Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge Recap

With the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge complete, I thought it would be fun to see all the manicures in one spot. Hard to believe that the challenge is over and scary to realize the month of October flew by so fast. At least it did bring some fun manicures and techniques to play with. As always, I'm sad to see a challenge end, but it opens up the possibility of starting a new one, so no all hope is lost...

Click on any of the photos to go directly to the post with all the details...

         

         

      

Here is the challenge that I took on from datyorkLOVES...

Which ones were your favorite?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Nail-aween Challenge Day 10: Halloween Manicure

Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Today is the final day of the Nail-aween challege and gives the freedom to create any Halloween themed manicure. I want to show you a manicure that I actually created with the Bundle Monster contest in mind. The contest was held earlier this moth and is now over. Even though I made the manicure in time to enter, I changed my mind at the last minute and didn't actually submit it. I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to show it to you and there can't be any better day than Halloween itself!...

The dark and moody background is something of a happy accident. I started out with Essence Chic Reloaded, a great dark green to purple duochrome which I have yet to do proper swatches of. Over that I sponged a mix of Sinful Colors Fiji at the base and Pure Ice Kiss Me Here toward the tips. The whole thing was then covered in a coat of OPI Zom-Body to Love which kind of blended everything and gave it a nice greenish glow that I love...

Since I had the Bundle Monster contest in mind, all the stamping images come from Bundle Monster plates. The stamping was done using Wet 'n Wild Black Creme. The plates used are BM13 (spiderwebs), BM-213 (bats on pinkie), BM-224 (branches over raven, house on ring finger), BM-305 (house on middle finger), BM-323 (raven)...

My favorite part of the manicure is seen when the lights come off. OPI Zom-Body to Love is a glow-in-the-dark polish that I've played with in a few manicures this Halloween, but I think this may be the best result so far...

I've decided to name this manicure The House Next Door, although these are definitely two houses I would not want to live next to. I'd never go out at night for sure...

I hope you are all having a wonderful Halloween!

P.S. Don't forget to take a look at all the other lovelies participating in the challenge...
datyorkLOVES, Erica's Nails and More, DreamyMM Nails & Make Up, Tes Did It Nails, Sassy Paints, Nicole gets Nailed , glitznglammer, Finger Food, Wicked Tips, Fancy Schmancy Nails, Delight In Nails, Polish Groupie, My Nail Journey, Get Polished Up!, Just A Girl and Her Polish, Spellbound Nails, Le nail's corner d'Alex, Hello.Lacquer, Countess Nails , Color the world with polish, Nail Crime Nail Art, Coat of Mani Colors, Cutie Cuticles, Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge, GLAMOROUS NAILS, Over The Topcoat, Polish Gone Crazy, tragedystipsandtreats

Thanks for looking and commenting!
Anutka :)

** Pure Ice polish was provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Nail-aween Challenge Day 9: Pumpkins

It is hard to believe that the Nail-aween challenge is almost over, leaving just one more manicure to complete in time for Halloween. The theme for today's challenge is none other than pumpkins. Since I already did a stamped Jack-o-Lantern manicure, I wanted to try something with freehand art. I'm really excited about how it turned out and I hope you like it too...

The base of this manicure is the very dark and vampy piCture pOlish Aphrodisiac with the perfect tagline of "this potion leaves you with a magic touch!" For the pumpkins I used a variety of acrylic paints and attempted a one stroke technique. Turns out I need better brushes for the technique, but I think the pumpkins turned out cute anyway. I'm ready for the fall harvest...

I'm pretty sure a few fresh swatches of piCuture pOlish Aphrodisiac were in order. This is another one of my favorite fall vampy shades. A dark plum purple shimmer with a wonderful creamy formula. It is pigmented enough that one careful coat can be enough, but I used two to even everything out for the swatches. No top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: piCture pOlish Collection: main line Color Name/Number: Aphrodisiac Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

I'd love to know what you think of this!

