Thriller!

Darkness Falls Across The Land
The Midnite Hour Is Close At Hand
Creatures Crawl In Search Of Blood
To Terrorize Y'awl's Neighbourhood
And Whosoever Shall Be Found
Without The Soul For Getting Down
Must Stand And Face The Hounds Of Hell
And Rot Inside A Corpse's Shell
The Foulest Stench Is In The Air
The Funk Of Forty Thousand Years
And Grizzy Ghouls From Every Tomb
Are Closing In To Seal Your Doom
And Though You Fight To Stay Alive
Your Body Starts To Shiver
For No Mere Mortal Can Resist
The Evil Of The Thriller...

I had this concept in the back of my mind for a while now...to create a Halloween mani based upon Michael Jackson's Thriller video; this is what I came up with!

Before I go any further, I will mention that some of the pix have been edited. I very rarely ever edit my pix (as I'm sure you can tell!) but some of my cuticles were just a mess by the time this mani was finished so I blurred the cuticle edges in a few of the pix.  Even with the blur some is a little obvious but it hides the majority of it!

Did a base of one coat of one coat of Sinful Colors Cool Gray on all fingers except pinky which is one coat of CND Blackjack.  No topcoat.

Sponged using Barry M Gray, Sinful Colors Jungle Trail and Leap Frog.

Added eyes on pinky using L'Oreal The Temptress' Touch.  Stamped using assortment of images; FUN 8 (moon), LLC-B (tree), MoYou Back to the 50's-01 (car), Chez Halloween 001 (zombie on index), MJ XXV (zombie on middle), Sugar Bubbles 001 (zombie on ring; grave on middle) and HD04 (graveyard on index) all using black Konad special polish.

Added a little red to the eyes on the pinky and tree branches on middle.  I tried to hand draw branches on the index finger but it was a miserable fail so made it appear to be a zombie in the background.  I somehow ended up with red polish on the thumb in the process and added a branch on the moon to hopefully conceal it and tried to sponge over the other section but didn't really cover it all that well.  Then topped with SV.

Bonus shot of my thumb, which I though looked pretty cool!

A closer look at a couple of the plates used.

MoYou Back to the 50's-01

MJ XXV

I did this mani a couple nights ago with the full intent of doing a few more Halloween mani's....but the cuticle mess put a damper on my plans plus I wanted to give them a chance to calm down without the aggravation of remover etc. so unfortunately this put an end of any more Halloween mani's for this year....but there's always next year!

Have a safe Halloween!

Thanks for looking!

Trick or Treat!

It's hard to believe that Halloween is just around the corner!  Here's a Halloween mani I was wearing over the weekend.

Polishes used, starting a thumb and going clockwise are Barry M Bright Purple, Maybelline Orange Fix, Maybelline Go Go Green and Dare to Wear Ready for My Close Up; all two coats except the pinky.  All have topcoat except pinky which I left with the three coats as it looked like it was going to shrink badly at the tips without SV.

On the middle finger, did a taped mani using the orange and purple base coats and then added glitter on the index and ring fingers.  The glitter over the index is Claire's Pumpkin and Nubar Lime Green Glitter over the index. My tape mani's still need some I can see!

Stamped using assortment of image plates; W219 (index), SdP C-14 (ring), BM-H07 (middle and thumb) and FUN 5 (pinky).  The polishes used were black Konad special polish, Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime (pinky) and Mundo de Unas stamping polishes in 11 (yellow) and 13 (orange).



Added a few bats to the index finger using BM305 and spider to the thumb using BM-H07.



Topped with SV to finish.



I really wanted to add glitter dots here and there on the mani but I thought this was busy enough....but I did do it on my right hand.



Here's plate BM-H07.

This is the mani I posted for the AIS Sunday Challenge which was Halloween.  Hope you had a fantastic weekend; thanks for looking!

Freddy Krueger (and Vote Over at Harlow & Co!)

I'm not terribly into scary movies and have to admit that I've never seen any of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies.  For some reason, I thought they were associated with Halloween but when I googled it to get some insight into Freddy, discovered they are just scary movies and not really tied around Halloween at all (other than later released movies). So I'm going to go with Freddy is a pretty scary guy and Halloween can be pretty scary, so I'm going to post this as part of Halloween mani's anyway; here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of NYX white, topped with SV (no pix as there's enough in this post and nothing haven't posted before!)  Stamped using red and black Konad speical polishes using Sugar Bubbles SB010 (thumb), SB008 (index), Apipila P.02 (middle) SB001 (ring) and Chez Halloween 001 (pinky).  I'm not even 100% sure that the image on the index finger is Freddy appropriate, but it looked gruesome and seemed that it should fit, so used it!

Added bats to the ring finger from an image on BM305 and red splatters from Apipila P.02.

Just thought I'd share a couple pix....here's the itty, bitty bat image that was stamped three times on the small end of the double ended Konad stamper....aka, anyone who says stamping takes no skill can go suck it!



