Nighttime Forest Nails (and tutorial!)

Kate's Nails

I'm a little behind on starting with the Halloween nails! I've seen a lot of great designs this year, but I didn't quite know where to start.  I didn't want to start with a typical pumpkin, ghost, or spider manicure.  Then I came up with this idea.  It's not a typical Halloween design, but I really like it none the less!

 

 

And, because it's Saturday, and I don't feel like cleaning and doing errands, I decided to do a photo tutorial for these nails.  Enjoy!

These are the polishes I used.  I'll give the names when I use them in the steps, but here are the general list of what you need:

Base coat, top coat, black, yellow, orange, blue, purple, navy, a makeup sponge

 

First, paint a thin coat of yellow on the nails that your trees will be on.  This yellow coat doesn't have to be even or pretty, since it's going to be almost entirely covered up.  I used Ulta's Sun-Sational

 

On the nail where your moon will be, paint two coats of your navy polish.  I used Natty by Zoya.

 

With your orange polish (I used Big Daddy by Sinful Colors), sponge a line across your nail.  Leave the tip un-colored.

 

With your blue, sponge a line just above the orange.  I used Pacific Blue from Sally Hansen for this step. 

 

I then sponged Grape Going! by Sally Hansen over the entire nail.  This purple/blue duochrome color is very thin, so it's not too noticeable, but added a nice dimension to the colors. 

 

While those colors are drying, paint on your moon.  I used two coats, but made sure it was not opaque in some places so that it had more depth to it.

 

Then, use your navy blue polish to sponge on a pretty thick coat on the rest of the nail.  I ended up having to do this twice to get good coverage. 

 

Your nails will be a sloppy mess at this point, but that's ok!  Use your black polish (China Glaze's Liquid Leather ) to paint a bird flying across the moon.

 

Then paint the ground across the tip of the other nails.

 

 

Paint on the trunks of all your trees.  Have them be all different heights.

 

Then paint branches on all your trees.  Make them different shapes and sizes.

 

Clean up your nails with some acetone and an angled brush.  Apply top coat and you're all done!  I ended up using a matte top coat on these, and really like the results.  If you end up trying this design, send us a picture!!