October NAIL Linkup

Hey ladies and gents!  (What? A blogger can always hope!)  Nail Art Ideas Linkup is still going strong!  This October Eeeek! Nail Polish!, Brijit’s Digits and Craftynail are bringing you 5 themes instead of the usual 4.  You won’t run out of ideas for nail art this month!  Here’s what’s going on…

We’ve simplified things a bit for October.  We won’t be utilizing the VOTING tool any longer… so no more crowning a NAIL GENIUS each week.  Sure, we all voted on a bunch of amazing manis, and it was so much fun while it lasted, but we don’t want you to feel like this is a competition or anything!  Just a great way to share our designs with each other!  Plus, simpler is better, don’t you think?  With that in mind, our themes will not close at the end of each week either.  You may remember that you previously needed to submit your nail art within a 7 day period or the linkz would close.  Well, not anymore!  All 5 inlinkz will be open all month.  This way you have flexibility with your submissions.  The dates for each week are now simply suggested dates- so go ahead and post when you can.  Easy, right?

Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?  That brings us to the first NAIL theme of October!  Don’t put those pink nail polishes away for the winter just yet- Breast Cancer Awareness week starts tomorrow.  That’s right, the October NAIL Linkup starts tomorrow! (hashtag #naillinkup)  Here are the links:

30th Sept – 6th Oct – Breast Cancer Awareness :
7th-13th Oct – Autumn Trees :
14th-20th Oct – Things That Go Bump in the Night :
21st-27th Oct – Treats and Sweets :
28th Oct – 3rd Nov – Hallow E’en :

Halloween Tutorial for #31DC2013

The Supernatural is the inspiration for the manicure I’m wearing today!  I’m trying out some cutesy GHOST NAILS as part of the Chalkboard Nails 31 Day Challenge. This is a fun and easy manicure to try for halloween so I put together a picture tutorial for you!

Here’s how I did it:

» I started with one coat of Sally Hansen Maximum Growth as my base

» Then I painted most of my nails orange using Art Orange by AVON (a one-coater!)

» I painted my accent nail black using Liquid Leather by China Glaze (another one-coater!)

» The ghost was painted with a skinny nail art brush from Sephora and NYC nail polish in French White Tip

» I dotted the ghost’s eyes with black polish using my smallest dotting tool (or you can use a toothpick)

What do you think..easy, right? Go ahead and try it this October.  🙂

International GIVEAWAY for my one year blogiversary!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED, SORRY.  Kimberly B and Joanne P. were the lucky winners. 🙂

 

My Craftynail blog is about to have it’s one year blogiversary!  This year went by so fast!!  I’ve done over 200 nail posts and have enjoyed every minute of it! I only wished I started blogging earlier.

To celebrate my one year mile mark of being crafty- I’m having an international giveaway!   I’ve got two different prizes, one for my readers in the United States, and one for my international gals (outside the USA).  If you follow me on facebook, pinterest, twitter or bloglovin you can win free chances at a cool prize!  Just click one of the raffle links at the bottom of my post to enter.

United States Prize– A collection of five L.A. Girl 3D Effects Hologram Nail Polishes!! If you read my blog regularly you may have noticed that I use these polishes A LOT.  Like A LOT, a lot.   They are the bomb, and I hope you win them so you can fall in love too!  Here are the five shades I’m giving away: Sparkle Ruby, Purple Effect, 3D Silver, Teal Dimension, and Dazzling Pink.

International Prize (Outside the U.S.)– A fun collection of nail art things that do not have lacquer in them (for shipping reasons, of course).  I’ve got a Konad stamper and scraper, two Konad plates (M63 and M57), a Sephora Perfect Manicure Nail Protector, Essie Sleek Stick Nail Strips in a design called ‘Stickers and Stones’, an OPI Cosmetic Bag, and some L.A. Colors 3D nail stickers.

The winners will be selected on the day my blog turns 1 year old which is Oct 11, 2013.  The winners will be notified via email and will need to respond within 72 hrs or new winners will be selected.  Good luck!!

USA- U.S. RESIDENTS ENTER GIVEAWAY HERE!

