Halloween Day Manicure featuring OPI 'Today I Accomplished Zero'

My manicure for Halloween was OK, but I was a little disappointed with it overall. I left everything to the last minute this year, so I didn't have much time to do my nails after getting everything ready, and packing my Halloween treat bags for shelling out. As a result, I had to rush through this manicure:

The manicure is cute, but I didn't have the time to re-do any wonky stamping image transfers, and/or fix any stamping errors. I also would have really liked to find a way to add some 'Wow! factor'.

Polishes Used

Konad Special Polish - White

OPI 'Today I Accomplished Zero'

The featured polish in this manicure was OPI 'Today I Accomplished Zero' from the Summer 2014 'Coca Cola' collection. It's funny that I was able to use 2 different polishes from that collection for both of my Halloween manicures this year. Here's a link to my previous 'Sparkly Halloween Jack-o-Lantern Mani', featuring OPI's 'Orange You Fantastic!' from the same collection.

My favourite parts of the manicure were the adorable 'scary cute' images on the thumb nails. The ghost image is from Bunny Nails plate HD-C, and the mummy image if from Überchic Beauty plate Halloween-03.  The remaining images from the manicure were stamped from Überchic Beauty Plate Halloween-04. Here's a close up shot of my thumb nails:

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!!

Sparkly Halloween Jack-o-Lantern Mani

Today I have a Halloween Manicure to Share:

I really wanted to do a Jack-o-Lantern manicure, and at first, I thought I would use a typical creme orange polish, and an orange glitter.  However, as I was looking through my collection for the orange glitter, I came across a glittery metallic coppery-orange polish that I thought would look amazing with the orange metallic glitter polish. I decided to use the two polishes for more of a Glam-o-Lantern look!

Here are the polishes I used:

Polishes Used

Polishes Used

OPI 'A Woman's Prague-ative'

Bundle Monster 'Straight Up Black'

OPI 'Orange You Fantastic!'

The orange metallic foil polish, 'A Woman's Prague-ative' is from OPI's Euro Centrale Collection from Spring 2013. The orange glitter polish 'Orange You Fantastic' was from OPI's Summer 2014 Coca-Cola Collection. I really can't get over how nice they look paired together!

For this manicure, my thumb, middle and ring finger on both hands are painted with a layer of 'A Woman's Prague-ative', and then with 2 layers of the glitter polish. When looking at it in real life, the glittery combination would sparkle through the full nail jack-o-lantern images stamped in black over the middle and ring finger nails. Unfortunately, that doesn't quite translate in the picture, so I just thought I'd mention it.

Below, are rotated images of my thumbnails which provide a better view of the cute Jack-o-Lantern Faces I stamped from Moyou London's 'Festive Collection' - plate 29.

My 'Thumb-o-Lanterns'

The stamped image on my middle fingers was from Bunny Nails plate HD-C, and the stamped image on my ring fingers was from ÜberChic Beauty plate Halloween-03.

Stamping Plates Used

Moyou London Festive Collection - 29

ÜberChic Beauty 'Halloween-03'

Bunny Nails Plate HD-C

All in all, I absolutely love the way this manicure turned out. I normally try not to repeat manicures, but I could definitely see myself using this polish combination again to do another 'Glam-o-Lantern' manicure in the future!

Christmas 'Splotch' Test - Mini Post

I was thinking about doing a two-colour irregular splotch mani, similar to my 'Verdigris Mani' from a couple months ago, but this time in Christmas colours. I decided to do a test nail, to see if the look would work or not.  Here is the result:

Christmas Colour 'Splotch' Test

For this test, I used Wet n Wild Fast Dry 'Sage in the City', and Revlon 'Bewitching'. The plate I used was Bunny Nails plate HD-C.

Polishes Used

Although I like the effect, I'm not quite sure that it really reads 'Christmas'. I've decided not to do this as a full manicure, but I just wanted to do a quick post to share the results.

Verdigris Mani

Today’s manicure was inspired by ‘rusting’ copper. If you've ever found an old penny that had been exposed to a winter’s worth of melted snow and rock salt, perhaps on the ground or on the floor of a car, you may have noticed the pretty shade of light blue-green patina that forms on its surface.  This is called verdigris, and it’s one of nature’s more beautiful forms of destruction! I've always loved the combination of copper and light blue because of this phenomenon.  Here’s the manicure I created based on it:

Verdigris Manicure

To create this look, I used Revlon Brilliant Strength in ‘Captivate’ as the copper base coat, Color Club ‘Blue-Ming’ as the verdigris, and Konad Special Polish in White as an accent. To create the ‘splotch’ effect on my nails, I used a full nail image from Bunny Nails' (Halloween-themed) plate HD-C, and the crest on my ring finger was done with a decal image from Messy Mansion plate MM18, ‘Shabby Chic’.

Polishes Used:
Revlon 'Captivate' and Color Club 'Blue-Ming'

This is my favourite verdigris manicure to date. Around 3 years ago, I tried to do a similar mani using China Glaze’s Crackle Glaze in ‘Crushed Candy’, a blue crackle polish, and Zoya’s ‘Penny’. I actually went back and found the picture to do a comparison.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I took a picture while it was fresh, so the one I found has major chipping and wear. Also, this was well before I had started stamping, and learned very many nail art techniques. 

Verdigris Manicure Comparison: Original vs Current Versions

Back then, I remember being thrilled about the manicure, which is why I wore it so long, and took a picture! Over the years, I've always remembered it as one of my favourite looks from the past.  I’m so happy to be able to improve upon it with some of the techniques I've learned over the last few years (but mainly in the last 10 months or so since I started stamping).  Who knows, as I continue practicing and picking up more skills and techniques, maybe I’ll have to revisit this mani in a few years time to showcase even more improvements! 

Halloween Themed Test Mani

Today, I have a test mani to share.  There are a lot of really great Halloween collections and plates out right now, so most of my latest purchases have a bit of a Halloween theme.

I was wearing my Red and Black Tree Mani from my last post, and decided to do some test stamps over it using my newly purchased Bunny Nails plate, HD - C.

The stamping colours I used were Konad special polish in black and white, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in 'Silver Sweep'. The base colour is China Glaze's 'I Love Your Guts' from their Halloween 2014 collection, and I tested a bit of a glitter polish I just bought from Sinful Colors' 2014 Halloween Collection called 'Cauldron Couture' (it's on my right middle finger). The tree image was from my previous mani, and was stamped using Bunny Nails plate BuNa-A.

Halloween Themed Test Mani -  Right

Halloween Themed Test Mani -  Left

I really love this plate! There's such a great mix of amazing images that I feel may have to do a week's worth of Halloween manicures this year, instead of just one!

Red and Black Tree Mani

Today's mani was a quick and easy. I had been wearing my previous manicure (Black Jelly and Gold Mani) for 5 straight days, and even though I could have kept it going for one more day, I needed a change. I slapped on a new polish I had just bought the previous day, right over the old mani, and then did some quick stamping on my ring fingers and thumbs.

Red and Black Tree Mani

The base colour I used for this manicure was 'I Love Your Guts' from China Glaze's 2014 Halloween collection. I used a top coat over it here, but it actually dries to a matte, slightly textured finish. I stamped the tree image from Bunny Nails' plate BuNa-A, using Konad special polish in Black.

Hurray for impromptu manis!