HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! I found Shaun!

While I wish today's mani had been a bit more creative I still like it. I had some cool original ideas, but I just didn't have the time to do them. On the bright side they can transcend holidays!

Even though this are simple I still of course had to stick to the Halloween Theme. This was the perfect day to use my Born Pretty Store Halloween Stickers. I was a bit iffy about them at first because imo nail stickers can be hit and miss. In this case it was a hit! The stickers were easy to take off the paper and easy to place(using tweezers). I will admit I did try placing them with my fingers at first, but it's hard since they are so tiny. I ended up losing a small bat(But Shaun[He has a name now] has since been located on my elbow!) They lay down flat, and even though the sticker extends past the actual image since it is clear it blends in perfectly. You can even have the stickers overlap and the few clear mm don't affect the image under it. When you are done just cover it with top coat and you're ready to go!

If you would like to try some of these, head over here on Born Pretty Store's website where you can find them on sale for $0.99 USD each. You can never be too early for Halloween! And you can use our 10% discount code (EAL91) AND they have free shipping!

So what are you guys dressing up for Halloween? I'm going as Kanye West.

*Products sent for honest review

Short post!

These nails were inspired by swaafie! I used Sinful Colors Hey, You!, China Glazes Stoked to be Soaked as a base. Then CG Spontaneous tipped with Zoya's Carter for the lines. Black is acrylic paint. Boo.

A photo posted by @swaafie on Oct 17, 2015 at 8:07am PDT

It's Alive!

I've actually posted this before, but I'm nuts, so I'm gonna post it again. Actually it's too amazing not to share again. This is China Glaze's I'm Alive, from their 2011 Halloween collection! It's a murky green, filled with small glitter and micro glitter. It's one of my favourite Halloween polishes ever. What's one of yours? Sorry this post is super short, busy few days and I am beat. And a plain manicure is better than nothing :P

First Spoopy Manicure!

I know I'm a bit late with this, so forgive me. What's new with you guys? I have started exercising for the first time in years! I have been at it for a few weeks so let's see if I can stick to it.

Now on to my nails. Today I have a stamping plate from a new website(well new to me) Lady Queen, a place where all your inexpensive nail needs will be met. I have for you the spoopy stamping plate in hehe057. Honestly this wasn't the best stamping plate, but if you have the right tools, that shouldn't be a problem. I didn't have black stamping polish, so I used regular polish. From what I have noticed, if the polish isn't the best quality, and the plate isn't the best quality it's much harder to get a good image(I actually had to go back and fill in missing patches). But if the plate is a good quality, even when using a sub par polish I will still come out decent. So I'm sure if you had a good stamping polish, you could easily make up for what the plate lacks.

Overall I though the plate was just ok and I'm not sure I would reach for it again unless I had a better polish to stamp with. If you would like to give this plate a go, you can find it on their website, currently on sale for $0.99 USD. In addition to that shipping is FREE and you can use my discount code 'LAKS15' and get 15% off!

Ps. That gradient is China Glaze Spontaneous, and Stoked To Be Soaked as well as Sinful Colors Pull Over.

It is NEVER too early for Halloween!

Well today is the last day in the Wiki Challenge, and I am on time! Huzzah! This week the wiki article was Horror Icon, which I was super excited about. Halloween reminds me of autumn and I love anything that reminds me of that. Also Halloween is an excuse to binge watch horror films, which I love as well.

I was actually a bit stumped when I was trying to think of something to do. I had ideas, but they were all of horror icons I had already done manicures with and I wanted something new. So I decided to go with The Mummy. The funny thing is I have never seen a mummy movie, ever. No real reason why I haven't, just never really been interested I guess. But I have tinkered with the idea of doing mummy nails before, but ended up doing something else. So this seemed like the perfect chance!

For this I started with a base of black. Then I just added a drop of brown acrylic paint to some white paint to make the off white bandages. To finish I added more brown and sponged that on top and added red eyes. I love how it turned out and it was SUPER easy to to.

