Happy Halloween!!!

The matte version of this mani is the one I'll be sporting for Halloween tonight while handing out candy to all the trick or treaters who come to my door.



Started with two coats of Misa Green with Envy.

Added one coat of Color Zone glitter (unnamed).

Decided to add french tips using Icing The Golden Age of Glitter. The last time I did them free hand, I wasn't that happy with the results (its a mani I never posted..yet!) so I decided to try taping them.



This is how they turned out. On the index finger, I crinkled the tape (and left it, not realizing it would matter) and a little bit of the glitter oozed under so its not a sharp line...I'll have to keep this in mind for the next time that the tape has be flat on the whole surface.



I didn't SV my tips at this point; just used the small end of the double stamper to place the stamping images. Used Konad black special polish. This is my left hand.



This is the right (this pix already has SV topcoat on).



After waiting a few minutes, added a coat of SV to the left hand. A great example of how black stamping polish *pops* with topcoat if you check it against the pix of the same hand above.



Used IP's D03 (skull, frankenstein face, large spider), BM209 (witches hat), T28 (ghost, cat, pumpkin) and A37 (fang lips).

I did this mani Saturday night; last night, I added a coat of Essie Matte About You.


Have a great Halloween...be safe if you're out with the Trick or Treaters...and don't eat too much candy if you're at home like me handing it out!

Thanks for looking!

Playing Around with GITD Polish

Another Halloween mani, this time with Glow in the Dark Polish.



Here's mani in progress. Started with two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet.



Added two coats of Sally Hansen New Lengths Glow in the Dark.



In the dark.





Stamped using Konad black special polish. This is my left hand.



This is my right.



And how they look with the lights out.





Added a couple more accent stamps; this was the finished mani.



Image plates used were T23 (small pumpkin, spider web with dangling spiders), S8 (pumpkin, spider web, tombstone and ghosts), T29 (witch, cat and Happy Halloween), and BM 224 (haunted house).

My youngest son got a kick out of these glowing fingers...and of course, my DD has asked for a mani along these lines a Halloween party she's attending.

Hope you're having a great weekend...thanks for looking!

Unusual Halloween Mani

I had been wanting to do a mani using a spider web as a french tip; this is what I came up with a couple nights ago.



Hmmmm....still kinda on the fence about this one to be honest! Here's mani in progress. Started with three coats of OPI Pink-ing of You.



Then stamped tips with Konad black special polish using IP H25.



Of course, my french tip stamping skills alluded me once again, so right from the get-go the mani was a fail to me....I tell ya, I'm pretty much at the point that I'm going to throw out every french tip plate I own if I can't conquer this! I *think* my problem is that I try too hard to line it up and think too much about positioning it....here's my right hand (stamped with my left hand....while not 100% still wayyyy better than the other...why? ) For the life of me, I can't grasp this! My middle finger is the very tip only of the image...I had stamped the web on one finger and there was still some web left on the stamper so I put it on this finger.




At this point, way too much time spent on the mani and far too late at night to start again, so went ahead and added spiders from T29.




Not feeling this at all. Nothing makes sense to me about this mani at this point. So I did what I thought best to possibly save the mani ....added holo glitter polish...the cure to end all mani curses! A coat of Cover Girl Goddess still sitting at my mani station....and even this was a fail as I applied too thick of a coat....just having one of those days, I guess :(



While the end result was OK, I still wasn't terribly excited about this. I even thought about not posting but then I thought manis all can't be good ones; the blog is about keeping track of my manis, fails or not, and perhaps someone may get some inspiration for some mani similar to this that may be a win! I think in theory, the mani has possibilities, its just the execution failed! lol! Oh well, like I say, just another reason to change my mani...which I already did as this was what I did on Tuesday night.

Thanks for looking!

Jack-o'-Lantern Nails

Another Halloween mani I came up with recently.



Started with two coats of OPI Osaka To Me Orange.



To add a little shimmer interest, topped with one coat of Nicole by OPI Fresh Squeezed.



