Hurricane Sandy & new Halloween stamping plates from Bunny Nails

Life is crazy here in New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, but I'm alive and back  online. 

The house suffered no damage, but the gas and food shortages are troublesome. 

I have no time or energy to deal with nail polish blogging right now, but since I promised to show you all a Halloween mani in my last post.... Here is what I am currently wearing. 

I couldn't do  a Halloween  manicure on Halloween because we had no power, and I was so cold I was wearing gloves inside the house... but  I finally got mail service again last Thursday and I got my new Halloween plates from Bunny Nails, and they are awesome. 

I am wearing one of Bunny's new bat images from plate HD02 for a belated Halloween mani since  this was the image I wanted to use  first, ever since I saw the plates. 

 The plates are sold in a set of 6 with all different designs for $12.99 which includes free shipping http://bunnynails.ecrater.com/c/1638963/hd-holiday-series-nail-art.  Bunny ships quickly, but Hurricane Sandy left me without any mail delivery for several days,  which is not her fault at all, and I will definitely do business with her again.

The base color is 2 coats of Layla Mirror Effects in  "Metal Chrome", then I added 2 coats of a  color shifting polish I made from scratch using "Travel To Neptune" mica from TKB and TKB's luster base. I stamped with Revlon Top Speed "Black Star" because it is more charcoal than black, and I wanted a softer look. It's not really great for stamping though, a few images got a bit smudgy. 

I used my  black xl squishy stamper, since these bats are big. I didn't get my stamper from Bunny, but she does carry it too.  No top coat.  The plate is perfect,  any smudgy bats were just my poor choice of polish.   I can't wait to try her other  designs and plates. So many awesome designs!

Cloudy Violet (Layla Hologram Effects)

Bye-Bye nubs, hello new acrylic tips! Yes, I finally caved and I am wearing tips for the first time in many years. I made them too long at first and couldn't type, so I had to shorten them to this length.

 I chose these colors to go with a purple and black striped skirt I plan to wear tomorrow. I'm wearing  2 coats of Cloudy Violet on all nails except my ring finger, which has 2 coats of Layla Hologram Effects in "Flash Black". No top coat or base coat.   Layla polish is great for travel, it dries extremely fast and doesn't need a base or top coat, so it is perfect for quick color changes when you are on the go. It doesn't last more than a day or 2 without chips and edge wear, but touch ups are so fast, that it really doesn't bother me.

Blood & Gore: Day 8 of the Halloween Nail Art Challenge

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this Halloween nail art challenge.

We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post.

If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group .

Please be sure to also visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

For today's manicure I tried to make my nails look like they had putrid, oozing, gory wounds. Did I succeed? I used  2 holographic polishes that I created myself, a red and a green.

I'll be working  at a local horror convention tonight through Sunday  night so I won't be around to participate in the Saturday challenge. I was hoping to do it in advance but I have run out of time. I'll post again after the convention to show you my Halloween manicure for the last day of the challenge.

Pumpkins! Day 7 of the Halloween Nail Art Challenge!

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this  Halloween nail art challenge.

We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post.

If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group .

Please be sure to also visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

Yesterday's theme was "Pumpkins". 

The base color is  a shimmery orange polish that I  created myself using various micas and suspension base.

I used the pumpkin image from stamping plate S8,  I am not happy with the quality of this image either.  I used Milani Black Swift to stamp. This is the second time I tried  this polish and plate combo,  and again I am unhappy with the results.   So I am learning not to use Miliani with this plate, and to not use certain images because most of the ones on this plate do not stamp well. :(

Please come back on  Thursday to see the next manicure in this Halloween challenge " Blood/ Gore/Splatter".

The Versatile Blogger Award

I am so sorry it took me so long to post this.  I wrote this blog post in draft form a long time ago. I got distracted and forgot to finish writing it and post it. 

I'd like to sincerely thank the following bloggers because
all of them nominated me for "The Versatile Blogger Award":

Mograt: 

http://mognails.blogspot.com/2012/08/award.html

Courtney Mendoza:

http://www.cute-iclechronicles.com/2012/08/versatile-blogger-award.html

Mishka:

http://lacquerorleaveher.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-versatile-blogger-award.html

I have already received this award in the past, so you can read "seven random facts about me", and see the 15 bloggers that I nominated when I was previously nominated for the award here: http://macabremanicures.blogspot.com/2012/05/versatile-blogger-award.html.

Skulls & Black Roses

This week the  challenge theme in the Facebook  nail art group "Adventures In Stamping" is Halloween. So, yeah, I got yet another Halloween  nail art manicure to share with you.

I call this one "Skulls & Black Roses".  The base color is  a red polish I created myself with mica and suspension base.  The stamping polishes are Konad white pearl and black pearl, and the topcoat is also Konad.  The stamping images are from Bundle Monster. The roses are from plate BM-323, and the skulls are from BM-211.

