Happy Howl-o-ween!

Happy Halloween or Howl-o-ween everyone! I hope you are having a fantastically spooky day and enjoying lots of yummy treats!

For my manicure today I chose to attempt a free-hand wolf howling at the moon. I'm pretty excited about how it turned out, especially the moon! I started out with one coat of Wet n Wild Black Creme followed by one coat of Sinful Colors Fiji. On it's own, Fiji is pretty sheer, but I think it looks amazing over black. The moon was panted using white acrylic paint and sponged with Fiji. The wolf was painted using black acrylic paint and the whole thing was topped off with a nice top coat.

Polishes used for this manicure:
- Wet n Wild Black Creme
- Sinful Colors Fiji
- Acrylic paint in white and black (not pictured)

What do you think? Is it worthy of being worn on Halloween?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Halloween Week: OPI Pair'em Scare'em

This is my second time around swatching the OPI Pair'em Scare'em set that I received from the girls at Glambo. Earlier this week I could not get a photo of the glow in the dark effect no matter how hard I tried. I finally found a nice tutorial that is meant for photographing glow in the dark polymer clay, but it worked perfectly for me.

This is three coats of Zom-Body to Love with no top coat. It is very sheer with visible tiny glow in the dark particles. It would probably work well layered over a nice lime color, but since I was planning to cover it with a shatter, I didn't bother. Application was very nice with this one.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that to get a good glow you have to "charge" it by holding it under direct light otherwise the glow is pretty faint...

Lights out time... fun!

Topped with Black Shatter, which cracked very well even with my rather thick coat on the middle finger...
(Oops, looking at these photos I just realized that I forgot to apply a top coat. Oh well, I'm too lazy now :P)

Lights out time again... look at it glow! I must be getting better at photographing it :D

What do you think? Are you a fan of glow in the dark polishes?

Brand: OPI Collection: Pair'em Scare'm Set 2011 Color Name/Number: Zom-Body To Love Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Brand: OPI Collection: available alone or in sets Color Name/Number: Black Shatter Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

This concludes Halloween Week, I hope you enjoyed it. I know I had lots of fun! Now all that's left is the mani for Halloween itself. Can't wait :D

Thanks for Looking!
Anutka :)

OPI Pair'em Scare'em...

The sweet girls over at Glambo had a Halloween Giveaway. I was so lucky to have won! I received the OPI Pair'em Scare'm set in the mail a few days ago. These are my very first OPI polishes, can you believe it? Make sure you visit their lovely blog :)

Thank you so much for this fun set!!

Stay tuned for swatches...

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Things are not always as they seem...

I have been looking for some of the limited edition Fantasy Makers for a swap before they disappear from stores in a few days. I already found Creepy Pumpkin and Purple Potion, so the last one on my list was Black Magic. I managed to find it today, but I also managed to run into something that was very frustrating...

Take a good look at this next photo...

Do you see anything different in the labels for these two polishes? No? Me too...
They have the same UPC, same item #, and same name...

Now look at what is inside these...

See the difference now? Yeah... even though they have the same number (I'm assuming lot number) printed along the bottom, they are completely different. The top bottle is the Black Magic that I have seen swatches of and the bottom is just solid black.

The 1st few stores I stopped at had the solid black bottles, so I thought I was loosing my mind and maybe I only "saw" glitter in swatches. I decided to buy a bottle after seeing it in the third store I went to. As luck would have it, the fourth store had the glitter version. Please tell me why this upsets me so...

To add insult to my shopping injury yesterday, I wanted to buy a black light to photograph a glow in the dark polish. I have been unsuccessful trying to photograph it on its own and read that a black light brings it out in photos. I found a light bulb called "Black Light Bulb". Something made me pause over it wondering if it is a black-light light bulb or just a black (color) light bulb. I bought it after a cashier reassured me it was a black-light light bulb. I should have known with the day I'm having that it would just be solid black... no black-light effect whatsoever. :(

OK, I feel better now! Plus, I figured out how to photograph the glow in the dark polish without the black light! Yay :)

Thanks for letting me rant!
Anutka :)

Halloween Week: Black Cats...

