26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Halloween in the Wrong Colors

Ok, I am so late with this that I'm not even going to bother with any kind of intro...

For this look I dabbed all kinds of colors (listed below) onto a makeup sponge and applied to my nails.

What I Used:

* Sephora by OPI - Seeing Pink Elephants

* China Glaze - Friends Forever, Right?

* China Glaze - New Birth

* China Glaze - Spring In My Step

* Bonita - some purple color that has no name on the bottle

* Sephora by OPI - Natural Environ-mint

*Stamping polishes - MDU - Tutti, Neon Blue, Neon Green

*Stamps: BM-S205, Mash-38

I also added a few little pearls to each spider's back on the accent nail.  Not that it is obvious, but the pearls are the color of the opposite spider.  It was a super cute mani for Halloween.  

Thanks for stopping by - even if we are well into November now.  

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Pastels

Pastels while still in winter is a challenge, but that is the prompt for this week.  :)  I had waterfall as my technique to do.  I haven't done one of these in a really long time!

It was really hard not making this look like an Easter egg, but it came out pretty cute.  Here is what I used for this:

I used 3 coats of The Way Tutu His Heart for the base color of this look.  It was still a bit streaky in the end, which was a disappointment.  I couldn't risk another coat and making the polish too thick so I just left it as is.

I used a fine striping brush that I bought from Bundle Monster to make the lines.  It is all just random and I tried to keep it to a minimum for this look.  I finished this off with a matte top coat.  I am really liking the matte look and it took me forever to find a matte polish I found to be decent.  In case you are wondering, I use the Wet n Wild Matte.  Yeah, the cheap stuff seems to be my favorite.  LOL!  It's a win-win.

 Thanks for stopping by!  Take a look at the other awesome entries for this prompt.

Cranberries In The Sand

I wanted to do something with a neutral color and red.  That is all I had to work with for this design.

I ended up with cranberries lounging on the beach.  LOL  That is all I can think of when looking at this.

Wocka Wocka! is just divine!  The color is irresistible and it paired wonderfully with On Taupe of the World.  I used a make-up sponge to apply these two colors over a base of the ULTA nude.  I did this on ALL of my nails then added the glitter only on the accent nail - with a make-up sponge to get the glitter spread out without the weight of the clear base.

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One thing I learned on this manicure is that Seche Vite will spread the red color!  I lost a couple of fingers on my non-swatching hand learning how to really "float" the top coat on.  Once I had that down, it was much better!

2014 Holiday Nails

Time to wrap up 2014 with my holiday nails.  I just wanted something simple but it didn't end up that way.

It was a great Christmas this year.  Mostly because I was actually in the spirit of it.  I haven't really participated in the festivities for several years but this year I wanted to.  I just wanted to be charitable to others.  I even adopted some seniors from a tree at work.

I used a white undie to get the colors brighter.  Saucy went on like a dream.  It has to be one of my most favorite reds in my collection!  I only shop vintage was tougher.  It was hard to get good coverage and I managed to get it in 3 thick coats.  But the color!  It just makes up for it in the end.  Once my colors were done, I added a layer of Seche Vite in preparation for stamping.

All of these images are from plate BM-H03.  My MDU's stamped really well but, man, that wreath was a challenge!  It's one image and you have to be careful with the MDU's as they will muddy up really easily when using more than one color on the stamp.  That took some practice, but I got it.  The red on the gold color is DIVINE!!!

Happy Holidays and welcome 2015!

2013 Favorite Color Challenge #1

November is "Favorite Color" themed in The Nail Challenge Collaborative group.  This is really hard to do!  As you know, I am a lover of all polish so to choose 1 is really hard.  I suppose that is the definition of a "challenge" anyway.  I went with purple as I have a lot of purple polishes and they need some love and affection.  I found some inspiration on Pinterest for this look (here) and let me say that it was a technical challenge for me.