Hopefully I will be able to do some new challenges soon. Because even though I am late some times or I miss weeks they are still great ways to come up with new stuff!

Friday The 31st!

I have today manicure from one of my favourite horror series, Friday the 13th! My favourite movies from the series would have to be the first film, and Jason X(EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN SPACE). For this I kept it simple. I did a forest and cabin scene on most of my nails, because everything leads back to camp Crystal Lake. And of course I had to include the iconic hockey mask.

Anyways I hope everyone is having/had/going to have a great and safe Halloween!

Haloween Classic (On my RIGHT hand as well!!!)

I feel like this is something almost everyone does at one point or another. A graveyard scene. I actually did one last year(but let's not talk about that mess). This year I decided to do a gradient. I was at first conflicted. Do I want a purple gradient or a black gradient? I ended up stumbling across a graveyard manicure that wasn't a gradient but it used only black white and gray with the only colour being a pumpkin. So I decided I would do my original idea in a black gradient and the only colour would be the jack-o-lanterns features.

I also decided not to tell you who I was inspired by. I was having trouble finding their blog when I was trying to find a link so I could credit. Long story short, the reason I couldn't find any was because they had deleted all their accounts because they had been caught stealing peoples posts.

So I would like to credit this to whoever that person probably stole the idea from.

Here is my right hand. I'm really happy with it as it's the first time I have done nail art using my non dominant hand(not including lines using tape or dots).

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”

Today I have a simple manicure that was inspired by Wacky Laki's Frankenstein manicure. Loved how this turned out. It was SUPER simple and took no time and all. The green polish is Sinful Colors Hey, You! and the black accent nail is Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I only just realized October is almost over. I'm mostly sad about this because I feel like I didn't immerse myself in the Halloween spirit enough. And by immerse I mean I didn't watch enough horror films. I know I can watch them during all the other months, but there is something special about watching horror movies in October.

 

Cell Phone Photo(You can see the stitches a bit better)

A different kind of Halloween manicure...0_o

WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS TECHNIQUE AT HOME! YOU KNOW HOW I LIKE PUSHING WHAT I CAN DO TO NAILS! THIS IS NO EXCEPTION! THIS IS NOT AN EVERYDAY MANICURE KIND OF THING. (Never thought I would have to post that at the beginning of a post)

This is my entry for Nail Polish Canada's Halloween Nail Art contest! It's actually a manicure I wanted to do a while ago, but I never really had the perfect opportunity to. UNTIL NOW! So my manicure is kind of an homage to to gory slasher films. Now I have done weird nails before, but I REALLY wanted to up the weird(and gore) and make them as nasty as possible and push the limits of art.

First I started with a base of Essence Sweet as Candy, then I did the bloody "HEL-" and the bloody hand print with acrylic paint. Everything else you see is done with real blood. My blood(aka. The art supply that keeps on giving).

No Topcoat

Top Coat

Original Nails. "Needs more blood"

My mother was a nurse so I actually asked her if she had something I could use to get blood and not give myself an infection. She then showed me how to use the needle of her blood sugar monitor. She also had some needles for syringes(everything was already sterilized). When the time came I chickened out and couldn't use the machine. I decided to go with the syringe needle. First I wiped all my fingers down with alcohol, then came the hard part. Stabbing myself. After many failed attempts and gingerly poking my finger I gave up. Luckily for me as I was putting the cover back on the needle I missed and stabbed myself in the thumb :D The minute I saw blood my first thought was "MUST USE THIS FOR ART!". When that stopped bleeding I looked at the mani and I thought it needed more blood. So I sucked it up, and I took my middle finger and forcefully tapped the needle. Success! Originally I was going to use a nail art brush, but it turns out blood is a bit too thin to work with. So I ended up letting the blood roll down my fingers a bit and using the fingers on my other to apply it. Another thing that came as a surprise was how hard it was to get blood out of my cuticles. When I was done I added an older topcoat that was almost done and sealed it all in. And I actually wore it for a few hours, but I could smell that metallic-y smell that blood has.

