October nail art challenge Day 22: Critters

This design ended up being quite hodge-podge, but those are sometimes the best kind, right?

The most Halloween-y critters I could think of are bats and spiders, so they're all over my nails today!  I even have cobwebs on some of my nails!  Ahh!

My darker bat nails that you can barely see in these pictures have a fun surprise - they're glow in the dark!  I found Sinful Colors' glow in the dark top coat from their Halloween collection at Target the other day and I'm super excited about it!  Some of the bats are shadows in a glowing sky, others glow in a dark sky - because there's nothing creepier than glowing animals.

The glowing photos didn't turn out super great, and I couldn't even have the bottle in the shot

 because it glowed so bright that it outshone my glowing nails!!

This was a fun design in which I used mostly indie polish.  The black glitter is Heather's Hues Witches & Werewolves & Ghosts, Oh My!, the purple is another Heather's Hues from the Monster Mash Mani of the Month box that I got last month, called Vampirette.  It's soooo pretty!  I kind of wish I hadn't covered it up with so many bats.  The green on my thumbs is Creative Cuticles Nail Polish Ooze on the Rocks, and the neon orange that I used is a commercial brand - ORLY Ablaze.

The bats also come from the Monster Mash box - they're vinyls by Nails Redesigned.  And once again, the decals I used are by Naildrobe.

Here's the challenge image for you once again!  The clock is ticking on this one, with only three designs left!

Christmas Crafting: Nail Polish Ornaments

Got any nail polishes that you love the look of but never wear and don't want to get rid of?  Do you own any Mentality nail polish that you don't feel safe wearing?  Or are you like me, and have a ton of polish and want to actually use some of it up?  Then I've got a craft that I think you'll enjoy!

 

I got this idea from Elizabeth of My World Sparkles Lacquers.  At first I was a little weary to dump out significant amounts of polish at a time, but then I was like "oh please, look at how many bottles of nail polish you have! Do iiiit."  So I bought a 12-pack of small glass ornaments from JoAnn Fabrics (I assume you can find these at most craft stores and pretty much anywhere with a good selection of ornaments) and decked them out!

Elizabeth used much bigger ornaments, so she set hers up on top of open mason jars while they dried.  Since the ornaments that I bought are so small (probably about 1.5" in diameter), I propped mine up on top of opened lotion bottles and their caps.

The process was simple, though a bit lengthy:

1. Pour polish into bulb

2. Swirl polish around, coating entire interior

3. Pour out immediate excess (back into polish bottle - no need to waste yet!)

4. Set ornament tilted downwards, so that no polish will drip out, and allow excess to gather

5. Pour out excess polish (at this point, it's probably thickened enough that you won't want to put it back into the bottle.  I laid out paper towels and newspaper.)

6. Set ornament upright

7. Repeat steps 4-5 if necessary

8. Set ornament upside down and allow to drip out. (Keep an eye on it, though - I let too much polish drip out of one of them and it ended up less opaque than I wanted it!)  Elizabeth put paper towels into her mason jars for this step, but I didn't really want to clean out all of my lotion bottles.  What I ended up doing was only dripping out one ornament at a time into an empty water bottle.

9. Add a second coat if necessary, and repeat steps 1-8 (but don't pour the excess back into the bottle in step 3 if you're using a different color!)

When layering different polishes in these, be sure to do it in the opposite order of painting your nails!  Apply glitters/toppers first, then the base color.

Since I was doing so many of these, I usually started the next ornament after step 3 of the previous one.  It was so much fun!  My dining room was filled with lots of odd scents between the opened lotion bottles and all of the nail polish!  Not exactly the smell I'm used to when decorating for Christmas. :)

Here's a video tutorial of my process:

 

I'm so excited to hang these on our tree this year!  Since we don't have a tree yet (it's in the mail!), I used a bobby pin and my regular light box to take photos of my lovely new ornaments.  Pretty crafty, eh?

