If you’re looking for some not-too-challenging (except for maybe the water marbles) nail art ideas for Halloween, here’s a round-up of some posts I did for a nail art challenge a few years back. Happy Halloween!!
Ghosts, Goblins And Jack-O’-Lanterns
Happy Halloween (again)! This is my second post of the day because I need to finish out the last day of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. Day 10’s prompt is a general one, it just has to be inspired by Halloween.
I saw these really cute Halloween-themed Hello Kitty water decals on eBay and had to have them. I bought them from RLR Creations. I actually had originally ordered some witch ones that I was going to use for the Day 8 Witch theme, but Rachel accidentally sent these instead. But she was very quick to rectify the situation by offering me a free set, so keep an eye out for a pilgrim-themed manicure around Thanksgiving!
Note that anything that looks white on the decal is actually clear, so if you want Kitty’s face to be white, you have to use white polish underneath. Rachel recommends using a light color underneath but says darker ones will work too.
I started with one coat of Ulta Snow White, a basic white creme, and then I added one coat of A-England Morgan Le Fay, which is a super-shimmery sheer top coat.
To use the decals, you cut them out, soak them in water for 15 seconds, separate the backing from the decal and place the decal on your nail. Slide it into position, let it set for about a minute or so and then add top coat. I used one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat, but they do feel a little bit bumpy so next time I will try one coat of Gelous first.
There are tons of water decals for nail art available on EBay and Etsy, so check them out if you’re interested. You also can buy water decal paper on EBay and print your own, but I haven’t tried that myself yet.
If you have, let me know how it went!
Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!
Happy Halloween!,Here I am with my Day 9 post for the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. (I’ll have the last post of the challenge up later today). The theme for Day 9 is pumpkins, and I just went with a cute, simple design.
I started with four coats of Megan Miller Lemon Ice, a very pale yellow creme, followed by one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.
For the pumpkins, I used Zoya Jancyn, a bright orange creme. To make the pumpkins, I used the round end of a wooden skewer because I didn’t have a large enough dotting tool. I placed two dots so that they slightly overlapped.
For the stem and vines, I used green It’s So Easy Stripe Rite striper polish. I used a small dotting tool to add a little bit of black (Orly Liquid Vinyl) to the vines to give a little shading.
Then I added some shading to the pumpkin using a small dotting tool. I mixed a bit of Zoya Jancyn with NYC French White Tip (a white creme) to create a lighter orange. I finished it off with a coat of Poshe.
Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!
I took a few liberties with Day 8 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails. The theme is witches, but instead of doing a green face or a pointed hat (many have already done those way better than I could), I wanted to try to portray a different aspect of witches: magic.
My thinking was something swirly and purple with some stars, so here’s what I came up with: water marble with fimo stars.
I started with three coats of A-England Morgan Le Fay as the base, which is a super shimmery white. I was planning to use it in the water marble, but as soon as I started I remembered that this polish is no good for water marbles. It just doesn’t spread out over the water well. Oh well.
For the water marble, I used three polishes: Essie Sexy Divide (deep shimmery purple), Orly Rage (rose gold metallic) and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark (vampy near-black burgundy creme).
I found this video tutorial on how to do a swirl water marble. As usual with water marbling, it always turns out to be much harder than it looks. I couldn’t quite get the swirl effect I was going for, but I still like the way it came out.
The fimo stars are from a recent EBay spree. I used regular top coat to glue them on and seal them, and then a coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat over the whole nail.
This nail is the one that came the closest to what I wanted in terms of the swirl effect.
Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!
Today’s theme for Day 7 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails is spiders.There are 10 themes for the challenge, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.
I found this super-cute spiderweb funky french manicure from Kayla Shevonne that I liked a lot, but since I just did Frankenstein french tips for yesterday’s prompt, I switched it up a bit for this one by doing a gradient instead.
I started with three coats of Sinful Colors Lets Meet, which is pretty much a shimmery Tweety Bird yellow. I followed that with one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat.
Then I applied Sinful Colors Lets Meet and China Glaze Riveting (beautiful shimmery orange) directly to a makeup sponge and dabbed that on my nails. I did it at least twice on each nail to get the orange as dark as I wanted. I followed that with one coat of Poshe.
For the spiderweb and spider legs, I drew on my nail using a Kiss Nail Artist pen. The spider body is a large dot of Orly Liquid Vinyl. The eyes are smaller dots of NYC French White Tip and Orly Liquid Vinyl again. Topped that nail off with one final coat of Poshe.
Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!
Day 6 of the Nail-aween Nail Art Challenge from datyorkLOVES/SassyNails brings me to Frankenstein. There are 10 themes, and I have to complete all of them by the end of October, but other than that, it’s self-paced.
I looked around the Interwebs for ideas and saw lots of really cute Frankenstein faces that I liked a lot. But I wanted to try to contribute something a little different to the conversation. I really liked this patchwork manicure that Fancy Schmancy Nails did for the Nail-aween challenge, and my original thought was to do something similar but only using shades of green. The idea of morphing it into Frankenstein French tips came to me after that. I searched around a bit and didn’t find anything that looked like this, but let me know if you find it elsewhere.
For the base color, I used three coats of Color Club Tweet Me, a chartreuse creme (not the greatest formula, as I discovered doing this retro wallpaper nail art). I added one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat, and then taped off the tips and added a thick coat of Sinful Colors Exotic Green. I added another coat of Poshe, and then used a Kiss Nail Artist pen to draw the stitches.
Simple Halloween nail art, but I was happy with the way they turned out.
Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!
I tried very hard to make it through this season without buying any indie Halloween-themed polishes, but the swatches I’ve seen of KBShimmer Witch Way? have made it impossible to ignore.
I finally broke down and bought it, and here it is. Amazing. Beautiful. So happy to have it.
KBShimmer Witch Way? is a dark purple jelly base loaded with holographic small hex and silver micro glitter. It’s just really vampy and fun.
These pictures are of three coats, plus one coat of Poshe fast-dry top coat. It went on easily. The first coat was a little patchy and the second wasn’t quite enough for opacity on every nail, but the third evened everything out.
I didn’t wait for it to completely dry before adding Poshe, but it seemed to dry with an almost sticky or tacky look to it, not matte or satin by any means, but something just shy of full gloss, so I definitely wanted the top coat. With that, it’s perfect.
KBShimmer Witch Way? is currently available at KBShimmer.com.
What Halloween-themed polishes could you not live without?
Polish Groupie 