This is the manicure that almost broke my printer... yes, printer. It would have been a very expensive manicure had it actually stopped working. It all started when I saw some adorable cats that I wanted on my nails. I realized I could never do such detail freehand, so one thing led to another and my printer almost didn't make it. It is still spitting out pieces of plastic with every page it prints... Don't ask...

I started out with Sinful Colors Tapping Nails and I did manage to get enough cats for one manicure...

My bf loves the big fat one on the ring finger and I can't decide which I like best :)
What about you?

Here are the inspiration cats. I found it on 123rf.com

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Halloween Week: Dripping Red...

I have seen quite a few of these "dripping" manicures and in the spirit of Halloween, I wanted it to look like blood... I guess though since I'm not good with guts and gore, it came out looking more like strawberry sauce, but I still love it!

So I hope you enjoy my bloody strawberry manicure because I had fun with it! I'll definitely have to do this again :)

For this manicure I used:
- Wet n Wild Black Creme
- Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar
- White acrylic paint

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

I have mentioned before that my favorite black polish is Wet n Wild Black Creme, it applies perfectly in just one coat every time. I realized, however, that I have never posted swatches of it by itself, so here they are...

Not much to say other than this is one coat with a top coat. Can't get better than that :)

Brand: Wet n Wild Collection: Wild Shine Color Name/Number: Black Creme, C424A Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Wet n Wild Haul...

My order from Walgreen's sale last week finally arrived. Crazy as it sounds, I knew I ordered a lot, but I was not expecting this many... If only I had time to swatch them all... :D

Wild Shine
Top Row (l-r): Tickled Pink, Wild Card, Burgundy Frost, Red Red, Eggplant Frost, Kaleidascope, Metallica
Middle Row (l-r): Dreamy Poppy, Blazed, Frosted Fuchsia, Rain Check, Lavender Pearlescent, Lavender Creme,
Bottom Row (l-r): Bijou Blue, Mauve Frost, Casting Call, Sparkled, Jezebel, Lady Luck

Not pictured are the 4 Black Creme, 4 French White Creme, and 10 Clear. I got the clear for frankens and the black and white I use a lot... I have yet to find a better black :)

Mega Last
Top Row (l-r): Bite the Bullet, Candy-licious, Red Tape, Under Cover, Tropicalia, Haze of Love
Bottom Row (l-r): Club Havana, Disturbia, Through the Grapevine, Heatwave, Under Your Spell, Blackmail
Fast Dry: Buffy the Violet Slayer
I only got one Fast dry since I already have most of the others in my collection already...

But here is the craziest part of all, I got all these for me, so tomorrow I'll be heading to the store to get more Wet n Wild colors for a swap... Oh, how I wish the limited edition colors were not so impossible to find!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Halloween Week: Beakers of Potion...

I guess the scientist in me came out to play for today's manicure. I traded yesterday's cauldrons for some shiny new beakers full of magic potions... a love spell perhaps? or maybe a frog transformation spell? Only time will tell ;)

For the manicure I used:
- Color Club Wicked Sweet Polishes: Gimme a Grape, The Lime Starts Here, Wicked Sweet, and Get Your Lem-on (beaker colors left to right)
- Wet n Wild French White Cream (tips)
- White Acrylic Paint (numbers and marking on the beakers)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Halloween Week: Brewing Cauldrons

As promised, my first installment in Halloween manicures and what became of my Tapping Nails mani. It did not come out quite as I pictured it in my head, but it is still fun. Each nail has a little black cauldron with a different "brew" in it. Not much to say about it, hope you like it :)

For the manicure I used:
- Sinful Colors - Tapping Nails
- Black & white acrylic paint
- Petites Color Fever - Black Diamond
- Color Club Foiled - Perfect Mol-ten, Cold Metal, Foil Me Once, Lumin-icecent

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Sinful Colors - Tapping Nails

Today I wanted to show you a gorgeous color that I got from Carolina from Colores de Carol and her facebook giveaway about a month ago. It is a bright orange with a yellow and green shimmer. The camera didn't want to capture the shimmer on the nails, but you can see it in bottle. In reality the shimmer does show beautifully on the nail. Considering that orange doesn't usually look good on me, this one I like a lot.

