40 Nail Art Ideas – Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! Today I've got a fun skittle look I've been rocking all week and boy do I just love how happy and fun this look is!



I went on Pinterest and picked my favorite of all the Halloween mani tutorials out there and combined them to create this look, with holo bases of course (holo ALL the things).



So I freehanded most of this, except for the witch stamp and jack-o-lantern face, both were from Winstonia W116 plate and stamped using my favorite black stamping polish B Polished Midnight in Death Valley. In fact all the black in this mani, including the freehand, is with this awesome polish. And an extra note for you, B Polished is having a sale right now, check out my last post for details.



So for the bases I used a bunch of fun holo polishes which I'll tell you about here. The thumb is a base of Smitten Polish Cauldron Bubble, with the moon freehanded with Literary Lacquers Curious Yellow*. The index finger base is Smitten Polish Oh the Hue-Manatee* and white stripes are freehand with KBShimmer Eyes White Open, the eyes are Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Universal Loner. The middle finger is a base of Smitten Polish Poach-Busters* (LE this month, so grab it while you can!). The ring finger is a base of Elevation Polish Aconcagua. The pinky finger is a base of ILNP Paper Route, a lovely almost white holo, perfect for the skull.

*denotes press samples





I really loved these nails, they were just different enough for me not to get bored and rock all week long! This is the most effort I put into Halloween this year for sure. We have a potluck at work today and I tried a Pinterest recipe that I think I kind of failed at but oh well. Oh and I had to show you the right hand attempt at this mani, just to keep it real and show you that not all nail art is easy. My freehand still has a long way to go!



So what are you doing for Halloween? We are headed to a coworker's house for the holiday, she lives in this wealthy enclave of town that is like THE place for Halloween. So we are going to bask in the fun, see the decorations and help pass out candy to 800 plus trick-or-treaters! Should be fun! Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend!

Oh and don't forget to check out the other ladies of Crumpet's Nail Challenge, listed here in the inlinkz below. I'm sure they've come up with some truly creative and fun Halloween nails to browse!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

40 Nail Art Ideas – Orange, Purple & Green

Happy Friday everyone, time for my weekly Crumpet's Nail Tart's challenge. This week we bring you Orange, Purple & Green nails, perfect for the upcoming Halloween season.



In addition to this color prompt I had the challenge of geometric nails, so let's see the results shall we?



This look was pretty involved and time consuming, but I'm super pleased with the final result. The glitters are all Smitten Polish microglitters – Orange You Glad It's Pun-kin Season?*, Poach Busters* (green) and Out of the Darkness (purple).

* press samples



Now the base of this look is an amazing new one-coat-perfect-for-nail-stamping black B Polished Midnight in Death Valley. This polish applied perfectly in one coat, no streaks and dried super quickly!

Now on to how I created this look.



First step was to take the microglitters and paint the non-sticky side of scotch tape. Then I cut up tiny triangles and stuck them to the back of my hand (see below).



Lessons learned from this whole mess, the stickum gets lost being stuck on my hand and the tiny triangles start to lift. When applying them to the black layer, I should have put a top coat on top to give the triangles a sticky base (might have helped with the lifting edges as you can see better in the next shot).



So overall, I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out, but I'm sad the triangles started to lift and the look was as textured as it was. But oh well, you live you learn, and hopefully all you will learn from my mistakes. I think this is definitely a look I will try for again!

I'm off to go apple picking and pumpkin picking this week at Apple Hill, can't wait! It's so very fall! Hope you all have fun adventures ahead and don't forget to check out all the other awesome orange, purple and green looks at the inlinkz below!

    An InLinkz Link-up
 

Smitten Polish What A Punny Autumn Review

Hey everyone, today I have six polishes to share with you from Smitten Polish's Fall 2015 Collection: What a Punny Autumn and two new charity polishes!

*Press Samples*

Smitten Polish has some awesomeness in store with this collection! It's full of holo and microglitter and just sparkle amazingness! The collection is releasing tomorow (Sept. 30) at 11 p.m. CT along with a limited edition duo benefiting the Black Mamba Anti Poaching Unit (more on that in a minute).

First polish I have to share with you today is Smitten Polish Can You BeLeaf These Puns and it is a stunning brown jelly polish filled with brown and silver holo microglitter. Now being that it is a microglitter polish, it is a bit top coat hungry. I recommend one coat of regular top coat (not quick dry) and then a quick dry top coat to smooth them out! Though this is a jelly base, it applied perfectly in two coats for opacity. 

Next we have Smitten Polish Orange You Glad it's Pun-kin Season, which is a gorgeous orange jelly polish filled with orange and silver microglitter. This too only required two coats for opacity, formula was easy to work with. Microglitter finish requires the double top coat method I mentioned earlier. I just love the jelly/microglitter combo and Noelie really has perfected these polishes. They have so much depth and sparkly to them, so lovely!

I also compared this to last year's Halloween release Fire Burn so you could see the difference between the two. Orange You Glad (left) seems to be warmer leaning, with more red in it while Fire Burn has more yellow/gold tone to it. Also, I think Fire Burn does not have any colored microglittler, which makes it more metallic looking. 

This next polish had me gasp when I put it on, this is Smitten Polish Something Wicked This Way Plums. This is a gorgeous plum colored holo polish with scattered micro glitter and the formula on this was AMAZING. This is a one coater people. A ONE COATER! So amazing and easy to work with and the linear holo with the scattered microglitter is just so absolutely lovely!

This is Smitten Polish Oh the Hue-Manatee and I just LOVE this name. Back when I was in grade school and I had to write an endangered species report, my animal was the manatee, they still hold a special place in my heart! Oh the Hue-Manatee is a charcol grey linear holo polish with scattered microglitter. To me it seems like this has just a bit more microglitter than Plum does. And just look at this polish, I don't have anything like it in my collection, it just stunning. 

Now let's get to the awesome charity polishes releasing tomorrow as well! These polishes are benefiting a great cause and Noelie is a saint for using her talents to do good in the world. Let's see what she has to say about the cause:

Black Mamba and Poach-Busters, a pair of charity polishes to benefit the Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit. Black Mamba APU was founded in 2013, and is the first anti-poaching unit of its kind, since the majority of the teams are women. Black Mamba APU focuses not only on the physical prevention of poaching, but also on environmental education within their communities, as well as a social upliftment program that aims to address unemployment and skills development within South Africa.

The Black Mamba APU was the recipient of the UN's Champions of the Earth Award in 2015. For more information on this groundbreaking organization, please visit www.blackmambas.org. Black Mamba and Poach-Busters will be available throughout October, and $3 from every bottle sold of each of these polishes will be donated to the Black Mamba APU.

First up is Smitten Polish Black Mamba. This is a gorgeous black jelly polish filled with linear holo pigment and two sizes of holo microglitter. This polish is amazing, it's not just your regular black holo and it goes toward a great cause. This polish was also opaque in two thin coats and the formula was super easy to work with. Just as I've come to expect from Smitten. 

And last but not least is Smitten Polish Poach-Busters. Similar to Black Mamba, this polish is a light grassy green jelly polish filled with linear holo pigment and two sizes of holo microglitter. I really loved the finish of these two polishes, all the microglittlers and holo finish give the polish such great depth! Opaque in two coats, this polish was also a breeze to apply. 

So once again, these polishes go on sale tomorrow at 11 p.m. CT at the Smitten Polish website. 

Which will you be purchasing?! It's so hard to choose, I love them all. But I do have to say Plum is a stand out for me, not just because of the formula but also because of the depth. Oh the Hue-Manatee is also a stunner, I don't have anything like it!