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Candy Corn. The Worst Kind of Corn.

Up until last year candy corn was this mythical thing to me. I had always associated it with Halloween, but I had never really seen it before, so obviously I had never tried it before either. But last year all of that changed. My friends mother sent her a tin of candy, which included candy corn. So I knew I had to try it.

It was disgusting.

I can safely say it was one of the most vile things I have ever tried. I can only assume licking the bottom of Satan's, well worn, devil boots would be a more pleasant experience. I would even go as far as saying it's slightly worse than eating fondant off a cake.

For this I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Pull over, as well as China Glaze Staked to be Soaked.

GHOSTS!

At the end of last month is was a friends birthday. For her birthday we all went on a ghost walk, which logically meant I had an excuse to put ghosts on my nails in July.

The walk itself was ok. It wasn't really scary, and I didn't see a single ghost. Now I have gone on ghost walks in the past that have scared me to death(but not really because I would be a ghost!) But I did like this because I did learn quite a bit. Yes you heard me I had fun learning about stuff. I can't say I believe in ghosts at this point, but I can't say I don't believe in them.

To get this simple look I painted 3 of my nails either purple(Orly Charged Up) or orange (Nicka K Vibrant Orange) and topped it with a nail polish classic Ninja Polish Sticks n' Stones. My accent nails I pained them with black polish and then added the ghosts using white acrylic paint. The only thing I was sort of sad about was the fact the the Seche shrunk my tips *shakes fist*.

What do you think of these? And more importantly, do you believe in ghosts?

Revlon Enthrall AND a comparison post!: Cold feet

A lot of the times I consider my body to be in a state of permafrost.  Well mainly my extremities.  I'm always cold, and for the most part it doesn't bother me.  I can actually do this cool thing in the winter mostly where I'll put my hand against a clothed person and you can slowly feel my cold.  I like to pretend I'm a short Frost Giant :)  The only time is kind of get's annoying is my feet at night.  They take FOREVER to warm up.  I find when your feet are uncomfortable cold(or hot) it just makes your whole body feel gross.

So today I have something requested by Robyn.  Revlon Enthrall.  It is indeed a beautiful colour!  It's a dark olive green base with golden-olive shimmer.  It was a simple two coats.  My brush was a bit uneven, but I paid pretty much nothing for it at a warehouse sale so I'm ok with it.  Just have to take a bit more time.

When I was looking at it it reminded me an awful lot of China Glaze Cast a Spell, so I decided to compare the two(a first for me!)!  In the bottles you can immediately tell that their bases are different with Revlon being lighter.  You can also see that the Revlon is a lot less sparkly.  When you put them on the nail they look a bit more similar then when in the bottle.  The big difference is Revlon as a whole is more olive toned and the shimmer is all the same.  Where as Cast a Spell is a bit less olive and the shimmer varies from green to gold and has much smaller pieces as well as more.  Overall I think I like the China Glaze more.  For me it just has a bit more depth to it.  That being said they are both BEAUTIFUL colors and I wold not kick Enthrall out of the bed(Unless Enthrall was being a douche).  They are pretty much cousins.

Which do you like more?

F4 - Hocus Pocus: Well worth the wait.

Well Halloween has come and gone.  And I'll be honest with you guys the one thing I will be missing will be the horror movies that are always on the television.  I love a good(or hilariously bad) horror film.

This polish that I wore today was part of F4's Halloween line last year.  I didn't wear it last year so I decided that this year I was going to wear it on Halloween for the first time.  I wanted my first time to to be special guys.  So I have been sitting on this polish for over a year and that day has finally come.  Let me tell you it was well worth the wait(OMG she used the title of the post in the post...like in movies).