Vampire Bat Nail Art: Day 6 of the Halloween nail art challenge (Things That Go Bump In The Night)!

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this Halloween nail art challenge.

We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post.

If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group .

Please be sure to also visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

Today's theme is "Things That Go Bump In The Night". I haven't done any batty nail art manicures in awhile, and I really had to rectify that, so today I did vampire bats. 

The base color is 2 coats of Milani "White On The Spot". My bottle isn't very old but the formula was kind of gloppy today and was going on blotchy and weird. Maybe because I was in a hurry and doing this mani at the last minute and skipped the base coat? I had to use a coat of Orly Sec 'N Dry before I could stamp over it, and I usually don't have to do that with quick drying polishes. 

For stamping I used Orly's " Grave Mistake". It's a gorgeous dark bloody red when applied in 2 (or more coats) as a base color, but as a stamping polish it shows up a lighter red, especially over the white.  

I used Bundle Monster image plate BM-301 for the bats, and finished with another coat of Orly Sec 'N Dry.  

Please come back on Tuesday to see the next manicure in this Halloween challenge "Pumpkins".

Holographic marble spider webs: Day 5 of the Halloween nail art challenge ("free style").

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this  Halloween nail art challenge.

We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post.

If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group . 

Please be sure to also visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

As you can see from the pics, I still have my nubs. I got busy and didn't have time to do acrylic tips yet, but I will probably have them by next week.  For my nail art I did marbling on freezer paper. I painted a "bull's eye" onto freezer paper with nail polish, then used a very thin nail art brush to drag the color from the center out to the edge to create the web design.  I allowed the design to dry completely, then peeled it off the paper to stick to my nails, using slightly damp nail polish as the glue.  The marbling gets smoothed down with a rubber tipped cuticle pusher, and the excess is trimmed off. The polishes are all my own creations. I used a shimmering orange and a black holographic for the marbling, then after applying the marble to my nails added a spectraflair top coat to give it more  holographic sparkle and to seal the marbling to my nails.  Sadly it was already dark by the time my nails dried so I had to take the photos with artificial light.  

I didn't think I was going to like this manicure because orange isn't my color, but I really like how the marble design came out, so I actually did both hands and am leaving it on for a few days. Even my man who normally has no interest in my nail art likes them. Please visit me again on Thursday for the next manicure in this challenge.

Witches: Day 4 of The Halloween Nail Art Challenge!

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this challenge.

We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post.

If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group . Please be sure to  also visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

Today's challenge is witches!  I have some bad habits. One of them is taking off my acrylics and wraps, then getting too tired and lazy to reapply fresh wraps and acrylic right away, and when that happens, even if it is for just one night... most of my nails will break off, usually at or even below the skin line. So my nubs are truly nubs right now. The stamps I planned to use wouldn't fit my nails. So I had to improvise and come up with another idea. It is not what I wanted to do, but considering how little "canvas" I had to work with, I had to choose images that would fit.  I would have prefered to do skulls wearing witch hats, but instead did nails that alternated skulls with the witch hats.

The base color is a light blue holographic that is a Franken polish of my own. The stamping polishes are Konad black pearl and white pearl, and as usual when I stamp with Konad special stamping polishes I use Konad top coat. If I try to use my Orly top coats  the designs smudge and smear.  When the Konad top coat dried, I added a holographic top coat that I made with 14 grade Spectraflair. I used Bundle Monster stamping image plates BM-211 for the skulls and BM-209 for the witch hats.

I am very frustrated with my nails right now. They are so short that I am having to rethink  some of the ideas I had planned for the challenge manicures that I had not completed in advance before the break down. I am seriously contemplating  doing acrylic tips before the next challenge mani is due. :(

Zombies!!! Day 3 of The Halloween Nail Art Challenge.

Today is the third day of the Halloween Nail Art Challenge! 

A bunch of ladies that belong to the facebook nail art group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts" are participating in this challenge. We have a pinterest group too, and you can also view links to the other bloggers who are participating at the end of this post. If you wish to join us, you can request membership in the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/purplecrumpetfairy/?bookmark_t=group . Please be sure to visit the pinterest group, as not everyone participating in this challenge has a blog.

The calender of the themes we will be doing and the dates they will be posted, are listed here.

Today's challenge is zombies, and coincidentally I am sick and feeling like a total zombie. So I'm going to share pics of the manicure, since I did it in advance, but not get into all the details of what I did and how I did it right now. If you want details, ask and I will update the post when I am feeling better. I will say though that there is no stamping or decals in this nail art, the rotting  zombie skull was done free hand.  I added him  to my thumb after I took the first round of pictures, in case he didn't come out good enough to share.  

Polishes used for this manicure. The green is my own "Franken" polish .

Come back on Thursday to see my Witch nails!