Halloween, folks

Another year, another chance to come up with Halloween nail art! I saw a Goodwill ad online that had a bunch of Halloween characters, so I used that to pick out the five I liked the most. I hope you all have a fun and safe weekend - don't get too wild, folks!

I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Let's Talk as the base coat. I went in with Sinful Colors' Song of Summer, Snow Me White, and Exotic Green, and black paint to create my little Halloween characters. The coloring on each character was perfect before I put a top coat on. But right when I did, the purple leaked through the white and light green polishes. Darn. I even redid it - covered up the details with white and light green again and redid the details - but the purple still leaked through. 

Tamara

Fall Leaves

So not in the writing mood.. But here's three coats of wet n wild's Deadly Dose. It may have needed four, I can't remember, but the gold is pretty transparent. I went in with black paint to draw the outlines of leaves. I used Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Hard to Get and Sinful Colors' Exotic Green and Rich in Heart to fill in the black outlines. I felt like it needed a bit more, so I added spots of "Lipstick Red" foil onto each nail. 

Top coat! 

I like the design - this is my second time doing it - but the orange maple leaf font in center on my middle finger didn't turn out right in my opinion. 

Tamara

Fall Stripes

This was a quick design to get into doing nail art again, so it's not as sharp and clean as I imagined it being. I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Rich in Heart and then used an orangey chrome foil on each nail called "Daybreak".  I laid a strip of glue done along the edge of the foil and placed red glitter done. I added a parallel line of Sinful Colors' Hot Hot Heat on the foil to add another element of red, but I'm not crazy about it.

Top coat!

Tamara

Hozier

 Last Thursday I was able to go to the Hozier concert when he came to Minneapolis! I had seats in the very back of the balcony along with my sister (Tracy) and my friend Jenny. It was actually a great spot - I could see the entire crowd enjoying the performance, but mainly, I didn't have a giant person in front of me. I had a clear view of that beautiful being and he put on one of the most amazing shows I've ever had the pleasure of attending.

I had to do design my nails after the concert, so I used the shirt I bought as quick inspiration. I used two coats of Sinful Colors' Black on Black. I went in with white paint and tried my best to copy the font - I think it turned out pretty well! For the splatter, I watered down the paint a bit and dipped the end of a coffee straw into it. I tired to blow the spots onto my nails. No go on that technique. I ended up bending the straw upward and letting go of it to get the paint to splatter. Top coat to finish!

Tracy got this shirt. I feel like it should be framed, or cuddled in bed with.

Here's the real show stopper. After the show, the three of us waited out by Hoizer's buses with a group of people. After an hour of waiting in the cold while I had a cold, he finally came out at midnight. He only was able to sign things which was upsetting because I wanted and still would have loved a picture with him. BUT the important things: we all got our tickets signed and Tracy still snapped a shot of the man himself.

 Tamara

Spray Marble

Another huge gap of time without doing my nails or posting.. I wanted to get back into the nail art mode by doing a simple technique: spray marbling. This was my very first attempt and it was so fun, easy, and eye catching! 

I started with painting two coats of Sinful Colors' Gold Medal. I set out my usual water marbling equipment: container of lukewarm water, a tooth pick, napkin, acetone, and glue. Plus, I had only one polish - Sinful Colors' Secret Admirer - instead of two or more to use, and hair spray. I started the spray marble process by painting glue onto the skin around my nail bed to my first knuckle. The glue is there so the nail polish doesn't stick to my skin. The polish gets on the glue and I am able to peel it off at the end instead of rubbing polish off my skin with acetone. 

So, I painted the glue on and waited for it to dry. Then I used three drops of Secret Admirer and briefly waited for all the polish to spread out. I used three drops so the polish would turn out black instead of grey. If you look below at my pinky, you can see that the polish is lighter than my other fingers because I only used two drops. 

Once you have your polish in the water, you take your hairspray and aim toward the polish. The polish ends up opening up; all you have to do is pick the spot you like the best and dip your nail into that portion of polish.

I waited a moment before taking my toothpick and clearing the water of polish around my finger. I repeated the process with all of my nails - drop polish, spray, clear the water. When I dipped my fingers in, the glue moistened once again, so I had to wait for the glue to re-dry before peeling it off. God bless, glue!! I barely had any polish to clean off of my skin besides right around my nail bed and under my nails. Top coat and done!

Tamara