I decided to go with the obnoxious look.  My base was a bright orange by Orly(I could not find the name on the mini bottle), and I used one coat of Hocus Pocus over it.  Hocus Pocus is tiny matte black glitter and pink glitter, as well as larger pieces of green and yellow glitter.  Formula was super easy to use and you could probably get this to be opaque on its own in 3 coats or so.

So do I do Christmas stuff now?

Have you tried F4 polishes?  Do you think this was worth the wait?  Do you like scary movies?  Which ones?  TELL ME!

Zombie French! My bloody spin on something cute.

So this manicure was inspired by 2 things.  One thing really good, and one thing a total fail.  The good would have to be these Franken French nails over at Claws Up!  I really liked it and thought it was really cute, but I wanted to try a non cute sort of version of it.  That leads me to the second thing that inspired me.  Almost a year ago I actually tried to decute a different Halloween manicure, and it just turned into one big mess.  It was one of the rare times I posted a fail.

For this manicure I actually used a lot of the same polishes and paints as it did last time with the exception of the OPI and red Essie.  I decided to still stick with a more zombified version and leave out the stitches.  I achived the finished look by painting 3 coats of Essie's Sew Psyched, then covering it with Seche.  Once the Seche was dry to the touch I would make a tiny hole maybe 5mm from the tip of my nail, and then pulled down gently so it tore, and looked like the skin was pulled back.  Next in and around the tear I blotted some black acrylic paint, then over that some bright red acrylic paint.  Then to make it a bit more real looking I added some Cult Nails Quench and Barry M Red Black. (Note:  I didn't clean my brush between colours like I normally do). Finally I smudged some red polish and brown paint of the rest of my nails to give them a dirty look.

This year I am really pleased with how my decuteting went.  Hope you like :)

China Glaze - Cast A Spell: Let's have a serious chat about ghosts, and Christmas.

First of all unlike aliens I can't say if I believe in ghosts or not.  They may be real, they may not be.  I don't know.  I do know one thing though, if ghosts do exist they are creepy.  Not in an "Eep that's a dead person" kind of way, they are creepy in a sketchy kind of way.  When I think of ghosts I think "Oh, so are you watching me do stuff...that's weird".  Think of how many people have died.  I sometimes wonder is my room is filled with non threatening sketch ghosts.  Are they lurking during special cuddles time?  I wonder at times if ghosts are invading my privacy.  This is something that troubles me.

Now the polish is from last years China Glaze Halloween collection.  I actually bough it last year in December.  I found it and I thought it would be perfect for my friend as part of her Christmas gift. Then the minute I brought it home I immediately changed my mind and decided it was mine.   It does not count as taking back a gift if they never got it.

Cast A Spell is a black base full of olive/gold shimmer.  It went on like a dream in almost one coat.  But I did need a second for a bit of patchiness.  It is soooooooooooooooooooooo pretty in real life.  Had the sun come out for a bit longer today I would have had to have taken photos outdoors.

If you can still find this, I suggest you all go out and buy it!  It's such a fantastic shade.  I'm so glad I decided to keep this :)

 Flash *A-AH*

Pumpkin Half Moons! - I hate pumpkins!

Soooooooooooooo I actually did these nails over two weeks ago and started this post maybe 10 days ago.  I ended up pushing the post back and finishing it now.

Let's start with some hard hitting truths.  I actually don't like pumpkin.  I've had one pumpkin soup that I've liked and that was it.   Actually had a pumpkin spice latte the other day.  I was in the mood for a fall drink, which generally means something apple.  But since the place I was at didn't have any apple goodness I decided to try the latte.  Wow.  The only way I can describe the flavour was a cross between horrid kids medicine, and vomit aftertaste.   No, it tasted like I had thrown up horrid kids medicine.  Ill stick to my apple cider next time.

UNLESS I don't have to ingest it.  I think that is why I ended up loving these nails.  They were super easy to do as I didn't have to be exact with them *HUZZAH*.  For my base I used China Glaze Glittering Garland, and for the pumpkins I just used acrylic paint.