P.S. Don't forget to take a look at all the other lovelies participating in the challenge...
datyorkLOVES, Erica's Nails and More, DreamyMM Nails & Make Up, Tes Did It Nails, Sassy Paints, Nicole gets Nailed , glitznglammer, Finger Food, Wicked Tips, Fancy Schmancy Nails, Delight In Nails, Polish Groupie, My Nail Journey, Get Polished Up!, Just A Girl and Her Polish, Spellbound Nails, Le nail's corner d'Alex, Hello.Lacquer, Countess Nails , Color the world with polish, Nail Crime Nail Art, Coat of Mani Colors, Cutie Cuticles, Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge, GLAMOROUS NAILS, Over The Topcoat, Polish Gone Crazy, tragedystipsandtreats

Thanks for looking and commenting!
Anutka :)

Sunday Stamping: Plate Number Ending in Month of Birth

Today is Sunday Stamping in the group Adventures in Stamping and the challenge for the week is to create a manicure with a plate number ending in either the day or the month of birth. I chose to go with my birth month of June and picked a plate ending in six. I think this gray and kind of moody manicure really represents how I feel today as I'm still fighting this nasty cold that has drained all my energy. I need some little ninja fruit to come kick it's behind...

For the manicure I started out with Sally Hansen Greige Gardens and stamped over it with the ninja star pattern from Mash plate Mash-47 using Sally Hansen Presto Pewter. The ninja fruit (at least that's what they look like to me) are from the Bundle Monster plate BM-306. The strawberries were stamped using Sally Hansen Quick Brick and the raspberries/boysenberries/a dozen other similar berries were stamped using Sally Hansen Grape Escape...

It didn't quite turn out as I imagined, but I still like it. The ninja fruit now look like happy little hedgehogs to me, especially the purple ones...

Greige Gardens is a lavender gray jelly. Application was very nice, not streaky or runny. It did take three coats to build up to full opacity that is in these swatches. With the shiny jelly finish, no top coat was necessary. It dries darker than bottle color, but I like the darker shade more. Not much I can say, I'm a big fan of gray polish so this is right up my alley...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Sally Hansen Collection: Complete Salon Manicure Color Name/Number: Greige Gardens, 404 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Sally Hansen Salon Effect - Batty For You

Today I have some more beautiful Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips to show you. These are part of the Halloween release for the season and are very appropriately named Batty For You. Another pattern from this collection is How Corny which I showed you a few days ago. I have been wearing these for the past two days and trying to find any reason excuse to keep them on longer...

The strips are bright metallic purple with black bats all over it. I think this batty pattern would be perfect to have as a stamp. Just throwing that out there into the universe. The strips are much brighter than I expected and I absolutely love the color. I'm now on a mission to find nail polish that is this shade of metallic purple. It must be mine!...

Once again, I was able to use just one package of 8 nail strips to do a full manicure. The rest of the nail strips are safe and secure for use another time...

If you are unfamiliar with these nail strip, take a look at the How Corny post to see the contents of each box of Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips...

I'd love to know what you think of these. Are you as crazy about them as I am?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Nail Strips were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Nail-aween Challenge Day 8: Witch

I hope you are all having a bewitching Friday. I'm trying to keep up with the Nail-aween challenge with just a few days left until the big day. The witchy manicure kind of had me stumped, the only thing I knew for sure was the witch was going to be stamped. I first thought to put her over a moon background, then maybe some sort of orange gradient and finally settled on a night sky using a few of my piCture pOlish favorites...

I started out with two coats of piCture pOlish Voodoo which with the tagline of "see the darkness, feel the magic" seemed really fitting for a witch. I actually stamped over it with piCture pOlish Aphrodisiac, but we'll pretend that I didn't since you can't see it anyway. Then, I added the beautiful piCture pOlish flakie Festival which gave it nice little bursts of color...

All of the stamping was done in Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and Shany plates SH02 (witch) and SH08 (moon and stars). Interestingly enough, the images on these plates are engraved deeper than usual and often have problems transferring completely. In this case the moon was left with a bit of a cutout and some of the stars also were left with a hollow center...

Since I was at it, I thought I'd show you fresh swatches of piCture pOlish Voodoo. It is a gorgeous deep burgundy with gold flecks. One of my favorite vampy shades for sure. Application is good, the formula maybe just a tad too thick, but manageable and well worth it. Two coats for full coverage and the swatches are with no top coat...

I'm a sucker for anything with flecks in in it...

