Día de los Muertos

Cara's Nails

November 1st and 2nd are the celebration of The Day of The Dead. I am in love with the imagery of this holiday. The bright colors, sugar skulls, marigolds, and butterflies are just so amazing!!In celebration I have this Dia de los Muertos manicure showing off my favorite symbols of this holiday. 

The marigold bases are China Glaze's Happy Go Lucky. The red marigold is China Glaze's Salsa and the orange marigold and monarch butterfly is Ulta Professional's Sun of a Gun (my most favorite fall orange). 

It's a Monster Mash!!

Cara's Nails

Happy Halloween everybody! I had all these great ideas for Halloween nails that I was so excited about! Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy decided to mess with my plans and leave me without electricity for a few days. And painting your nails by candle light is just not a smart idea. So as a result, I decided to mix all my monster ideas into this Monster Mash. Enjoy!

All the white is White On by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. The mummy base coat is Essie's Master Plan. The Frankenstein face is Ulta's The Jungle Look and all the black details are Wet n' Wild's Ebony Hates Chris.

Happy Halloween!!

Kate's Nails 

Here on the east coast we've been dealing with Hurricane Sandy for the past few days, so I haven't been doing as many Halloween manicures as I would have liked!  I made sure I had some done for today, though!  The base of the drip nails was done in Wet N Wild's Rest in Pieces, which is black with a subtle purple glitter.  The drips are Sally Hansen's Lickety-Split Lime.  The pumpkin nail uses Sally Hansen's Sun Kissed and Going Green, as well as Liquid Leather by China Glaze.  

I hope everyone has a happy Halloween!!

Stormy Skies

Cara's Nails

What is a girl to do while waiting around for "frankenstorm" Sandy to hit? Why she creates a manicure to commemorate the occasion of course!! I was inspired by the dark clouds looming over head as we all wait for Hurricane Sandy to hit. 

I sponged layers of Wet n' Wild Eboni Hates Chris, Ulta Professionals Concrete Evidence, Zoya Kelly, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On over a base coat of Butter London Blagger. The hurricane accent nail is White On over a coat of Blagger.

 Hoping for everyone to have a safe couple of days while we wait out this 

frankenstorm !!!

Spider Webs

Cara's nails

Halloween is right around the corner and I realized I have yet to do a true Halloween manicure! I have been seeing a lot of of spider web manicures and I thought I'd try one out. I created the spider webs using Wet n' Wild Fast Dry Eboni Hates Chris as a base coat.Using a white nail paint, I streaked white lines over a thick coat of the black. I used the drag marbling technique to create the spiderweb pattern. The accent nail is a nameless thick orange glitter. I found this glitter in a pack with other great glitters at Rite Aid for super cheap.These came out a little messier than I pictured in my head. But for a first try I think it isn't half bad. 

Keep checking back for more Halloween inspired nail art from me and Kate!!

By the power of Greyskull!!

You know... because my nails are grey.. with a skull on them.. He-man? Anyone?

 

In continuing with Halloween nails, I wanted to use some of the great Halloween stamping plates I have.  The skull is from Bundle Monster's plate BM-211.  The grey is Ulta's Concrete Evidence, and the black and silver flakes are Ninja Vs. Pirate by Nail Pattern Boldness. 

 

 



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!!