Halloween Ghostie Nails!

Hi there! So now I'm finally getting into my Halloween nail designs (unless you count the princess nails, because that would be the start then). I'm going to have quite a few, I hope, but I somehow managed to get a late start on them. I just couldn't decide on what I wanted to do. But then a little voice in the back of my head spoke to me... "Paint ghosties.... paaaiiinnnttt ghooooossttiiiiieeeessssss~"

These were so much fun, even though they took me forever to paint. I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Black Out on my thumb, index, middle, and pinky fingers, and then I did one coat of Orly Green Flakie Top Coat (yes, that's the name of it. Not very creative, Orly) over the black, which gave it just a little bit of pizazz under the ghosts. It's a combination of blue and purple flakie glitters, perfect for a Halloween design. On my ring finger, I did two coats of Sally Hansen White On. Then I painted the ghosts with white and black acrylic paint. Oh, and did I mention these babies GLOW??

Super rad, right? I used glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint for a single ghost on each nail, with the exception of my ring finger, which just needed to completely glow. So I hope you like them! Of course, you can try this design a bunch of different ways. You could paint all your nails black (with optional flakie topcoat, because I know not everyone is going to have it) and just have the swirly ghosties, or you could have the "evil" ghost face (because lesbehonest, he's not very evil) on your accent nails. You could also have all the ghosts be glow-in-the-dark! They looked way cooler, because the paint was transparent and you could see the flakie colors underneath them. Let me know if you try them out. Also, if you have any requests for Halloween designs, tell me! I'll be glad to try things out. :)

Thanks so much for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

Pretty Pretty Princess Nails

Heeeey gurl, heeeey. So, I just got some new OPI polishes that I desperately wanted to wear. But it's October, and I also desperately wanted to wear some Halloween designs. The problem? All of the polishes I got were bright pink (and one super light purple). I didn't think this through. So, I came up with a solution - ¿¿Porqué no las dos?? Why not both? So I made up a little costume for my nails - a princess costume!!

Yes, I realize it's not very Halloween-appropriate. But who knows, someone out there might need it for an actual princess costume! On my thumb and ring finger, I did two coats of OPI Suzi's Hungary Again and then stamped the crown image from MASH plate 49 with Essie Good As Gold. The pink glitter pieces are from OPI Minnie Style. On my index, middle, and pinky fingers, I painted three coats of OPI Chic From Ears To Tail, and then stamped the little swirly image from Pueen plate 26 on the tips of my nails with Suzi's Hungary Again. And then I topcoated and watched the magic happen! These were really cute, and I would wear this design again in a heartbeat. My 20-something-year-olds group of friends and I thought they were precious, so I'm sure there are some kids (adults too) out there somewhere that would love these to go with their costume. Anyone out there being a princess for Halloween? Let me know!

Thanks so much for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 18: Half Moons

Hello there! I'm going to keep it short and sweet today - It's half moon time!

I started with a base coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Petal Pusher (what a mouthful) and then did two coats of Orly Déjà Vu. Looking back on it, it might have worked better if I did two coats of Petal Pusher and one coat of Déjà Vu. But oh well. Then I thinned out China Glaze First Mate and free-handed the half moons with my teeny tiny paint brush. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be, but it would probably be easier if I had used a guide or a hole protector. Regardless, the blue shimmer in Déjà Vu went really well with First Mate. So I hope you like them! It's not anything crazy, just something simple for this challenge. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting. :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 17: Glitter

Waaaaaasssuuuuup? So for this challenge, I've got a really fun design for you! :) One that both satisfies the glitter challenge, and is perfect for Halloween!

That's right... Googly eyes!! My glitter was the inspiration: Salon Perfect Kaboom. I tried getting a good close-up of the glitter, but my camera just isn't made for that, unfortunately. But I think you can tell in a few of them that the polish is actually just blue and yellow glitter. But the two of them together and the density of the glitter makes it look green overall! It's pretty awesome! I started with a base color of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, and then two coats of Kaboom. I thought it looked kind of creature-ish, so I pulled out some googly eyes and made cute little monster nails. My friend actually said they looked more like dinosaurs, but that works too! These probably would have been hilarious with little mouths, but I was going for something easy that really focused on the glitter. If you're wondering about wearing googly eyes on your nails, I literally just pushed mine down into the wet glitter, and then I put top coat over it to seal them in. I thought they would come off immediately, because they stuck up off my nail pretty far, but they were practically cemented on my nails, haha. I couldn't pull them off if I tried. At least, not without hurting myself. I don't suggest using Seche Vite as a top coat to seal 3D pieces on to your nails, because that never worked for me. I used Out The Door to seal mine in. But it's up to you. :) And to remove the glitters (I thought it was going to be awful because they were cemented to my nails) but I just used the glitter-foil-removal method, and they came off beautifully! Actually, I think the acetone melted the plastic eyes, haha. 

