"This is Halloween" Day 6 & 7 - Bats & Gradient

I didn't manage to get my bats done on time for last Friday, so I decided to combine days six and seven - bats and gradient - into one manicure for today. Mind, the gradient ended up being very subtle, but it's there.

I started out with a base color of two coats of Sally Hansen Opal Chrome, and then using a dry brush, I brushed down from the tips of the nails with Black Pearl Chrome. I then used China Glaze Liquid Leather to and a tiiiiny detail brush to draw my attempt at bats on the three middle fingers of my left hand.

I then added to the gradient on my right hand with a gradient of glitters. From the cuticle up, I have Wet N Wild, a very old bottle that I have that has no name on it, and only a sticker on the top of the lid that says 407. Then from about mid-way up to the tips of the nails I added Wet N Wild Kaleidoscope. They're both multi-colored glitter, but the 407 is tiny particles, and Kaleidoscope has larger hex glitters. Like I said, a very subtle gradient, but it is there!

I don't know why the glitter is only showing as gritty in these pictures. I'll take some more at lunch time and see if I can't get some better views for you guys. EDIT: Well, here are two pictures that do show the color sparkles a little bit, but seriously, it looks so much smoother and pretty in person.

I also added a graduated layer of Kaleidoscope on the thumb and pinkie fingers of my bat hand.

SECOND EDIT: One last update! Brianna wanted everyone to see her bats. Regrettably, she didn't choose a color scheme that makes her bats easy to see, but they are there... :)

I've included the links for both days - Day 6, October 19 - Bats

And Day 7, October 22 - Gradient!

"This is Halloween" Day 4 - Jack-o-Lanterns

Today marks the next installment of the "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge from Lacquer Dreams! Thanks to her for coming up with a great list of challenge themes, and enjoy clicking through the links below to see everyone else's interpretation...and then add your own! :)

Without further ado, here are my Jack O'Lanterns!

Wait, what? Those are just pumpkins? Well, of course they are! The Jacks are on the other hand!

Yeah, I know, I won't quit my day job, I promise. I'm definitely not the comedian/ne in the family. Which is why my hobby is nail art, not jokes!

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't write blog posts when I'm feeling silly. Ah, well, you're not reading this anyway - you're just here for the pretty pictures!

I started off with two coats of Nubar Forest. After waiting for that to thoroughly dry, I put a thick coat of Avon Absinthe, one finger at a time, and then used scrunched up plastic wrap (also known as cling film in other parts of the world, I believe) to dob off some of the Absinthe. I think the result made for a nice mossy or green grass background.

For the pumpkins I started with Primark Beauty neon orange, and then once that was dry I drew lines on them in China Glaze Riveting alternating with Sinful Colors This Is It. I added some stems in OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys and then added thin lines of Absinthe on them...I think that was a mistake, and I should've used another shade of brown, because the stems just don't show up well against the green background. Live and learn!

I used China Glaze Liquid Leather and a tiiiiny detail brush for the Jack O'Lantern faces, and I think I need to learn to use thinner on my palette when drawing tiny details - I can't for the life of me get my lines as thin on my nails as they are on the design in my head. :P

And Brianna wanted to join in the party this week! This is nearly 100% her work - she painted her nails (including base coat, since she asked me if she should use base and top coat and I told her that depended on whether she wanted them to last longer than overnight, and she decided that she did) and drew the Jack O'Lanterns on her left hand (she's right-dominant). I only drew the Jack O'Lanterns on her right hand. Didn't she do a great job?!

Now, enjoy all the pretties listed below!

"This is Halloween" Day 3 - Ghosts

Day three of our Halloween challenge is GHOSTS! This manicure has almost too many polishes to mention, though I will say that my non-accent nails have two coats of China Glaze Man Hunt, two coats of Max Factor Fantasy Fire, and a thin layer of Pure Ice Strapless. The Fantasy Fire just made the nails a bit too red to go well with the rest of the mani. I can't wait to see how this looks in the daylight tomorrow, though!

The accent nails have four different blues and two different blacks sponged for the background colors, and
China Glaze Some Like It Haute sponged across the tops for stars in the night sky.

The ghosts were made with Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Hook and Line, and China Glaze Elephant Walk. There's also a layer of Ghoulish Glow on all the ghosts and some dots in the starry skies, though those don't show up in the pictures! :) I did try and take some pictures, but while the glow looks awesome to the naked eye, it's not enough light to show up on my camera, at least with the settings I know how to manipulate.

