Halloween Moonlight Nail Art

OooooOOoo! Happy Halloween! This is my last minute Halloween nail art for this year and I love the way it came out! I took inspiration from clairestelle8 on Instagram, who did the same thing but with a different stamping plate/images. I loved her design so much I had to give it a go!

I started with a layer of off white as a base, and then prepared sponges with colours to sponge onto my nails. I used yellow, turquoise, cobalt blue and shimmery/sparkly blue (colours listed below the pictures). Once dry I used my Festive 16 stamping plate from Mo You London, and stamped some carefully chosen images onto my nails in gold. I then stamped the same images over the gold, but slightly lower, in black stamping polish. Thank goodness for clear stampers!

I'm super pleased with these and feel like I want to keep it on for ages! I love the effect of the moonlight peeking out between the haunted houses etc, and the shiny shadowy effect of the gold. I'm super grateful for the inspiration!
Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Greenberry - Barry M, Cobalt - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Love & Liberty - Painted Polish, Foil Effect Gold - Barry M, Midnight Mischief -Painted Polish

Oompa Loompa Pumpkinny Nails!

Hi everyone! Happy almost Halloween! Suitably seasonal nails to show today. I've been super excited/busy lately as we finally got the keys to our new/first house on Thursday! It's been a busy weekend preparing stuff before we move the furniture next weekend. So I've had this nail art on for just over a week.

This is my third sharpie nail art in the last few months, it's such a good technique and gives quite a lot of colour options (I bought a multi-pack!). I used my Festive 16 plate from Mo You London for the pumpkin images which I stamped on in black. The design is a little small for my nails so I stamped it from the top and filled in the bottom with some autumnal copper glitter. I mixed some orange sharpie with nail polish remover on some foil, and used a small brush to paint the pumpkins. I put a top coat on before the sharpie part to protect the image.

For the semi-circles of glitter I used two polishes, Jolly My Roger and Crunk On Copper, both from Painted Polish by Lexi. This was so that I could get a good coverage as the glitter is in a clear base. I could have sponged on the glitter but this seemed easier as the colours are similar. I love both polishes (especially the glitter!) so it also made me feel like I was saving them!

To explain the title, for some reason the orange on these has made me get the oompa loompa song in my head regularly!

Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Orange Sharpie, Jolly My Roger - Painted Polish, Crunk On Copper - Painted Polish

Hoot Hoot Hoot - Owl Nails

Hi everyone! Hope you are Owl having a good weekend ;) Today's nail art is sparkly and full of owls/owl puns! Once again I'm still wearing this nail art while blogging it, which is very unusual for me, and a sign of how busy we are with the house move. Picking up the keys on Thursday, I can't wait!

So when I was doing a friends nails, she was looking through my stamping plates and found one I forgot I had bought, the UberChic owl plate. I seem to associate owls with autumn (is that just me?) so thought now is the perfect time to try it out. I also had three new holo's from Painted Polish by Lexi (colours listed below the pictures) so thought I'd give them a try too. I've included an image of just the colours below, and at the bottom of this post will do a little mini review.

I painted alternate colours onto my nails, and then used the advances stamping technique with my Uber Mat for the owls, and just regular stamping with white stamping polish on my middle fingers. I really liked how these images came out. The owls are so cute (there are loads more on the plate too) and the images came out nice and crisp. I think the colours worked well too. You can see how to advanced stamp in pictures here.
Colours used: Jolly My Roger - Painted Polish, Yo-Ho Holo - Painted Polish, Love & Liberty - Painted Polish, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Cream Soda - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Cocoa - Barry M, White Knight - Mo You London

Painted Polish - Jolly My Roger (copper-ish), Yo-Ho Holo (green) and Love & Liberty (blue)
Just wanted to share my thoughts in the three untried holo's I bought from Rainbow Connection about a month or so. How I managed to go that long without trying them I don't know! All three shades have a lovely consistency, and as you can see from the pictures, are pretty holographic! Love & Liberty is quite opaque, you could probably get away with one coat but I used two here as I could still see a\ bit of nail line in the light. For Jolly My Roger and Yo-Ho Holo two-three coats would be needed.

Leafy McLeafFace - An Autumnal Manicure

So I was having trouble thinking of a title for this, and good old Boaty McBoatFace came to mind! (Google it) I think you can probably guess straight away my theme for these is autumn! I bought an autumn stamping plate from UberChic last year and didn't get to use it that much so am trying to make up for it this year. That said, I'm running out of time before Halloween nail time. What with work trips away and the house move finally approaching I've been super busy!

I started with an off white base (colours listed below the pictures), and then stamped a leafy image across each nail with black stamping polish. As I don't have a lot in the way of autumnal shades of nail polish, I decided to use Sharpies. This is my second Sharpie manicure, and I have to say I love the technique! It's easy to do and you can do a lot with blending colours.

After protecting the images with a quick dry top coat, I picked some autumnal shades and scribbles them onto some foil. With each one I mixed a little nail polish remover using a nail art brush, and lightly painted it onto the leaves. A few of the colours you can't really see as they blended a bit. Once dry (which doesn't take long) I finished the design with a matte top coat. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out :)
Colours Used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Sharpies: Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green

If Autumn Was Purple...

Hello everyone, happy Friday! I've finally got onto the autumn nail art band wagon today with some falling leaves stamping with the UberChic Lovely Leaves 01 plate. I've wanted to use this falling leaves design for ages but I tend to have a huge back log of nail ideas! I started with a very pale grey with tiny shimmery flakies, and then stamped the tree images onto my thumb and ring finger nails.

I don't have a lot of autumn leaf type colours, I don't tend to go in for rust and mustard type shades, feeling a little tempted though given how many lovely autumn nail art designs I've seen recently! So with those leafy limitations I decided to go for another colour scheme using a plummy purple and reddish pink. I really liked the way it looked and think the colours worked nicely against the background. I'd recommend as a quick and easy design to do.
I've put the base colour below as I thought it was worthy of it's own picture! It's Paper Route from ILNP (other colours listed at the bottom of this post). To the right is a close up of a thumb nail tree (something that sounds utterly horrifying if you can't see the below picture... but hey Halloween is approaching!).
Colours used: Paper Route - ILNP, Cocoa - Barry M, Plum - Barry M, Pomegranate - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: Pastel Smoosh

Hello all! I'm writing to you in a state of half sleep this evening! I've been away on business in Dublin last week and then out on Friday (which of course takes me two days to recover from now, grr!) so still pretty sleepy!

This was the nail art I wore in Dublin. For the pastel nails I painted them with off white, and then painted purple, blue and yellow onto a stamper, and dabbed them onto my nails. I then used my Back To The 20's 01 stamping plate from Mo you London to stamp some images on top in black. I like the thumbnail best by far, I think I should have used that image on all my nails except the accent.

For the accent I used a lovely shimmery metallic from Cirque Colors. This design was OK but not a favourite of mine. The black smudged a little, and I think the patterns chosen could have worked better. You'll also see a bit of mess round the edges, this was caused by the challenges of a cheap peel of barrier! It made the clean up process more difficult that just using remover and brushes!
Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Blue Moon - Barry M, Notting Hill Carnival - Nails Inc, Wardour Street - Nails Inc, Midnight Mischeif - Painted Polish, Idyllic - Cirque Colors