Sinful Colors Twilight Twinkles and Sally Hansen CSM Hi Ho Silver

I actually bought Twilight Twinkles specifically for this craft!  I'd hoped that I would use most of it up, but there's still plenty left.  These small ornaments probably only use about 1/4-1/3 of a full-sized bottle of polish.  If you really want to use up a whole bottle of polish, either get bigger ornaments or do multiple ornaments in the same color!

Twisted Colors Elf Vomit and China Glaze White on White

I was hesitant to use Twisted Colors polishes in these ornaments, because sadly Twisted Colors has closed their shop, possibly forever.  But the three Christmas polishes that I got last year are just so perfect for these that I decided to sacrifice some future manis.

Jior Couture Son of a Nutcracker

Nicole by OPI Heavenly Angel and Zoya Mosheen

I considered adding a white background to this one, but I rather like it clear!  Hopefully I can place it strategically in front of a light bulb on the tree so the light can sparkle through.

Ellagee Jeweled Egg Hunt

Okay, I'm going to need to swatch this one soon.  It's amAzing.  All that density is in only two coats!  I'm sure that on the nail, one coat would be almost completely opaque.

Wet n Wild Rockin' Rubies and Sally Hansen CSM Red My Lips

Youch, my phone really messed this one up.  It's nowhere near this neon red in person - and it's actually quite sparkly!  But cameras hate the color red, as I've learned quite well over the past year.

Twisted Colors All Spruced Up and Spoiled by Wet n Wild Green to be Heard

I mean, how could I NOT use this one for an ornament?!  It's so perfect!

Wet n Wild Back Alley Deals and Sally Hansen CSM Blue My Mind

This is the one that I accidentally let too much polish drip out of.  Oops!  I still like it.

Wet n Wild Diamond in the Rough and Hi Ho Silver

The Wet n Wild polish is actually pretty black, but even two coats of it was super sheer in the ornament.  I chose to use a silver background because I figured black would be a bit too dark for a Christmas ornament!  (As in, literally too dark.  Not that I think black is too depressing or whatever.)

Twisted Colors Star of Wonder and Essie Style Cartel

Unghhh. So pretty!  It's much darker and more sparkly in person, but as always, dark colors + camera = bleh.

 

Jior Couture Means a Little Bit More and 

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish Please Have Snow and Mistletoe

I couldn't decide which of these glitters I'd prefer to use, so I mixed them!  I really like the glitter ornaments that I didn't add a background color to.  They look like snowglobes!

Wet n Wild 24 Carats

The little flakes don't show up so well in this shot, but this polish has some gorgeous red flakies in it!  It's super gorgeous and very Christmasy.

Have you ever done anything like this?  What are your favorite Christmas/holiday decorations?  Let me know in the comments!

October nail art challenge day 28: Monsters

Well, here we are.  The second to last theme of this year's Halloween nail art challenge.  Today's theme is monsters, and I cooked up a lot of them on my nails!

 

Once again, I had to use the dreaded flash because the deep green of Frankenstein's monster wouldn't show up without it.

My nails house a mummy, Frankenstein's monster, a witch, and a vampire.

On the opposite hand, I painted something that abstractly represents each creature - except for the mummy, for which I couldn't think of anything else to represent.  So I painted the Bride of Frankenstein['s mosnter], some stitches to represent the monster himself, witch-y colored stripes, and dripping blood.  (Sadly, the purple that I used didn't show up very well at the top of my ring finger - nor did the drips show up very well on top of the purple metallic background.  Oh well!)

On my thumbs, I painted a werewolf on the left and a full moon (sort of) on the right.

I used a whole bunch of different polishes for this look, and once again it's much easier if I just list them rather than describe which polish I used where.

Salon Perfect: Sugar Cube, Oil Slick, Loopy Lime, Escape to Neverland, A Royal Affair, and Traffic Cone
Zoya: Ziv, Nyssa, and Ana
Finger Paints: Monet Money and Ch-art-coal Black
OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid
China Glaze Intelligence, Integrity & Courage
Heather's Hues Vampirette
Creative Cuticles Nail Polish O Negative Please
Sally Hansen Big Smoky Topcoat

I want to point out the awesomeness that is the vampire's skin color.  I applied a coat of Vampirette, thinking that I would do a smaller vampire face on a purple background, but then decided against that.  And I didn't want to bother with removing the polish and starting over from basecoat, so I put a coat of Ana on top of the purple.  It turned out to be a sort of grayish-purple skin color, perfect for the skin of the undead!

