Halloween Nail Art! Bats Emerging!

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all enjoying the long weekend - I sure have been!
It has been a while since we had a full weekend of sunshine and with the extra day, we've definitely taken advantage of it. 

Now, I know I'm a little early on this one. I was going to post this design next week but, due to my bad organization skills, you get it this week! Lucky you! Ha ha.
I 'accidentally' purchased several Halloween stamping plates a few months ago, so I have a lot of potential design ideas floating around in my head. But, let's start with something nice and easy; a simple gradient with some stamping. 

Halloween Bats Emerging Nail Art

I used these polishes for this mani:
Matte Purple by BYS Cosmetics
Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen
Ready To Take Off by UNT Cosmetics
Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen
Big Matte Top Coat by Sally Hansen
Black Stamping Polish by Emily de Molly

I also used these tools:
Liquid Latex by LuLaa
Stamping Plate BPL-031
Stamping Plate Celebration BPX-L007
Clear stamper
Scraper
Mani Saver
Cotton wool with acetone
Cosmetic Sponge

Halloween Bats Emerging Nail Art with Mellow Yellow

I started with Ready To Take Off for the base (this is just quicker than cotton pads and acetone, as I will be repainting my nails for an event next week). Once that was dry, I applied two coats of Mellow Yellow. For some reason, the second coat was taking quite long to dry, so I ended up applying Kwik Dry Top Coat over it to help the process along. While that was drying, I painted liquid latex around each nail.
After allowing that to dry, I applied Mellow Yellow and Matte Purple horizontally onto a cosmetic sponge and began dabbing it over each nail. I moved the sponge up and down to get even coverage whilst creating a slight gradient, reapplying polish to the sponge as necessary. Once I was satisfied, I removed the liquid latex and then applied another coat of Kwik Dry Top Coat before reapplying the liquid latex to protect my skin from the stamping polish.
Next, I gathered my stamping tools. I applied Black Stamping Polish over the design I wanted on plate BPX-L007, scraped over it, picked up the image and pressed it onto the nail. Cleaning the plate between uses with my mani saver and a cotton ball, I also removed the liquid latex after each stamp. I used this stamp on my index and pinkie nails. These steps were repeated for my middle and ring nails, with a different image on plate BPL-031. After allowing time to dry, I applied Kwik Dry Top Coat to seal it all in and finished off with Big Matte Top Coat. 

Halloween Bats Emerging Nail Art with Matte Purple

I'm pretty happy with this design. I didn't want to do another orange Halloween design like last year, so I decided to do purple and yellow because I feel that's still pretty Halloween-y. Plus, they're opposing colours of the colour wheel so you know they'll go well together!
I was aiming for a sort of creepy sunset look, with the bats coming out for the night. 

What do you think?
Do you do Halloween nails?
Leave me a comment below!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Typical Halloween Nail Art

Howdy y'all!

With Halloween just days away, I thought I should probably join in with the spirit (ha ha, no pun intended) of things and do a typical Halloween nail art design. I am a big fan of all things creepy and dark, but dark colours tend to stain and I was just not ready for that kind of clean up. So, I chose something else I am hoping will be just as fitting. Keep reading to see what polishes and tools I used for my typical Halloween nail art. 

Typical Halloween Nail Art With Black Stamping Polish

I used these nail polishes:
Orange by OXX Cosmetic (K-mart brand)
Black Stamping Polish by Emily de Molly
Kwik Dry Top Coat by Sally Hansen

I also used these products:
Camo Coat by Celestial Cosmetics
Stamping plate Qgirl-002 by La Qin An
Stamping plate BP-122 by Born Pretty
Large clear stamper
Scraper
Mani Saver
Cotton Balls
Paper towel

Just a quick side story - I spent 15 minutes trying to find the actual name of this orange polish, only to learn that the name is not on the bottle but rather on the packaging which I obviously threw out. So, unfortunately I am unable to give you the name from the brand, however, after looking at others colours by OXX, they seem to keep polish names simple, so I think orange is a pretty accurate name to go by for the purpose of this post. 

Typical Halloween Nail Art with Orange

I started off with two coats of Orange for my base. I then applied Camo Coat around each nail for easier clean up and allowed to dry completely. Prior to stamping, I always place two pieces of paper towel slightly underneath the stamping plate. I do this for a number of reasons;
1. So that I don't get polish all over my desk.
2. I can use it to wipe off the scraper to avoid build up.
3. If I'm having trouble picking up a design, I roll my stamper on it to remove the failed images.
Using stamping plate Qgirl-002, I cover my chosen design with Black Stamping Polish. I then scraped off the excess and picked up the image with my stamper, quickly pressing it on to the nail, then lightly pressed my finger over the design to ensure the image transferred correctly. With the help of my mani saver, I dipped a cotton ball into some acetone and used it to clean off the stamping plate. This just makes sure any left over polish doesn't dry on the plate and cause issues if I want to reuse this design, which I did for two nails.
I continued each of these steps until I had a design on each nail. I also used images from stamping plate BP-122 on my ring finger and thumb (not pictured). I decided to use different images because there are quite a few to choose from and I thought it would be more fun to have something different as opposed to all nails being the same, which I feel I do a little too often. Lastly, I removed the Camo Coat and finished with a quick dry top coat. 

Typical Halloween Nail Art

I'm not normally a fan of orange, in fact I would say it is a colour that I hate, but I liked it for this particular design. It definitely reminds me of a giant pumpkin with a face carved into it, and of course pumpkins are a huge part of Halloween. Although I really have no idea why.. I'm assuming it's an American thing. If you know, please tell me!

So there you have it, my typical Halloween nail art. It's nothing too adventurous, but it's still cool and it gave me a chance to use this orange polish that I picked up simply because it was $1 and I wanted to try out this brand. Not at all complaining!

What do you think?
What are you dressing your nails up as for Halloween this year?
Leave me a comment below! 

Thanks for stopping by!