Added the pumpkin faces using image plates S8, D03, and A37 as well as the scary shark face (well, looks like shark to me!) from A37 on the thumb nail. This image only has one eye and I transferred the eye from the mirror image on the same plate to give the thumb image two eyes (hopefully this makes sense!!); stamped using Konad black special polish.



Added a little greenery using the leaves on IP T41 with Konad special polishes in Green and Apple Green.




Lastly, added some eyeballs for the faces using Konad special polishes in white, yellow and red (these work well for dotting as they are so heavily pigmented).



My DD thought this was the bomb and I ended up doing this mani on her nails as well.

What do you think....do you think its the bomb...or did it bomb? lol! I wore this mani last weekend and while it's probably more age appropriate for my DD, I had a lot of fun wearing it! I think I may do something along these lines for Halloween night when handing out candy as I'm sure the kids trick or treating can relate!

Thanks for looking!

Another Spider Mani with New Plates!

Kudos to all the fabulous bloggers who have been doing some amazing Halloween nail art! It's been great to see so many creative Halloween mani's out there. This is a mani I came up with recently (probably not that terribly creative! lol)



I wanted to come up with a Halloween mani that wasn't the traditional orange, purple, green, black, etc. that I have already done (just not posted the mani's yet) so started with a base of two coats of CND Flashpoint.



Stamped using IP T43 with Konad black special polish. (You may see that the dangling spider is missing from my thumb nail...it didn't stamp clearly so I removed it with acetone and a brush.).



Then I thought I'd try my hand at stamping a french tip to cover up the tips of my nails....my first choice would have been a spider web french tip (which I still want to do), but instead I seen my new Essence plates sitting out on my nail station so decided to give them a try. I was super lucky enough to these in a amazing swap I had with Ivana Thinks Pink. So this is how my french tipped stamping turned out.



Hmmmm, not so good :( As you can see, a couple of them were a super nail fail. My stamping nail nemeses is doing french tips - I can N E V E R get them to line up. So of course, I had to hide the tip stamping and decided to add a spider here and there using Beautiful Scratchers IP S8 using Nicole by OPI Positive Energy.



(Here's the Essence plate I just received....so excited to have these as part of my stash...thanks Ivana!!!)



And to be honest, in real life, the nail fail wasn't so obvious - its not like my mani's is blown up in macro for everyone to see like on the blog post! Plus, at the end of the day, its just polish and a bit of time and more reason to do your nails the next day!

Thanks for looking!

Don't Look If Spiders Creep You Out!

Here's my first Halloween mani this year.



Two coats of my new favourite orange for season...Revlon Alluring Amber. I picked this up in the same display as Royal Cloak. Perfect orange for Halloween.



A quick coat of Color Zone glitter (found in a three pack at local Winners) added as an experiment in my ongoing quest in doing layering mani's with stamping. I could easily wear this any day; really liking it even without stamping.



This is what the set looks like. While I bought this in Peterborough a couple weeks ago; I have seen them around the GTA in at least two Winners near me; they also have a couple different sets of three; one with a glow in the dark polish; the other a pink and purple with a hearts in clear glitter.



And a close up of the glitter.



Stamped using Konad black special polish using fauxnad IP S8. This plate is one of the new plates available at Beautiful Scratchers.

The next day before I took the mani off, added a coat of Essie Matte About You. I think this is my favourite....love matte glitter!



Hope you're having a fabulous weekend; thanks for looking!

Birthday Giveaway Winners Revealed!

Thank you to everyone who entered my Birthday Giveaway...and thank you to everyone who has waited oh so patiently for the results (or maybe impatiently and were just to polite to say anything!! lol) The votes were reviewed, tabulated, and then entered into the appropriate giveaway of your choice...or choices as in the case of a lot of gals.