The eyes really gave my nails character, so let me know if you decide to try it out! Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 16: Tribal Print

Oooooh boy, I'm going to make some enemies today (but hopefully not because I know you're all wonderful, understanding people).

So, I'll just get right into the reason I didn't exactly follow the rules for this day. "Tribal" print is cultural appropriation, which is not good at all. Basically, since I am a white privileged woman (part of a dominate culture), it isn't right for me to decorate myself (my nails) with something that is from a minority culture that isn't my own, especially since the whole appeal to tribal print (the fact that it's called tribal print itself is offensive) is just that it is exotic and looks cool. This is problematic because a whole culture and its art and beliefs should not be reduced to some nail art. Not by me, at least. It's a popular trend, but I won't do it. I'm not going to exploit images from cultures that I don't belong to - images that hold meaning in these cultures, but not to me. I won't misrepresent a culture, I won't claim it as a fashion statement, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm part of something that I know I'm not part of. I know that there are people out there that are genuinely part of whichever culture they're representing in "tribal" nail art, and that's fine. Those are the people that should be doing this kind of nail art. Not me. I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying, because I'm absolutely supportive of assimilation of different cultures (the USA is the melting pot of the world afterall, and that's awesome) and learning about new cultures, but this isn't the same thing. This is saying "Hey, I think that design looks cool, so I'm going to paint it on my nails, even though I know minimal information about said design and your culture." I'm going to leave it at that. I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, I hope you'll find more information in the cultural appropriation link (it's just Wikipedia, but I feel that it's pretty accurate) above, and if you have any questions for me, please ask them. I also hope this didn't sound antagonistic, because that's not what I'm about at all. My aim isn't to say anyone is a bad person for doing tribal print nails. I'm just explaining and educating why I won't do it, so I hope you can understand that. And if this happens to influence your opinions about tribal print in the process, then it's a win/win situation. And thanks for reading all of this, if you did. :)

That being said, I didn't do absolutely nothing for this day. Because it is a challenge, and even though I disagree with the premise, I'm not going to skip it. Instead, I picked a cool stamp from Pueen plate 49:

At first I thought the stamp was similar to Gaelic designs, but it's really not. I started with a base color of China Glaze For Audrey, and then two coats of a nameless Bon Bon polish that I've literally had since I was a kid. It's so old, haha. But it still works, and it's pretty! I stamped with Sinful Colors Calypso, which probably wasn't the best polish to use. It had a weird effect where it was darker on some nails than others? You can see it's much darker on my index finger in some of the pictures. *shrug*

Anyway, thanks so much for sticking around after my little mini-rant, haha. It's important to me, so I hope it wasn't too off-putting. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 15: Delicate Print

Heeeeyooooooooo!~ Okay, who’s up for some LIGHTNING??

Cool, huh? I wasn’t really sure what to do for Delicate Print, because I assumed it meant lace or writing or something like that. But then I decided that it could be anything that was fragile and bright, so why not lightning? My base color was Love & Beauty Light Blue (three coats), and the lightning was white acrylic paint and a teeeeeeny tiny brush. The base color I used had silver glitter in it, so it made the lightning glow. Gosh, they were so pretty. And very simple! :D

So I hope you like them as much as I did. Thanks for reading, have a great day, and happy painting! :)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge! Day 14: Flowers + Update

UPDATE

Hey there! How is everyone doing? So, I’ve got some news. Today is October 1^st, and I LOVE OCTOBER. LOVE IT. HAPPY OCTOBER 1^ST EVERYONE. And since the entire month for me is Halloween and my birthday, that’s what I’m doing this month! So I’m taking a break from the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge until after October is over. Now, this isn’t to say that I absolutely won’t do any of the challenges, because I might have time to fit in one or two. But I have a huge list of designs and polishes I want to wear this month, so I’m going to focus on those instead. The being said, I have like… 8 Challenge Days that I've done but haven’t posted. SO! I’ll be posting all of those today, no exceptions. I’m not just saying it this time, because I also have my first Halloween-ish design that I have to get up today. It’s going to happen. I hope you’re all as excited as I am! :) So let’s get to it!

Here are my flower nails:

I have to be honest, these didn't turn out like I expected. They are based on the Lily of the Valley flower, which are beautiful and fluffy-looking, but my painting just doesn't do them justice. The base color is China Glaze Tart-y for the Party, and the flowers themselves are done with acrylic paints. I think I may have liked them better if I had made all of my nails like my thumb, because the blooms I painted on my thumb look random and more like the actual plant. Either way, these were cute. They would be perfect for spring!

So I hope you like them! Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks for reading, have a great day (and a happy October 1st), and happy painting!