Candy Corn at Sunset

And now for something completely different! Oops, wait, that will have to be another day, because this is the obligatory Halloween manicure. ^_^ Actually, I did this mani last week. As I write this post, I have no idea what I will have on my nails for my anniversary. Probably just plain black, as the kids have me dressing up as Death this year. My kids will be Ren & Lin dressed as Black Cats of Halloween. I am apparently officially *old* now, because I thought that this would be an extremely obscure costume...but apparently anyone into anime would know what this is. I was chatting with the clerk at the fabric store when I bought the material to make their shorts and cloaks, and she knew exactly what I meant when I told her. But then, she and her friends are going as the Teen Titans this Halloween. :)

Anyway, the manicure!

Obviously the index and middle fingers are meant to portray candy corn. The remaining three are not strictly Halloween scenes. They're just sunset with tree and bird/bat silhouettes. I didn't even paint any gravestones! And yet, because of the time of year, one immediately interprets the flying beasties as bats rather than birds.

I was really happy with the trees on my thumb. Not so much the one on my pinkie - I was trying for a spreading tree, like an oak, rather than the tall skinny ones like on the thumb - but it just came out blobby, I think. I started with a base coat of Pure Ice Superstar! which is my current white polish. The candy corn was done with Primary Beauty Neon Yellow and Wet N Wild The Clock Strikes Orange, though I touched up the yellow ends with Sally Girl Banana later, as my index fingernail broke and the polish chipped on the middle nail before I could get pictures (it was raining a lot when I had these nails.)

The sunset was done with a gradient of Barielle Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Broadway O! Jessica, and The Clock Strikes Orange, with the ground and silhouettes painted in Sinful Shine Dark Room, which is my current black polish. I didn't take any pictures of my right hand because it was just plain bad. The thumb smudged at some point and while sometimes I can draw decently left-handed, this manicure was not one of those times. :P

Pretty Pretty Pastels

This manicure came out a lot more pretty pretty princess than I would ever intend. I just wanted something light colored and frosty. Well, I got that. But seriously, this was way too femme for me. ^_^

And on top of that, while I have a list of polishes that I used in this manicure, I really don't remember what exactly I did on this silly thing. I think there's a gradient of Sinful Colors Silver Belle and Pinky Glitter, and I used Broadway O! Jessica, Pure Ice Splash, and Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl to make the flowers, adding tiny beads in clusters for the centers of the flowers. But I couldn't swear to that. Tokyo Pearl might be the one in the background. I seriously don't remember. Sowwy!

Winter Whimsies

I did this manicure about a week after Christmas, just before coming back to work after the winter break. It wasn't snowing when I painted these, though it started later that day, and I didn't realize until I woke up the next morning that suddenly what had been just pretty swirls and dots had turned into blowing wind and snow!

I started with two coats of Broadway O! Jessica and used Milani Whitest White to sponge on a gradient from the tips. I then mixed a bit of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Lilac You with some Milani Whitest White on my palette and used the pale lavender to draw the swirls and dots. My inspiration was the gorgeous manicure by Bottle of Happiness which can be found here.

As usual, since I'm right-handed, my right hand is never as crisp or precise as my left, but I still think it came out pretty nicely for this manicure!

Follow the...Pink...Brick Road?

This was the first manicure I did after all of the winter Yule/Christmas celebrations. I was a little tired of reds and greens (though I really was loathe to take those beautiful poinsettias off until they started chipping!) and I got a few polishes for Christmas as stocking stuffers (some I bought for myself, and some my BFF put in there to surprise me) so of course I have to use them! Untrieds do not stay that way for long at my desk.

V gave me my first Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polish, in I Lilac You, and that's the base of this manicure. Funny enough, I also have a Rimmel London polish by the same name! I know it's touted as not needing any base coat or top coat, but I just can't bring myself to go there, so base coat definitely went on under this. The other two polishes she snuck in my stocking were Sinful Colors Bali Mist and Pinky Glitter. I added my own stocking stuffer of Broadway O! Jessica and used Sinful Shine Dark Room for the brick outlines.

Bali Mist is sheer enough that the bricks that look purple are a thin coat of Bali Mist over O! Jessica. I also put Pinky Glitter over some O! Jessica bricks and some Bali Mist bricks, giving me a total of five "colors" for the bricks.

As always, I like to show pictures of my right hand as well, to show that yes, it does look a bit worse than my left hand, but with practice, you can get decent looking nail art on your dominant hand, too! You just have to go a fair bit slower on that hand...not that I always practice what I preach, of course. :P

I had to add a blurry picture to show how gorgeous the Pinky Glitter looks over the O! Jessica! Isn't that gorgeous?