Other than the witch-y stripes and the dripping blood, which I made using vinyls from KB Shimmer and Nails Redesigned, respectively, all of these monsters were made totally freehand.  It took forever but it was a lot of fun!

All that's left in this month's challenge is nails to match my costume.  My options are limited because of limited nail polish technology in the 1920s, but I'm pretty excited for my costume!  We're going to be having some relatives over for the weekend of Halloween, so I might not have that blog post ready until the Monday after Halloween, but you'll definitely get to see my design for my flapper costume!

What are you dressing up as for Halloween this year?  Do you plan on painting your nails to match?  Let me know in the comments!

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish: Creepy Cocktails collection

I have an awesome indie collection to share with you guys today!  You might remember seeing some of Creative Cuticles Nail Polish's Christmas polishes on the blog last winter; now, I have all 3 of her Halloween polishes to share with you!  I did receive these polishes in exchange for an honest review, and I want to assure you that I didn't promise to say anything in particular.  These words are my own and the fact that I didn't pay money for this nail polish doesn't influence my opinions in any way.

The Creepy Cocktails may have Halloween-y names and are perfect for Halloween manis, but they're also super versatile for any time of year!  As much as a love a good Halloween-themed glitter, I equally love a polish that I can use in anything.

O Negative, Please

The perfect blood-red nail polish, O Negative, Please is the most opaque in this collection.  Two coats was fully opaque with no VNL peeking out.  The formula is creme, but it felt like it leaned a tiny bit on the crelly side to me.  It's just so juicy looking, something I usually only see in jellies/crellies!

I don't really know what's going on with my ring finger in this picture; it looks a lot darker to me.

I guess maybe that finger was accidentally pointed out of the light, or something, I don't know. 

Witches Brew

Witches Brew is a beautiful dusty purple, perfect for fall and the ultimate shade of Halloween purple!  Two coats was mostly opaque for me, but there is still just a tiny bit of VNL.  It's not as noticeable in normal lighting, though - the lights I use for these photos are super bright, so the whites of my nails tend to stand out more than they do in other lighting.  The formula is very similar to that of O Negative, Please - a juicy, crelly-leaning creme.

My camera picked up this color a little weirdly, so I had to cool it down by adding some blue to the photo for color accuracy.

Ooze On The Rocks

I love the name of this one!  Ooze on the Rocks is a wonderful slime-green, absolutely perfect for Halloween manis but also great for any of your bright green needs.  This one is a true jelly, so it's the sheerest of the bunch.  I have three coats shown on my nails, and you can see that there is still just a hint of VNL.  Again, that VNL stands out more under my photo lamps than in other lighting, but if you want a fully opaque mani, I recommend either layering this on top of white or building up to four coats.

These polishes are set to release on October 1 in Creative Cuticles Nail Polish's shop.  Will you be adding these ones to your collection?  Do you have any favorite, must-have Halloween polishes or mani designs?  Let me know in the comments!

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish: Autumn Nights

This is another polish that I've had sitting around for quite some time, but have been procrastinating my blogging for about a month and a half.  I won a giveaway around Christmas time, and one of the prizes was one polish of my choice from Creative Cuticles Nail Polish.  I actually got the email about winning the giveaway about ten minutes after I placed my order of CCNP Christmas polishes, so I was super excited to be able to pick out a fourth color that I liked!

Autumn Nights is a beautiful shade of blue.  I've been trying to branch out from blues for a while, but I really don't own another shade like this!  Most of my blue cremes are very bright sky/electric, or deeper navy.  But I would describe this polish as a sort of denim-sky blue.  Kayla, the creator of CCNP, created this with an evening autumn sky in mind, and I think she hit the nail on the head!

It applies like a dream.  If you're careful, this can be a mythical One-Coat Wonder!  As usual with possible OCWs that I've found, the only reason I had to use two coats on most nails with this one was to clean up the line around my cuticle and to fill in spots that I missed.

