Abstract Fall Leaves based on a tutorial

First I wanna say that there’s only about two hours left to enter my giveaway!  Get your free entries in right here!  Sometime tomorrow I will announce the winners via email, and I’ll put out a blog post too.  Can’t wait to pick the winners!  Good luck everyone!

The prompt for week 2 of October’s Nail Art Ideas Linkup is Autumn Trees.  I’ve had so many great ideas for this theme and decided on an abstract leaf design that MrCandiipants came up with.  You can see her youtube tutorial here.  Someone commented on the vid and said that the design looks a little weird on square nails- so I wasn’t sure how I would pull this one off!  Then yesterday, I had a major nail snafu on my thumb!  I had to file the side of my thumb nail way down after a section of it cracked off.  😦  I was being a scaredy-pants but I managed to file my nail to a semi-stilletto shape to disguise the break.  It came out great!  I loved the way my pointy nail looked!  So I did my other thumb too just for spits and giggles.  I’m really contemplating making all my nails stilletto.  But get real Jac…. who am I kidding?  I won’t have the guts!  But my new thumbnail shape is a great reason for me to try out MrCandiipant tutorial now.  Well, on two nails at least.  So here we go!

abstract leaves

I used a variety of colors for the leaf design…and it was a little hit and miss.  I changed my mind a few times and in the end I wound up using similar shades to what Candiipants used.  Here’s a list of my colors:

dark orange ♥ Art Orange from AVON

light orange ♥ Orange Creamsicle from AVON

yellow ♥ Inspire from AVON

green ♥ Limelight from Ulta

teal ♥ Read my Palm from Sephora by OPI

black ♥ Liquid Leather China Glaze

abstract fall leaves

Is it okay that I only did my thumbs?  I really didn’t know how to make the design look nice on my other square nails… so the others are painted nice and simple with Kalahari Kiss.  I’ve been dreaming of getting Kalahari Kiss for a while now…. and when I recently placed an order on Cherry Culture I had to add this one to my cart.  That site sells China Glaze real cheap!  I think it was $3.99 and I had a discount code so I made out like a bandit!  Kalahari Kiss is one of those fugly kinda colors… but I’m so glad I got it.  It’s versatile, smooth and opaque and will be very handy for nail art I think.   Believe it or not, I only needed one coat for this mani.

Here are the other prompts for October.  Join in whenevs!

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!

ghost_nails_tutorial

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)

ghost_nail_art

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

easy_diy_ghost_nails