Lustre Shine - Copperhead, which is just beautiful. My new favorite copper polish! It's darker than the other coppers I have, with a subtle duochrome that perfectly suggests an older, slightly oxidized penny.

For the dots I used Color Club Overboard. I really like this combination!

Are my dotting skills finally improving? This one didn't drive me totally crazy with imperfections at least!

Dotted Chevrons

Continuing with dotting practice, I threw this one together on the fly. Totally unplanned!

The base is Sinful Colors Outrages, and the dots are Wet & Wild Toxic Apple (dark purple) and Lethal Injection (dark red), both from the Pick Your Poison collection. 

What do you think of vampy shimmers paired with slightly-dusty neon like this? 

Diagonal dots

I've spent a good while now being jealous of girls who can wear OPI polishes without them being a chippy mess in hours, all because of My Boyfriend Scales Walls. So I decided to have a go at frankening a dupe for it (or at least something similar, since I don't have it I can't make a side-by-side comparison). And then, of course I had to do another dotting-practice mani with it!

Holy cow this makes me look tan! I'm not sure how my ring finger got messed up at the cuticle, but I apologize to you all for making you look at that!

The recipe for this franken is super simple, I got a new bottle of Wet & Wild French White Creme and added one drop of Wet & Wild Black Creme. Ta-da! Of course I can't be sure quite how close a dupe this is to MBFSW, but it's certainly a nicely wearable almost-white. 

Since I'm fussy about polishes having names, I decided to call this one Porcelain.

I did the dots in Sinful Colors Moss Have and Gone Platinum. Love the color combination, still iffy on my dotting skills. 

(Badly) Dotted Flowers

I'm still working my way through untrieds, despite the whole 31 Day Challenge! I really should scale back my polish purchasing, at least until I catch up!

I'm not super thrilled with this mani. My dots ended up a bit all over the place, it's not very tidy at all. But maybe sharing my fails will help other ladies feel better about their nail art skills or the occasional lack thereof... we're all only human, after all!

For this mani I used three Apple Bottoms polishes (yes, another set from Ross! Great place to find nail polish on the cheap).

The base is Club Queen, the center of the flowers is Gold Mine, and the petals are Rock Star.

Maybe I'll spend a week or two brushing up my dotting skills, now that the challenge is over and I've seen how lacking I am in that department.

Polish Days - Sentimental

Hey look, it's my first ever mani for Polish Days! This month the theme is Sentimental, so I decided to re-create my very first ever piece of nail art. I wore the original of this mani to my grandmother's funeral  three years ago.

I started with a base of Wet & Wild - Black Creme on all but my pinky nail, on which I used a black Kiss striper for the design. Then I layered Jordana - Lilac Frost over everything, and used the same striper to add the thin french tip. 

Duochrome/glitter layering

Well, since I caved and bought the two polishes I was missing from the China Glaze Bohemian collection, I guess I'd better go ahead and do some nails with 'em, yes/yes?

This is two coats of China Glaze No Plain Jane topped with one coat of Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night from Wet & Wild's Fergie collection. 

I love me a nice duochrome, and feel the same about black glitter, so this was bound to happen sooner or later!

How do you feel about black glitter? Love it? Hate it? Indifferent?

Subtle stamping

Guess who finally got some real stamping plates! I ordered a set from Bundle Monster and one from Red Angel, and both just came today! So of course I had to bust 'em out over the glitter I was already wearing.

...I picked a stamping color that didn't show up over the base very well,  unfortunately. Still pretty, but in a very subtle way.

The base here is Sally Hansen Gem Crush - Big Money, and I stamped from BM12 with Color Club - In Bloom. 

This plate worked 100x better than the cheap-ass plate that came in my Kiss stamping kit. The Kiss stamper works fine, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of $, and it was less than some stampers alone, so... *shrug* I won't whine.