Here's the results: Giveaway #1 (Nicole by OPI - Biebers) - Precious Pearl

Giveway #2 (Icing Sheen Polishes) - Kejal

Giveway #3 (LA Girls Glitter Addict) - Riikka

Giveway #4 (Oops! Jealous Polishes) - Olivia Nobody

Giveway #5 (Oops! Jealous Polishes) - Oana

Congrats!!!! Emails have been sent out and those who had their names drawn will have 48 hours to reply or another draw will occur for that applicable number(s).

Thanks too for everyone who took the time to comment....this was an easy extra vote and it was interesting to see that only about 50% added a comment...and some gals really put some thought into it....I thank you for taking the time to do this if you did. There were a lot of requests for posts and whatnot along with suggestions; I'll probably address in a future post.

And here's a mani I did recently....while I've been chomping at the bit to start Halloween mani's, I had a funeral visitation to attend recently and couldn't very well go with ghosts and goblins on my nails, but my next mani should be Halloween related (I hope!). In real life, the flaky isn't so obvious and this was actually pretty subdued; it just looks so glowy because of the intentional angle of my hand pose.

Started with two coats of SpaRitual Spirit Child.


And ended with a coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.

Another look.


Congrats again to Precious Pearl, Kejal, Riikka, Olivia Nobody and Oana!!!

And as always, here's my super sophisticated selection process!





*for some reason, I can't get it to load, so will edit post or repost another time but don't want to delay any more on posting this...so at this point, you'll just have to trust that those were the names drawn!*

Edit: October 24, 2011: Unfortunately, I did not hear back from Riikka and its been well over 48 hours and she hasn't replied to my email; I hope she's doing something fabulous like being on holiday to miss out on the prize! Anyway, I did double check I sent email to the address she had requested and I had, so the bad news for Riikka is I had to draw another name for Prize 3; the good news is that Lulu (@ greeklulu) has had her name drawn and will have 48 hours to reply. The other 4 gals contacted me within the 48 hours as required.

Welcome if you are a new follower-I had a few of you start to following after the giveway ended so thanks for checking out my blog! Please don't be disappointed if you didn't enter this giveaway....another one is in the works thanks to a generous etailer! Details to follow soon!

Thanks for looking!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Well, it's Wednesday...while I don't participate often by having pink mani's on Wednesday, I thought that I could detract from doing fall and Thanksgiving manis...(and before I go full force into Halloween!!!) for a very worthwhile cause and do a Breast Cancer Awareness mani as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.



Here's mani is progress; started with three coats of OPI Pink-ing of You.



Then stamped using fauxnad D08 (this is the middle image that also includes Michael Jackson's feet; I just didn't polish or scrape that portion of the plate). I can't recall any other ribbon available like this on image plates (I know Sdp plates has a similar ribbon, which I have, but it's not exactly the same and I prefer this ribbon to the other plate); so let's hope that Konad or someone else will do a ribbon stamp (and in different sizes) as there are so many themes that I could think of to use it. Until then, at least this stamp is available. D Series plates can be obtained from Chez Delaney.



I actually didn't do too bad of a job of lining the image up but the middle finger was slightly off so decided to do a second stamp beside it to fill in the gap. The stamping polish I used is from Beautiful Scratchers. I have a sample bottle from when the colour was being developed but believe the colour is Metallic Ice Pink.


Lastly, added a few random dots using CND Raspberry Parfait and OPI Bride's Bouquet.



This pix was taken the next morning in daylight...only shown as you see the stamping a little better.


I don't think I need to go into great details why its necessary to promote the need for Breast Cancer Awareness as I'm sure we all know of at least one person who is or has battled this disease. If you need more information, please go to the Canadian Cancer Society or browse the internet for more information in your area.



Last but not least, I should soon have the post ready that will announce those who had their names drawn for my Birthday Giveaway. I'm terribly sorry that it has taken this long and wish I had a better excuse other than life got in the way but that's the case. Between working incredibly long hours, dealing with the family, closing my weekend place and everything else in between that goes along with life, I just haven't had as much time as I wanted to tabulate everything...but I will do soon!

Thanks for your patience...and thanks for looking!