Post Halloween & OPI Goldeneye

Hi guys! Today I'm showing you my Halloween nails. I meant to post this yesterday but I was ridiculously tired and fell asleep really early! Oh well. Instead of doing more nail art for Halloween itself, I wore a polish to match my costume. I dressed as Clio, the Muse of History, because I am a nerd and history and Greek mythology really interest me. I wore a white Grecian dress and everything else was gold - lips, eyes, nails, jewellery, etc. I think I looked pretty good, if I do say so myself!

The exact nail polish I wore was OPI Goldeneye from the recent Skyfall collection. I absolutely love this polish - definitely one of my favourites of the year. It's a stunning yellow gold colour that seems to be comprised of tiny gold flakes. The first coat was very sheer and I could feel my heart sinking, but by the third coat it was opaque and I was smitten.

I love it so much that I've worn it for four days and will probably wear it even longer. I honestly can't remember the last time I wore the same nail polish for that long!

My Halloween night was brilliant. Three of my best friends came round and we decorated the Halloween-shaped sugar cookies I'd made (you are never too old to do things like this). We then ate too much food and played on Just Dance 4. I even had some trick-or-treaters, which was fun because they were all under the age of about eight and accompanied by their parents. They looked so cute in their costumes! Here are a couple of photos from the night:

My vampire pumpkin

I bought some fingerpuppets which we constructed. This is my friend Becca's Dracula puppet trying to eat her cookies!

The (blurry!) Halloween design I did for my friend Hayley. Two coats of China Glaze I'm With the Lifeguard, one of a random glow-in-the-dark polish and one of Nails Inc Camden crackle - it's meant to look like radioactive waste or something

What did you do for Halloween this year? Is it something you get really into or are you not fussed?

Halloween Bats

Happy (almost) Halloween! I've had a busy day today. After work I came home and baked sugar cookies in the shape of bats, pumpkins, ghosts and witches for my friends to decorate tomorrow. I then carved my pumpkin, which was a lot easier than I thought it would be (I've only carved a pumpkin once before, back when I was about sixteen). I went for a vampire face and it looks really cool.

Anyway, for my final Halloween design I decided to attempt stamping again and settled on bat design from one of the Bundle Monster plates. I love bats. We have pipistrelles in our garden and I love watching them swoop around in the evening - which is where my inspiration for this manicure came from. I started with two coats of Barry M Matt White before using LA Colors Shock (yellow), Barry M Block Orange (um...hopefully self-explanatory) and OPI Strawberry Margarita (pink) to create a sunset gradient. It's only the second time I've done a gradient (the first is here) and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Finally, I stamped the bats on using Nails Inc Black Taxi.

The smaller of the two bats didn't transfer very well. The larger one was fine so I think it might be the plate rather than my own ineptitude. I tried to fix it with a brush but ended up making the higher bat on my little finger look really bloated! Oops.

Halloween Spider Webs

When I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago (I can't believe it was that long ago already!) I went on a mission to find some Essence polishes. I thought they'd just be sold in chemists like nail polish is here, but apparently not. After some Googling I found a shop on Calle de Fuencarral called Beautik. It turned out to be a great place - not only did they sell Essence, they also stocked Catrice, Konad, two Layla ranges, and a few other brands. I was quite restrained and limited myself to one Catrice, a Konad plate, and four Essence colours, one of which I'm showing you today.

I really like grey polish at the moment, so Essence I'm the Boss is right up my alley. It's a medium to dark grey polish with sparse-ish silver glitter. It's really pretty and was opaque in two easy coats. To make it Halloween-y I stamped spider webs using a Bundle Monster plate and Barry M Silver Foil. I'm still working on my stamping skills so the image didn't transfer perfectly, but I think it adds to the effect rather than detracting from it (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Finally, I used Nails Inc Black Taxi and some striping tape to make black French tips.

I went to Waitrose today and they had a section dedicated to Halloween food and decorations. I bought a bunch of it. Apparently if something is coloured orange and black at this time of year, I will buy it. All of it. People don't really trick or treat where I live but I bought some spooky chocolate just in case - and if we don't get anyone, oh well, more for me!

Halloween Mummies

Hi, quick post today because I'm really busy. I've literally just finished watching the latest episode of Downton Abbey, I can't believe it's the series finale next week? What will I do with my Sunday nights once it's gone?!

Today I'm showing you a Halloween mummy design I did a couple of days ago. I followed a tutorial by Kayla Shevonne, although hers turned out a lot more mummy-like than mine! I asked a few people what they thought the design was and no one got it right - my mum thought they were supposed to be gladiator sandals with eyes. WTF? Let's see what you think!

I started with a base of Barry M Matt White before sponging on OPI San Tan-tonio to make it look dirty. I then used my trusty Models Own black nail art pen for the bandages. The lines aren't as opaque as I'd like, but oh well.

