Halloween Mani Using Plates from Giveaway!

As you may recall, my recent giveaway includes five image plates provided by Beautiful Scratchers (BS). This is an unposted mani I did at Halloween using S8 from the plates.



While I had emailed Beautiful Scratchers to buy them, as they are a local GTA company in my area, Jenna delivered a set of them to my office along with some new metallic polishes that I had seen on her esite. When we met, she was good enough to offer a set of her new image plates as a giveaway for my blog so this is why I'm able to offer them as part of the giveaway!



From what I gathered in our conversation, Jenna actually created these stamping plates - you will not find these exact designs on any other plates or be able to buy any place other than Beautiful Scratchers. I acknowledge though that there are similar designs (ie more than one pumpkin or Hello Kitty image out there!)



Jenna has also created a whole bunch of stamping polishes. I found her company about two or more years now while surfing ebay looking for alternatives to Konad special polishes (they too expensive, frustrated as some didn't stamp well as well as looking for more colour options). This was well before I started blogging or even surfing the net for stamping sites. I guess I wasn't smart or creative enough to realize that other polishes might well for stamping!



Since that day a few years ago, Jenna and I have met up a few times as I've bought more of her products. I've also been lucky enough to get samples here and there of new colours she had been working on developing (like the hot pink which stamps well, unlike Konad's hot pink, which is why I just bought a full size bottle). I always adore meeting up with Jenna as its great to speak to someone in real life who has a passion about stamping like me!



The polishes that I used for this mani are Wet n Wild Black Creme (thumb), Icing The Golden Age of Glitter (on black base); Revlon Alluring Amber (orange base); Icing Pumpkin (orange glitter on orange base), Misa Green with Envy (green base); Misa Disco Green (green glitter on green base), CND Eclectic Purple (purple base), Claire's Diva Purple (purple glitter on purple base) Wet n Wild Red (red base), Generation Red glitter (glitter on red base). Stamped using BS IP S8 using Black Konad special polish and Nicole by OPI Positive Energy.

My giveaway is here. This image plate as well as the rest of the Beautiful Scratchers plates and polishes can be seen here. I again acknowledge and thank Beautiful Scratchers for donating this as a prize for my giveaway!

Thanks for looking!

Day of the Dead Mani

I was scheduling appointments in my daytimer yesterday and seen that November 2nd had a notation that it is Day of the Dead. I don't know much about Day of the Dead to be honest....all I really know is that I've seen some really cool tattoos and makeup with this theme! So I do apologize in advance if I've offended anyone if I've done something taboo by doing this mani as its not really a holiday/tradition I'm familiar with! Anyway, I thought, why not try out a Day of the Dead themed mani?...this is what I came up with.



Here's mani in progress. Colours used are OPI Bride's Bouquet (white), Misa Hanging with the Girls (yellow) and WetnWild Black Creme (black). Two coats each.

Stamped using black and white Konad special polishes using Big SdP B (middle finger; full image plate of flowers), D03 (skulls on ring and index fingers), S8 (tombstone on thumb) and H12 (skull on pinkie).

Then just added a series of dots to make flowers and dots.

Polishes used were Konad special polishes in yellow, apple green, black, blue and CND Raspberry Parfait.

Until this morning, I only had one implement to use for dotting...the end of a brush I use for cleanup. I usually make small and large dots just by adjusting the pressure when I'm applying them...well, this mani proved I have no dotting skills (!) when I needed to do more than one or a few so I went out and bought a dotting set so hopefully will have more uniform dots when and if needed! (or it could be just that I was getting tired as I started this around midnight!)



This mani took me about an hour and a half. Looking back, I have no idea why it took so long...I mean, its just a couple of stamps and a few dots!

Lastly, added a coat of SV after about 10 minutes of applying my last dot....wanted to make sure they were all dry so I had no SV drag!



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!

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!