This would be a really great background for many kinds of nail art!  If you like blues, cremes, and/or one-coat wonders, you definitely need this one in your collection.

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish: Christmas polishes

Have you ever felt that sometimes, the best gifts are ones that you've picked out?  Plenty of times the surprise of something unexpected is awesome, but there are also times when you want three specific nail polishes and really nothing else.

That's how my Christmas went this year.  I even went so far as to order the polishes myself, because I wanted to choose the gift wrapping that Creative Cuticles Nail Polish was offering around Christmas.  (For the record, Derek was super happy with this.  He insists that he's bad at choosing out gifts and reminded me of the one time he did, how badly wrapped it was.  So I took the guesswork and the manual labor out for him!)

The names of these polishes may be out of season, but I think the colors are just dandy for any time of year!

One quick note before I get to the swatches: I recently got a new phone, and discovered that the camera in it is pretty much as good as my bulky old camera.  All of the pictures in this post were taken on my phone.  I want your advice!  Do you think the picture quality here is any better or worse than my previous photos?  Do you like them better with or without flash?  Please let me know in the comments!

Who Wants Eggnog?

Let me just say how hard it was to not drink this nail polish.  That's how much this looks like eggnog!  It's so convincing that I even swore I could smell eggnog for a few seconds.

Who Wants Eggnog is a cream-colored creme polish leaning slightly towards crelly, with some brassy beige-toned glitters representing flakes of nutmeg.  Two coats yields solid coverage, and I actually stayed with two this time!  I felt that three coats would have too much glitter to look as perfectly like eggnog - or at least the way I drink it.  If you like tons of nutmeg in your nog, then three coats might look better to you! :)

Application was perfectly wonderful.  The formula is really easy to work with, not too thick or thin, and the glitters apply easily.  I had to dab just a tiny bit because I was being picky about the placement of the glitters, but they won't wipe completely off the nail if you swipe it on.

  

Please Have Snow and Mistletoe

Please Have Snow and Mistletoe is a super fun glitter topper.  It's festive, but I don't think it's super Christmasy; I'd totally wear this any time I'm celebrating, no matter the occasion or time of year!

From pointer to pinkie, I have one to four coats over bare nails.  I think I would like this best using two coats over a fun creme or metallic polish, but it does still look great loaded onto bare nails!  The base is ever-so-slightly green tinted, but you can't really see it until you build up to three or more coats.  (My nails are embarrassingly yellowed at the tips.  Please excuse this atrocity and don't confuse my discoloration for an odd base color in the polish!)

Application of Snow and Mistletoe was pretty standard for a glitter topper: a bit of dabbing was required, but since the glitters are all relatively the same size, it wasn't too frustrating.  I generally have to do a lot more dabbing when there are glitters of many sizes, especially for the bigger glitters.

Macro at three coats.

Ugly Christmas Jumper

This one caught my eye because it's inspired by Molly Weasley's Christmas sweaters that she always knits in the Harry Potter series.  How could I not want this polish?

Ugly Christmas Jumper is pretty festive, but again, I don't think it's 100% Christmasy!  The base is slightly tinted yellow, but you can't really tell until you build up to three or more coats.  (This time, I have one to four coats from my pinky to pointer.)  Again, my nails are super yellow starting about halfway up, so the polish looks way more yellow than it actually is.  Does anybody know how to prevent yellowing nails from constant polish use? :(

Application on this one was a little bit tricky.  Since most of the glitters are so big, I had to do a lot of dabbing.  And, while there are plenty of the red hearts in the bottle, I just could not get them onto the brush, let alone onto my nails!  It took me a few minutes just to fish out the one that I got on my pointer finger.  Like Snow and Mistletoe, I would personally like this best with two coats over a creme or metallic.

Macro at three coats.

Which one of these is your favorite?  And do you think the new camera quality stands up to my old one?  Please let me know in the comments!

P.S. I just have to say how much I adore CCNP's label.  Penguins are my favorite animal and these little guys are so precious!!