Warm crackle accents

Remember how I mentioned that I did a warm mani for the Chalkboard Nails contest, but decided to enter the cool one? Well, here's the warm version for your viewing pleasure!

It didn't turn out nearly as well as I imagined, sadly. 

The base is Wet & Wild Fastdry 9.0.2.1. Orange, topped with Claire's pink glitter crackle for the accents and placed glitter from the chunky gold glitter in the Bonita glitter set I got at Ross.

9.0.2.1. Orange is a bit sheer, but it only took three coats to get opacity (and since I was putting glitter tips on, I probably could have gotten away with two).

September haul

Again, I was trying to be good about not buying a ton of polishes. But you know how it is with polish addicts! Might have kinda failed this month. :/
I blame the people who keep making duochromes and other gorgeous fall collection colors.

L.A. Girl:
- Dotting kit, which I bought mostly to finally have a proper dotting tool, that came with the tool and three mini creme polishes

Revlon:
- Two Moon Candy duos (flakies with undie pairs), Cosmic and Galactic. I almost bought Universe but restrained myself. Don't feel one bit bad about buying these, since I've been stalking my polish-hunting grounds for a Moon Candy display ever since I first started seeing swatches.

I was being SO good, not buying polishes like a madwoman... and then Walgreens had a $.99 Sinful Colors sale right at the same time I realized I was going to need Rain Storm for one of my 31 Day Challenge ideas... and there was a new collection of metallics... and, well...

Sinful Colors:
- Rain Storm
- Ocean Side
- Happy Ending
- Rich In Heart
- Last Chance (the exact color I wish Revlon had paired with the flakies in Cosmic, would have been perfect)
- Outrages
- HD Nails
- Out Of This World
- Savage
- Hot Spot
- Rise And Shine
- Lavender
- Soul Mate
- Ruby Ruby
- Gone Platinum
- Zincing Of You
- Hot Wired
- Moss Have
- Precious Metal
- Heavy Metal
- Super Nova

...yeah, I went a little overboard. Still, can't beat $.99 polish! But of course, once you start with the polish buying it's hard to stop...

China Glaze:
- Want My Bawdy and No Plain Jane. I gave in and picked up the last two I *didn't* own already from the Bohemian collection.

Orly:
- Ingenue
- Fowl Play (I've had a lemming for this one for a while, and Sally's had a sale on Orly polishes...)

I also picked up the new China Glaze magnet, though I didn't find any of the new collection of magnetic polishes particularly appealing or different from magnetics I already own.

Sally Hansen:
- Two LustreShine polishes, Copperhead and Lava. The only reason I didn't buy the whole set though, was that I forgot my card and had limited cash... maybe I should shop like that more often!

Nicole by OPI:
- Denim to Earth (TJ Maxx)

Wet & Wild:

- Two from the Fergie collection, Ferguson Crest Syrah (because I can't resist a super-shimmery duochrome like that, even if it might be a dupe for Hard Candy Beetle) and Make Them Boys Go Loco (thinking ahead to Halloween season, and sure enough a week later I found a dupe in the Fantasy Makers halloween display, which is also made by Wet & Wild so dupes are no surprise).

- Deadly Dose, Lethal Injection, and Toxic Apple from the Pick Your Poison collection. I would have gotten Poison Ivy as well if it had been in the display I found, but alas. :(

I also snapped up two glitter eyeliners from the Fantasy Makers display, the purple and the teal. Can't resist the awesome makeup that comes out around Halloween! Maybe one of these days I'll think about doing makeup posts. 

The Moon Candy polishes were the expensive ones this time around, but considering the flakie gorgeousness AND that they're really two polishes in one (even if each bottle is kinda small), I didn't think $7 apiece was a ridiculous price at all.

I also frankened myself what I think is a dupe for OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, because I love the color but OPI formula hates my nails and won't stay on. I just added a single drop of W&W Black Creme to a full (new) bottle of W&W French White Creme.