Application with this was great. This is two coats with a top coat...

Brand: Sinful Colors Collection: main line? Color Name/Number: Tapping Nails, 288 Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Stay tuned to my next post to see how I turned this mani into Halloween nails :)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Beetlejuice...

I'm not sure what I was thinking, but it sounded like fun to enter the OPI facebook contest. The theme was Halloween movies and I chose Beetlejuice. It didn't quite come out as I had pictured it in my head (I blame my lame art skills), but it was supposed to be the sandworm crawling across the tips of the nails and coming out on the index finger. The middle finger is the house, the ring finger is Beetlejuice, and the pinkie is Adam as the "ghost"/bird...

Well there you have it... silly, but I had fun making it :)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 18 - Half Moon Spiders...

I decided to combine today's challenge of half moons with some fun Halloween inspired creepy crawlies after seeing a manicure done by Simply Rins. This was a good compromise for me since I'm not the biggest fan of half moon manicures. The little guys just make me smile unlike the ones in real life that make me shudder...

I hope you like them... Sorry for the dent in my ring finger (I didn't have time to redo the whole thing...)

For the manicure I used:
- Petites Color Fever Vintage Gray for the base
- Wet n Wild Black Cream for the spiders
- Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar for the eyes

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Wet n Wild Sale...

Let me start off by saying it is not my fault, I just couldn't resist the deal posted by Nouveau Cheap a few days ago that is going on now... Walgreens is having a 50% off sale on all Wet n Wild nail polishes plus if you read the post by Nouveau Cheap there is an additional 20% off code listed giving you a combined 60% off.

That's only $0.40 for Wild Shine polishes and $0.80 for Mega Last and Fast Dry polishes. Plus any orders >$25 ship for free. Oh, and other Wet n Wild cosmetics are on sale as well, if you are into that sort of thing...

Now tell me, how could I resist that? I ended up buying $25 worth of polishes which at 40 or 80 cents per bottle is A LOT... I'll let you do the math on how many I got... let's just say I think I need to grow a few more hands to swatch them all...

Thanks for reading!
Anutka :)

Tutorial - Gradient

Here it is, the long overdue tutorial for the gradient nails from challenge day 10. A reminder what what the manicure looked like...

	Supplies: - Nail polishes - Black, dark gray, gray, white, and glittery silver (I used Wet n Wild Black Cream, Zoya Kelly, Petites Color Fever Vintage Gray, Wet n Wild French White Cream, Sinful Colors Out of This World) - Sponge - different types will work for this, but I used an artificial sea foam sponge - Q-tip for clean up - Tweezers for holding the sponge (if you use a small piece)
	Step 1: - Cut off a few pieces of the sponge
	Step 2: - Apply a base coat and - Apply desired number of base color coats - Shown here is 1 coat of WnW Black Cream
	Step 3: - Put a few drops of the dark gray on a piece of paper (or other work surface) and work the color into the sponge by dabbing it.
	Step 4: - Lightly tap the sponge on the nail from tip towards the base, leaving about 1/4 of the base unsponged. - Add in small amounts until satisfied with the look
	Step 5: - Work the lighter gray color into another side of the sponge (or a clean sponge piece)
	Step 6: - Lightly tap on the nail starting from tip and going about half way down. - Add a little bit at a time to get the desired effect
	Step 7: - Work the white polish into the sponge as before
	Step 8: - Tap the white on the tip of the nail
	Step 9: - This step is optional, but to give the gradient some glitter and sparkle, work a silvery color into the sponge.
	Step 10: - VERY LIGHTLY tap on the nail. - I put a little bit too much and ended up muting the black and the dark gray out (compare to to original manicure to see what it should have looked like :))
	Step 11: - With a Q-tip or a brush dipped in nail polish remover/acetone, clean up the cuticles
	All Done! - Add a top coat and you are done!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! As always I would love comments and feedback so that I can improve :)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)