A small portion of Apipila P.02 was stamped and placed numerous times for the splatter around the index and ring fingers.  My intent was to keep it off the face but I messed up at bit on the thumb (aka, have no stamping skill!), then tried to remove it which I think made it worse.  In restrospect, I should have left it because blood splatter on the face of Freddy is probably appropriate!  Anyway, it's only obvious in macro!



A closer look at a few plates used.

Sugar Bubbles SB010.


Sugar Bubbles 001


Sugar Bubbles 008


Topped with SV to finish.




Lastly, a collage of Freddy's!



I finished this mani the night before the Harlow & Co. Halloween mani contest ended so decided to enter it here.  There are lots of fantastic entries and please vote for your favourite!

Thanks for looking!

Halloween Gradient

I really wanted to do a candy corn looking type of gradient using the sand/texture polishes, but other than OPI Solitaire, which is a different consistency than the other ones I wanted to use, I realized I don't have another white sand/texture polish.  Barry M Lady would be perfect (and I ironically got it in the mail from a fabulous lady in a Halloween exchange a couple days after I did this), so I had to improvise using the polishes I had on hand.

Started with a base of Zoya Solange, two coats, no topcoat.  I didn't realize how bright Solange is....you need to wear sunglasses to look at it!

For the gradient, added Julie G Tangerine Dream.  (Sorry, I didn't do any cleanup here as I knew I'd be doing more layering and just didn't want to take the time to do the cleanups in between).  

Sponged on Julie G Hot Cinnamon.  It was around this time that I realized that I did the gradient in the wrong order on four of my fingers (well, not wrong per se but not in the way I had intended as I wanted the dark at the tips and light at the cuticles).  But it was late and I wasn't doing it over again so just worked with it!

Stamped using charcoal FUN stamping polish using HD04 on all fingers except ring; ring finger is MJ XIII. 

Topped with SV to finish.

I may try the candy corn gradient again if I have time using Barry M Lady as the white part.....so many Halloween mani ideas and not much time though!.....and if I do, I hope I get the order of the gradient right!

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

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Mani

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month; as a woman as well as someone who has been involved with a close family member dealing with breast cancer over the last year, I would be remiss in not doing at least one mani in support of the awareness cause; here's what I came up with!



Started with a base of two coats of piCture poLish Electric Dream; this pix has no topcoat.  For those who like a shiny finish, it would need topcoat as it does dry on the matte side.  I didn't topcoat as I knew I was doing some layering.  Still stunning, though!  (I also love how this polish perfectly compliments my blog wallpaper!)



My original plan for the mani was a funky french tip with the Bundle Monster ribbon at the tips using BM-324, so added FingerPaints Frosty Night at the tips.



Topped with a little Quo By Orly Spirit.



But I decided to do some different stamp designs so only used the tip image from BM324 on the thumb and did it midway for something out of the ordinary...for me any way!  Other images used were from plates BM317 (middle), BM303 (index) and BM321 on ring.  For the pinky, images from BM317 and BM303 were isolated and separately stamped; all using white Konad special polish.  (I have no idea what I was thinking putting those lips on my ring finger lol!)




Topped with SV to finish.



Just before I took the mani off, I put a layer of Essie Matte About You.




A couple days after I did this mani, my husband surprised me with the OPI Pink of Hearts 2013 duo that he had picked up at a breast cancer awareness fundraiser which was a nice surprise as never buys me polishes! Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in another mani using them before the end of the month!

Thanks for looking!

Creating Orange Holo Out of Necessity!

Some of you may have seen Kellie Gonzo's recent post here where she posted a fabulous orange holo, Fancy Gloss Orange Fizz.  I love holo polishes and don't have anything like this in my stash, so I immediately went to the Fancy Gloss store and tried to to buy a bottle....only to find out that there is no shipping to Canada.  Not to let this deter me, I sent an email and asked anyway if they should ship to Canada as I've had pretty good luck with those who say they won't ship internationally on their site say they will when contacted.  I got a response back right away....unfortunately, it was still a no go and I'm out of luck.  Booo!  So I decided to create my own layering combination for an orange holo for a Halloween mani; here's what I came up with!



Started with a base of two coats of Barry M Gelly Mango, no topcoat.



Added a thin layer of OPI DS Shimmer.  While not an exact match to Orange Fizz, I think I came up with a pretty good alternative....if anything, I think my layering combination seems to be a little bit more holo.  While I still love the how Orange Fizz looks, this will simply have to do simply because I can't get a bottle shipped to me up here in Canada!  I also think with a little tweeking and a less holo topcoat, I can come up with something more like it; Barry M seems to be the perfect base, it's just adjusting the holo topcoat.



Anyway, because this is a perfect base for a Halloween mani, decided to stamp some Halloween images on top using Fun charcoal stamping polish.  Images used are Cheeky Jumbo 6, Happy Holidays (thumb), Big SdP K (index), FUN 4 (middle), and Chez Halloween 001 (ring and pinky).



Topped with SV to finish.



Here's a closer look at a couple of the plates used.

FUN 4








Cheeky Jumbo 6, Happy Holidays













Have you ever created your own polish or did a layering combination when you couldn't snag your lemming? Which one?  I'd love to know!

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