Again I was super pleased with these.  What do you think?  Also does anyone have a pumpkin recipe that can convert this pumpkin hater?

With Flash, *A-AH*.

 Without Flash, *A-AH*.

Claw Polish - Phantom + The cutest zombie hand ever!

Let's just bang out the polish review first.  I actually won Phantom!   I was going to try and find a bottle of China Glaze Immortal(Halloween 2012) originally but when I won this my cravings for a shimmery gray had been satisfied.

Phantom is medium, leaning dark gray, with silver, blue and pink shimmer.  It was opaque in only 2 coats.  It was pretty much a perfect gray polish.  Honestly if you like gray polishes you should try and get your hands on this.  I can't tell you where to buy them or how much they are as I won this and have never seen it in stores.

 The pink was hard to capture, but you can see it here!

I wore it for 2 days before I decided I wanted to do some nail art on it.  So I thought it would be cute to do a little graveyard mani.  And my ring finger is a zombie hand reaching out.  I don't know why but my first thought was "That's a cute little hand."  My second thought was "It's probably a child."  Then I started thinking, would I have it in me to kill this undead child?  Probably.  The cross is a little decrepit and uneven looking, but I'm just going to say it's because it's an unknown grave, that has been neglected and forgotten over time.

I look mildly jaundice!

Nightmare Before Christmas Nails: You can't tell me you didn't see this coming!

So with all the polishes inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas I decided to do a Nightmare Before Christmas manicure.  Again I haven't seen this movie in forever but I remember the gist of it.

First I did 2 coats of Claws Polish Voodoo, a red jelly full of red shimmer *drools*.  Then when that was good a dry I taped off triangles and painted the rest black.  With a striper I added some white stripes with acrylic paint.  Finally I finished with a rhinestone at the tip of the triangle.

See what I did there?

It's the pattern on Jack Skellingtons suit AND a Santa hat!

Note:  Remember how I said my internet was all wacky and not working.  Well my internet has been semi fixed.  It's now sort of working.  Do you know how long these photos took me to upload?  Almost 10 minutes.  What is this 1997?  I can't deal with this.  And email is even worse.  I don't wanna get into this.  *weeps*.

LynBDesigns - Pumpkin King: This post is brought to you by a bad internet connection and computer rabies.

So this post was originally supposed to go up at noon today BUT my internet has been kind of poopy lately.  So I attempted to post it in a coffee shop today but it was telling me the only internet connection available could give my computers rabies.  Ok it didn't say that, but it said it wasn't safe, so I didn't risk it.  That and I felt miserable in the coffee place.  I sat next to a door and then I bought a frozen lemonade. I know, lemonade in a coffee shop!  I was freezing my tushy off!

Frozen bum aside let's talk polish! Pumpkin King is the final polish I have from LynBDesigns The Nightmare Begins collection. It's based on Jack Skellington who is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town(Think of him as their Santa). It’s exactly what you would think when you think of Pumpkin King. I would also say it is the only polish in the whole collection that really does lean towards Halloween. It’s small orange glitter as well as medium size hex glitter as well as silver hex glitter, then it also has black bar, diamond and star glitter. I ended up layering 2 coats over OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls. It was very easy to apply(although you may have to fiddle with glitter placement now and then) and I wore this for 2 days. On the second day I added black tips. They were a bit chunky but it wasn't all that noticeable in real life. I sadly had to take it off a few hours after I put the tips on. I don't know what I did exactly but I ended up chipping and breaking some nails on the hand I don't photograph.

If you would like a bottle of this you can head over to LynBDesigns Etsy shop.  Polishes retail from between $8-$10USD.  Not only is this brand filled with exciting and unique shades it's a little extra exciting for those of us who are part of fandoms.  She sells everything from Doctor Who, to Sherlock, to Princess Bride themed polishes.

 *Product sent for honest review.