What are you up to for Halloween this year? I'm having a few friends over - I'm baking Halloween-shaped sugar cookies in advance for my friends to decorate on the night. Because we're cool like that. I have an awesome costume idea that I'm really excited about, but I'll keep schtum about it until the actual day. :)

China Glaze Immortal & Glitter Goblin

Oops, I didn't mean to not post for five days but I've been so busy this week that all the days have sort of blurred together. I had a training day yesterday on how to manage pests (insects/rodents) in historic houses, which probably sounds really dull but is actually fascinating. It turns out I knew most of it already so I didn't really learn much, but oh well.

Today I'm showing you the two polishes I bought from China Glaze's Wicked collection for Halloween, Immortal and Glitter Goblin. I actually passed on the blurple colour, can you believe that? It just didn't seem that unique. Immortal, however, is pretty interesting - a medium grey with turquoise and fuchsia shimmer. I'm going through a grey phase at the moment, so I had to have it. Glitter Goblin isn't as cool as I'd thought it would be from promo shots: orange and silver glitter in a clear base. I was expecting awesomeness; I got blah. Anyway, I decided to wear both polishes together, with Glitter Goblin as the accent nail.

You can see that now the weather is dark and rainy and rubbish I am in desperate need of a lightbox. I had to take these photos in the bathroom under the light there, because it's the brightest in the house! Does anyone have any tips for making a DIY lightbox?

Lastly, I decided a while ago that when I got to 30 followers I was going to do a giveaway - I'm only one away now! Come on, let's get me to 30! :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I don't know about you, but my evening has been spent watching Fred Astaire films (NOT horror movies) and praying no trick-or-treaters come to the door, which fortunately they haven't. My manicure today isn't overtly Halloweeny, but I rather like it anyway.

I saw a tutorial the other day for a shredded funky French mani, and I decided to try my hand at it. I didn't have the patience to do it on every nail so it was only on my thumbs and ring fingers; my other nails had the standard French design on them.

After applying a base coat I did two coats of Nails Inc Augustus Street, which is a grey suede-effect colour that was part of their Texture Collection from earlier this year. I paired this with two coats of Illamasqua Vice, a rubber-look deep cerise. I'm not a huge matte fan as a rule, but I thought the difference in texture between the suede and the rubber would look pretty cool. The normal French was done freehand, while I cut a jagged pattern out of Scotch tape for the other nails.

It's definitely not perfect - especially as I couldn't use a top coat to seal and smooth it - but for my first attempt at a shredded mani, I don't think it's too bad. I really like the contrast in textures, it creates a bit more interest.

A Simple Halloween Manicure

I'm pretty rubbish at doing facy nail art, so I was ridiculously excited at the beginning of this year when the crackle trend really took off. It's such an easy way of making your nails look a bit different without actually having to do any tricky designs. The first crackle polish I bought was the black Nails Inc Camden, and yesterday I decided to use it to make a very simple Halloween manicure that anyone can replicate.

I started off with a base coat and then did two coats of Barry M Block Orange. I've been a huge fan of Barry M nail polishes for years - they come in a wide range of colours and are actually very good quality given how inexpensive they are (£2.99 usually). I then did a coat of Nails Inc Camden and waited for it to dry thoroughly. I was going to use a standard top coat but changed my mind and used GOSH Matte Dry top coat instead to make it a bit different.

Usually I'm on the fence when it comes to matte nail polish, but I rather like how this turned out. I was going for just the standard orange/black Halloween colours, but I think it looks a bit like glowing lava oozing from a volcano, with the black crust forming on top as it dries (or is that just my overactive imagination...?). A surprising number of stangers told me they liked it today, so it's a win as far as I'm concerned!

Accessorize Halloween Haul

I was in Accessorize at the weekend and zeroed in on their Halloween section. Accessorize always do such lovely things - whether it's jewellery, bags, or make-up - that I was interested to see what they had. Aside from the usual fare like skull earrings, they also had a couple of things that caught my attention...and ended up going home with me!

There's nothing really new about black nail polish or black lipstick, but it was only a fiver for the set and I wanted to see if they were any good. The nail polish isn't the best - it's a bit gloopy, which is a problem that lots of black nail polishes suffer from. I really liked the lipstick though. You know how sometimes you buy a dark-coloured lipstick but when you actually put it on, it's quite sheer? This is not like that. This is black. Really, really BLACK. It's absolutely perfect for Halloween.

I was really into temporary tattoos (and then a real tattoo!) when I was younger, so these bat body stickers reminded me a bit of that. Plus, they're sparkly. You can't go wrong with anything sparkly.

Finally, I bought some adorable bat nail transfers. They were a bit on the pricey side (£2.50) considering you only get enough for one for each finger, but they're so cute that I couldn't resist. I wasn't sure what I was going to go as for Halloween, but given all the bat-related things it looks like I'm going as a vampire bat!