In case you are wondering how I swatch my polishes: I use swatch sticks.  I love that I can easily compare polishes and put them together.  Here was my take on the 4-square color block idea:

Polishes used in this manicure:

• Milani White as an undie polish
• Sephora by OPI Sin-cerely Violet
• Sephora by OPI Who's Spinning Tonight?
• Sinful Colors Tempest
• China Glaze Rendezvous With You
• Seche Vite (lots of it)

I put 1 coat of Milani White on my nails followed by 2 coats of Sephora by OPI Sin-cerely Violet, topped with one coat of Seche Vite.  Once dry, I taped off one panel at a time and painted 2 coats of polish then a layer of Seche Vite.  

This was a time consuming manicure and I had some learnings along the way.  No matter how careful I am, I get bleeding under the tape.  I learned to not be afraid to clean it up once the tape has been removed with a little bit of acetone.  Since the Seche Vite layer is there, it comes up pretty easily.

After a LOT of tape, I think it came out pretty darn good for my first attempt.  I hope you like it!

Halloween Nails - Mummies

Today I have an awesome manicure, if I do say so myself.  LOL!  I am so proud of myself for doing this!  I have mentioned numerous time that I am not the most creative person, but this idea came to me while looking at a lot of photos of Mummy Manicures.  Really, my husband challenged me on this one.  I had shown him another mummy manicure I had seen on Pinterest and he said I could come up with something better than that...he didn't like the color scheme of what I had shown him and reminded me to be "factual" on what they look like.  Insert reference to Mumm-Ra from ThunderCats here.  Sometimes, he is just a dork - but I love him.

Let's get to it...

The polish rundown:

• Sinful Colors Black on Black  - 1 coat as a base color
• Sinful Colors Secret Admirer - 1 coat over black for a black shimmer effect
• Sephora by OPI White Blasted - 1 coat for mummy wrappings
• Pure Ice Superstar! - white for eyes
• Wet 'n Wild Red Red - red for eyes
• Seche Vite - top coat

I need to get better at taking photos during the creation phase.  I usually become so consumed with getting it to look right, that I forget.

I started with Sinful Colors Black on Black for a base color (1 coat).  I then put 1 coat of Sinful Colors Secret Admirer on top.  Then a coat of Seche Vite to seal it up.  Once that was VERY dry, I started the taping.  I did each nail individually to make sure I could pay enough attention to what I was doing.  I started with laying a strip of scotch tape down where the eye strip would be.  I then used striping tape to make a few wrap lines.  Once that was down, I used 1 coat of Sephora by OPI White Blasted, to make the "wrap".  I wanted that to look kind of weathered, which is why I chose a crackle polish.  While that was drying (crackle dries very fast!), I pulled the tape up.  The striping tape came up pretty easily.  Here is an interesting tid-bit: the crackle formula makes scotch tape extremely brittle!  It would not pull up easily, but I really liked the effect so I worked at it.

I added white dots for eyes.  Once those were dry, I added red dots on top.  When that was dry, I added the Seche Vite as a top coat.  I always have trouble with bleeding using colors for dots with the Seche Vite, so I made sure they were dry before adding the top coat.

I could not be more pleased with how these turned out!  I'll keep these on for a while to continue to admire them!

Take a look at the other Halloween nails in this challenge:

Christmas Nails

I have been really quiet on here lately.  You know how it goes: things get busy and/or you just get lazy.  That is me...lazy.  It's OK though.  I am building up to a big plan for January.  I am not too sure how my nail art will be affected, but there are more things to life than my nail polish affection.  I'll get to that stuff later.  :) 

I wanted to see if I could improve this layout a bit - I like what I found.  I am such a novice that I can't believe this layout was even out there - just for me to plug in here.  How cool!

Here is what I managed to conjure up for my Christmas manicure.  I am still struggling with perfecting the water marble technique.  I will get it eventually.  These came out pretty neat - even though I ended up using polishes completely different than my original intent.  Like I said, I am still learning over here. 

This is what I used to get this work of art:

• Base polish is Au Champagne by Orly
• Water marble colors:
• green = SaGreena The Teenage Witch by Wet N Wild
• white (&gold shimmer) = White Cap by China Glaze
• red = Sample Sale by Sephora by OPI

I topped this off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Thanks for visiting!
Brandy