Thanks to Lacquer Dreams for coming up with this challenge and sharing it with everyone!

"This is Halloween" Day 2 - Watermarble

Day 2 in the "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge from Lacquer Dreams, and today's theme is watermarble. I love watermarble, but it's so much effort and so much clean-up, and there's invariably at least one nail that has to be wiped clean and re-done from scratch, that I just don't do it very often. So honestly, I'm quite happy when a challenge prompt requires it of me!

I started with a base layer of China Glaze Hook and Line for a nice, silvery color. Then I used China Glaze Smoke and Ashes, ChG Riveting, Sinful Colors Courtney Orange ), and last -but not least- China Glaze Ghoulish Glow to make the water marble. Though the Courtney Orange isn't on all my nails, as I couldn't really see the difference between it and Riveting after it was marbled, and it didn't spread well with the Ghoulish Glow at *all*, so I stopped using it after a bit.

Ghoulish Glow comes off as mostly transparent, of course, so that allowed the silver base color to shine through. I don't have any pictures of the glow-in-the-dark, though. I'll see if I can get some when I get home from work tonight, and I'll add them if they come out at all. :) I especially like the tiny stripes I got on the index finger here!

Have you ever had a plan set out for your nail art, and then realize after half of your nails are completed that you completely forgot a step that you had intended? I did that this time. I had intended to put a layer of Nubar 2010 down before the watermarbling...it makes such nice orange flakes over most colors! But I realized right after I dipped the first finger of my second hand that I'd completely forgotten it. So all the pictures above, and the pinky finger below, don't have it. But for the rest, you can clearly see the orange flakes on the silver, under the "clear" Ghoulish Glow. I tried for the tiny stripes again on the index finger, but I couldn't get them quite as thin.

This hand made me scratch my head several times, wondering How the heck did that happen? The huge black area on my thumb, for instance, and the fact that the pinky finger looks like I dipped it twice, which I didn't. (I did re-do two fingers on my left hand, but I took the polish off completely and started over on them!)

Go check out all these other gorgeous entries to the challenge!

"This is Halloween" - Day 1

I'm a late entry to this challenge because I am running behind in reading my nail art blogs and only saw the challenge this morning. I LOVED the idea, though, and decided I was going to start my participation as soon as I got home!

I have to thank Lacquer Dreams for coming up with this challenge. I love Halloween, it's one of my favorite holidays. I'm pagan, as well, so it's like New Year's AND Halloween AND it's my wedding anniversary, all rolled up into one fun day. So of course I'm going to jump on the bandwagon for a Halloween-themed challenge for my first Halloween since I started doing nail art!

So, horror movie. I love horror movies. I love the campy, cheesy ones, and I love the edge-of-your-seat nail biting ones. I especially love supernatural horror rather than the plain old serial killer version. But oddly enough, the movie I chose to base my nail art on is one I really don't care for. It's not that I dislike it, I just don't particularly like it. It does, however, have a certain odd sentimental value in my family because it was the first movie my daughter, Brianna, actually sat still for and watched all the way through. The movie that hyperactive little three-year-old decided was worth sitting still for a full 87 minutes for? Child's Play. There are reasons we call her a cross between Princess Barbie and Wednesday Addams, people! :)

I started with a base layer of two coats of Milani Whitest White on all of my nails, then I used China Glaze Frostbite, Avon Vintage Blue, Primary Beauty Pink Neon, and China glaze Adventure Red-Y to mimic the stripes on Chucky's shirt. I used Sally Hansen Black Pearl Chrome and Sinful Colors Celeb City to make the butcher knife and Adventure Red-Y and China Glaze Salsa to make the blood.

I tried - and failed miserably - to draw Chucky's face on my thumbnail. It's horrible, I know, and after I've let my co-workers see my horrible rendition of it tomorrow, I'll paint over that ugly mug.

I didn't even attempt to do any pictures on my off-hand, of course. I put the same stripes on, though quite a bit shakier drawing with my left hand, and I used a coffee stirrer for a straw to make blood splatters on my accent fingers, again with Adventure Red-Y and Salsa.

I enjoyed seeing all the other entries in this challenge, and I'll do my best to make sure all the rest of my entries are actually on the day they're scheduled for. Thanks for playing! Now, go check out all the other pretties: