Halloween nail art using Born Pretty Store decals and Lilypad Lacquer's polish from the Holo-ween What's In-die Box

More nail art using polishes from the 2014 October What's In-die Box? holo-ween box. I also used some Halloween nail decals from Born Pretty Store, which were sent to me for review.

(I put them back in the package back-to-front and only realised when I looked at my photos later - oops!)

I love the decals - they're super cute while also having a little Halloween spookiness. You can't see very well in this picture, but the decals are actually multiple colours: black, orange, white, grey and yellow. They really pop on your nails. They're very easy to use (just soak in water until they come away from the backing paper, and then apply to your nails), and they're nice and durable.

You get 20 images, enough for two manicures, which is great! The only downside is that the designs are printed twice - one as a mirror of the other- and for this design, which has some text, you wind up with some mirror text. However if that bothers you, the decals on Born Pretty Store are cheap enough that only doing one manicure with them would be fine, and you could use the remaining decals for accent nails, or combine them with some stamping or other techniques. I just put the mirror image on my thumb and no-one noticed. :D

Reversed writing! Plus my beaten-up tweezers and clean-up brush make a guest appearance.

The only other downside with these decals is that I can't find them on the site at all - I think they may be sold out? So I'm afraid you can't actually buy them! On the other hand, the shipping times from Born Pretty Store mean that you probably wouldn't get them in time for Halloween anyway, unless you paid for express shipping. But there are many other decals which you can get from Born Pretty.

You can also use my coupon code if you place an order (although I believe coupons have been disabled at the moment, due to their big 4th Anniversary Sale) and get 10% off.

Okay, now for the manicure behind the cut!

Peita's Polish from What's In-Die Box October 2014 - Holo-ween

Holo-ween! I love puns, and I love holos, so I knew I had to buy the all-holo What's In-Die Box for October. And what a set of polishes! <3 Because the box only just came out, I've put all pictures of the actual polish under a jump cut.

But first! I recently also received some free products from Born Pretty Store in return for a review, and will be doing a series of manicures using these products and the polishes from the Holo-ween What's In-Die Box. I'm pretty excited for what I have planned! As part of my review, I also got a discount code to share - use code SNBQ10 for 10% off.

For this manicure I used some black and clear/silver rhinestones, which came as part of a two-pack - one box of black and clear/silver rhinestones, and one box of multicoloured rhinestones. They're a great size for nail art, you get a good amount of rhinestones, and I quite like the box - easier to use than a nail wheel, since the compartments snap down and there's no danger of mis-aligning the opening.

The other thing I love is that the box comes with a wax pencil for applying the rhinestones with. IT IS AMAZING. It was such a snap to apply the rhinestones using the wax pencil! A couple of minutes was all it took to do each hand. I got mine bundled with the rhinestones, but you can also buy two wax pencils on their own, (It's called the "Easily Picking Up Rhinestone Picker Wax Pen" on the site, which seems a fair summary of what it's for.)

And now, the manicure! Under a cut to avoid spoilers.

Gradient stars

I really wanted to try my hand (so to speak) at another gradient - really pleased with how it turned out! I did multiple coats of the gradient, sponging it three times, and got a much better result.

For this look, I made a gradient using OPI's I Just Can't Copa-cobana, Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot, and Butter London's Pillar Box Red.

I then did some stamping using Lily Allen plate 07, which I'd used in the 31 Day Challenge and loved.

Here's a shot of the gradient - a bit rough without any topcoat:


 And finally, a bonus shot of where I went on holiday this weekend! :) Such lovely weather.

DIY water nail decals for the Pittsburgh Penguins - the NHL season begins!

The National Hockey League (which is made up of Canadian and American teams... just go with it) starts up again this week, so I did my nails to celebrate the return of my NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I painted my nails white and then applied some nail decals which I made myself by printing onto special water decal paper. I bought the paper off eBay but you may be able to find some in craft or hobby shops.

Even being careful with the application of my topcoat, they still smeared a little. Still, they're a great way of doing small intricate designs, like sports team logos, that you don't have a stamp for and can't freehand that detailed.

31 Day Challenge, Day 3 - Yellow

Day 3! This wraps up the 31 Day Challenge for me, having now gone back and completely every day. I did each challenge on each day. It was tiring but also quite rewarding, and I certainly met my two goals of improving as a blogger and as a nail artist, and interacting more with other nail bloggers.

I've also decided to get an instagram, so you can now find me on instagram here. Same name! :D

For today's manicure. I was inspired by the "song" prompt from earlier (later?) in the challenge, so today's nails are brought to you by the song "Banana Phone".

 

So catchy! I'm a big ice hockey fan, and when I watch streamed games from the Melbourne Ice, they play this in the intermission. (I'm a fan of the CBR Brave though! And in the NHL, the Pittsburgh Penguins - their first game of the season is on the 8th and I'm pretty excited for it.)

I started by painting my nails with BYS' Sunshine. I wanted to use a different yellow to usual, to mix things up... but I remembered why I don't often use different yellows! This is five coats. I then stamped using Cheeky plates CH42 and CH53. I like the effect, and it's quite eye-catching - three people asked to get a better look at them this afternoon.

And that's a wrap!

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge, Day 2 - Orange

The penultimate day! Exciting. I did some stamping over black with my new mundo de uñas orange polish (!!), using plate Bundle Monster BM-403. I've avoided using this plate because I was worried about getting the images straight, but this is a challenge, so I forged ahead. I'm pleased with how it went.

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge, Day 1 - Red

Day 1! The theme is red and I'm taking advantage of the open-ended nature of the colour prompts by doing some stamping. A while back I ordered some stamping polish from Mundo De Uñas, and it arrived on Tuesday. I also got a new stamping plate from Lily Anna, and I wanted to try it out.

The Munde de Uñas polish is amazing! So opaque! It does have a rather strong and unusual smell (apparently an enamel paint smell?), but nothing too bad. The main drawback is that, being so opaque, it's a pain to clean up off your cuticles after stamping. In the comments to my water marbling post, Nerd With Nails suggested using chapstick to help with clean up, and I wonder if that would also be worth doing with this stamping polish.

I also love the Lily Anna plate, which gave easy crisp results. After painting my nails with Ciate's Boudoir, a red jelly, I stamped with Lily Anna 07. The star pattern is lovely and I already have plans for some reverse stamping with it.

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge, Day 31 - Honour Nails You Love

For today's challenge, I decided to recreate some nails from More Nail Polish. More Nail Polish is one of my favourite nail blogs - amazing manicures (did you see the version of Nolan's Ned Kelly art for the challenge this year? Stunning!), handy swatches and reviews, and she uses a variety of techniques. She's also Australian, which is nice - I enjoy it when bloggers talk about popping down to Bunnings for some acetone rather than, say, Wal-Mart, a store that doesn't exist in Australia. But not only that! She's a fellow Canberran. Even her references to the weather are comfortably familiar.

Back in January, she posted some a manicure titled "Bright yellow reverse stamped flowers", which I loved. Coloured in stamping? It looked great!

From More Nail Polish - http://www.morenailpolish.com/2014/01/bright-yellow-reverse-stamped-flowers.html

To recreate this look, I used the same yellow polish, OPI's I Just Can't Cope-acabana. The white is OPI's Alpine Snow, and I used Bundle Monster's plate BM03 for the flower pattern. The nail studs are from Born Pretty.

So that's the challenge! I missed the first few days though, because I didn't know it was on, so I'll be doing days 1-3 over the next three days. I got my new Mundo de Unas polishes in the mail today (!!) and I'll definitely be using them for the Yellow day - a manicure that has also been inspired by a song. Stay tuned! ;)

An InLinkz Link-up