Swatch Details
	Brand: piCture pOlish Collection: main line Color Name/Number: Voodoo - See the darkness, feel the magic! Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

I'd love to know what you think of this manicure! Don't hesitate to comment below :)

P.S. Don't forget to take a look at all the other lovelies participating in the challenge...
datyorkLOVES, Erica's Nails and More, DreamyMM Nails & Make Up, Tes Did It Nails, Sassy Paints, Nicole gets Nailed , glitznglammer, Finger Food, Wicked Tips, Fancy Schmancy Nails, Delight In Nails, Polish Groupie, My Nail Journey, Get Polished Up!, Just A Girl and Her Polish, Spellbound Nails, Le nail's corner d'Alex, Hello.Lacquer, Countess Nails , Color the world with polish, Nail Crime Nail Art, Coat of Mani Colors, Cutie Cuticles, Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge, GLAMOROUS NAILS, Over The Topcoat, Polish Gone Crazy, tragedystipsandtreats

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Sally Hansen Salon Effect - How Corny

Sally Hansen has released five fun Salon Effects Halloween prints this year and I've got two of them to show you. I think these nails strips are such a fun and easy way to sport nail art without much effort. My favorite thing about them is that they are made from real nail polish and can be easily removed with polish remover. I'm ever so curious on how these are made, but that might be a mystery to solve another day. For now I'll just enjoy wearing them...

How Corny nails strips are cute little candy corn on a silver background. I was a bit skeptical when I first saw the promo shots for this design thinking I wouldn't like the pattern, but I have changed my mind after trying them. The candy corn is not too overwhelming and the silver background really works for me and makes them wearable...

If you've never seen the Salon Effects nail polish strips, they come in a box with two nail strip packages, a nail file, cuticle stick and instructions. The design below is Batty For You which I'll show you another day. This is everything that you would need to put these on (assuming the nails are clean/polish free to start with)...

Each of the nail packages contains 8 polish strips. They provide a nice variety of sizes for fit any nail.

The strips are fairly long to account for those with longer nails, but I have found that they are just long enough for me that I can cut them in half and use one package of 8 to do a full manicure plus have a bit to spare. That leaves me with a full sealed package to use another day and I love that! I really hope Sally Hansen doesn't change the packaging of these and start putting all the strips in one, since they dry out when exposed to air...

Have you tried nail polish strips before? What do you think of them?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Products were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Nail-aween Challenge Day 7: Spiders

In typical spider fashion, Day 7 of the Nail-aween challenge just snuck up on me. I'm not really ready to admit that Halloween is just a week away. For today's spider challenge I was really excited to play with the spiderweb pattern on the first Bundle Monster set. It may seem insignificant  but I'm pretty sure I bought the whole set just for that pattern. It is really one of those patterns I can picture a dozen or more different manicures with. Here is one that has actually made it onto the nails...

I really wanted something with funky tips for this manicure so I added the tips with one quick coat of Wet 'n Wild Black Creme and scotch tape. I stamped the spider web pattern from the Bundle Monster plate BM13 using Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. For the spiders I used two different images, one from Bundle Monster plate BM13 and the other from Shany plate SH09. Spiders were stamped either Wet 'n Wild Black Creme and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes...

To give the spiders a bit of dimension, I added a little pearl (in black, white and red) to the Shany spiders. The Bundle Monster spiders got a rhinestone heart (in clear and black) since they have a slightly larger body  (and smaller legs). I think my favorites are the Shany spider on the ring finger with a red pearl and the BM spider on the pinkie with a black rhinestone heart...

I wish I would have stamped all the spiders in black, they pop so much more against my skin tone...

Let me know what you think of this manicure! :)

P.S. Don't forget to take a look at all the other lovelies participating in the challenge...
datyorkLOVES, Erica's Nails and More, DreamyMM Nails & Make Up, Tes Did It Nails, Sassy Paints, Nicole gets Nailed , glitznglammer, Finger Food, Wicked Tips, Fancy Schmancy Nails, Delight In Nails, Polish Groupie, My Nail Journey, Get Polished Up!, Just A Girl and Her Polish, Spellbound Nails, Le nail's corner d'Alex, Hello.Lacquer, Countess Nails , Color the world with polish, Nail Crime Nail Art, Coat of Mani Colors, Cutie Cuticles, Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge, GLAMOROUS NAILS, Over The Topcoat, Polish Gone Crazy, tragedystipsandtreats

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)