INTERNATIONAL- OUTSIDE THE U.S.? ENTER HERE!

Please do not enter BOTH raffles, you’ll only qualify to be in one of them based on where you live (US vs. outside the US).  I will verify all raffle entries and will delete any cheats. Fair is fair!  Thank you and best of luck!

2 Different Mellow Yellows by Sally Hansen

I think I may have had this conversation with other bloggers before-  why did Sally Hansen release two totally different yellow shades but gave them the same name?  Your guess is as good as mine!  Wanna see a side-by-side comparison of the two?  They’re part of the the Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear collection…..

You can see that they’re totally different!  39 is a very sheer yellow/green iridescent color and 27 is your standard bright yellow cream.  It’s funny that they named them both mellow yellow yet somehow neither of them look like they should be called that at all.  I think Sally should’ve went with ‘Invisible Lizard’ for the greenish one, and maybe ‘Bumbling Bee’ for the cream.  Ooh I just realized how much I LOVE naming nail polishes!

Why do you think they released two different colors but gave them the same name?  Have you seen other brands do this?  And did you notice that my leaves are turning color in the background? 🙂

Nail Art Ideas Linkup- Astrology Theme

I’m excited for Nail Art ideas Linkup.  First off, I’ve got a fun cancer astrology manicure for the last week of september.  And second, we’ve got some great themes coming up for October so stay tuned for those!

I’m pretty into astrology, you?  My sign is cancer and I really identify with it.  I feel like many of my traits and cancerous.  Wait, that doesn’t sound so good, but you know what I mean.  Cancer is a water sign and is closely associated with the moon.  Good colors for cancers are sea green and silver so that’s what I went with for today’s NAIL manicure.  Cancer is also associated with opals, pearls and moonstones… so I incorporated some pearl-like studs in my mani too.

I’m wearing two coats of Orly Jealous, Much?  My middle finger has pearl studs and silver sponging.  My ring finger has a hand-painted brown cancer symbol and some silver sponging as well.  But I really like how my thumb, pointer and pinky fingers came out.  I dabbed on some white square-shaped glitter called OPI Lights of Emerald City.  Then I sponged some teal Sinful Colors glitter over top which hid the squares a bit and it gives a really neat layered appearance.  The Sinful Colors glitter is called Nail Junkie and I was super impressed with how glimmery it was!  I got it back in July for my birthday (from my mommy!) but I haven’t tried it til now.  It reminds me of mermaids- I’ll have to reach for it again soon!

I’d love to see more astrology manis for NAIL.  You have til Sept 29 to submit one.  Here are the links!

Short & Sweet in Texas’ Halloween Nail Art Contest

Did you see that Julie from Short & Sweet in Texas is hosting a  Halloween Nail Art Contest?  <<CLICK THE LINK!

I am totally doing a scary mani for this contest!!!! ARE YOU??

Zoya Frida Swatches

Frida is a sheer teal jelly from the Fall 2012 Gloss collection.  Yes, it’s from last fall, but I don’t care since I’m loving fall right now!  The crisp air, the cool mornings… it makes me so happy and also kinda reminiscent.  I can’t quite explain why, but fall makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the past.  So today I’m more than happy to wear an old fall release.   Here’s how Zoya describes Frida: A sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue with a buildable jelly gloss finish. The jelly gloss formula can be worn alone or layered to create an endless variety of custom colors and effects.

I’ve been longing for this polish (or any part of this collection!) since they came out last year.  Well lucky me!  Julie, aka Short & Sweet in Texas, just sent me this polish in a swap.  Yeah!!!

As you can see it’s very sheer.  I could’ve done more coats, but I thought I’d bask in it’s teal translucence!  Still, I was a little curious to see how the jelly would build up, so I did a couple nails with 3 thin coats, and a couple with 2 thick coats.  Surprisingly, you can’t tell which are which!  So I vote for two thicker coats!

This last photo below was taken in the bright sun.  You can really see how transparent it is here!  And extremely glossy too!  I’m not even wearing topcoat with Frida and look at how shiny it is!

So what do you think of this kind of polish?  Would you flaunt Frida or would it annoy you to have visible nail line?