NOTD: Zombie naaails

When it came to painting my nails for Halloween, I - predictably - wanted to do something a bit different. So I started thinking about the stuff that I find scary. Zombies are high on my list of Things That Frighten The **** Out Of Me and high heels are my footwear nemesis, so these Iron Fist Zombie Stompers seemed like the ideal inspiration for a Halloween-worthy manicure.

I had some major cramps in my hands by the time I was finished, but the end result was so awesome that I just didn't care.

Behold: handpainted Zombie naaails!

They're actually kind of terrifying, but I freakin' LOVE them.

Products used:
Sally Hansen Complete Care (as ridge-filling base coat)
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Grass Slipper
Pink, white and black nail art pens (brand unknown)
Seche Vite topcoat

NDOTD*: Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton

* NDOTD = nail design of the day

If you were down the west end of Oxford Street over the last few months, you can't have failed to notice the larger-than-life effigy of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama presiding over the facade of Selfridges.

I was very taken with the multi-sized polka dots that decorated both the windows and the items in her collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which is how this little departure from winter nails happened:

To DIY, pour a little polish onto some tinfoil and use a dual-ended dotting tool to randomly place large and small dots of contrasting polish on your base colour. Could hardly be simpler, really.

I'm a fan of polka dots anyway and I really like that these ones are a bit irregular - they remind me of these Kate Spade numbers - but I can't decide whether the red and white or the yellow ones are my favourites.

What do you reckon to them?

DIY interior inspiration for Autumn / Halloween

When we lived in Ireland, I used to go in for Halloween decorating in a bigger way than I do now. While it was never on a Martha Stewart scale or anything, I liked the little touches around the place that celebrated the arrival of Halloween and the arrival of autumn generally: hurricane lamps lined with red and golden leaves, fallen crab apples, pumpkins, and, er, bat silhouettes.

I'm tempted to revive the tradition this year, especially since we'll have guests over the Halloween weekend. We won't be having a party or anything, but it's fun to decorate for something other than C*******s and it might inspire me to have a bit of a (desperately needed) tidy-up.

Here are a couple of not too OTT DIYs and decorating ideas for this time of year that I've seen lately.

(FAO my fellow arachnophobes - two of these photos contain illustrations of spiders; one of them has hairy legs. I don't think it's all that bad myself, but you have been warned!)

{"Gothic" tealight holders (wrapped in black lace trim)}

{Autumn leaves bunting}

{Mini pumpkins! SO. CUTE.}

{Ehrmehrgahd. Charity shop find decoupaged into skulltacular serving tray}

{Tricked out black and white pumpkins, complete with spiders}

BEWARE!

HAIRY SPIDER ILLUSTRATION COMING UP in

3...

2...

1...

{Not sure I could bring myself to follow through on actually framing this}

{Painted and chevron pumpkins are a HELLS YES}

I'll be putting scads more pictures on Pinterest if you're in need of additional inspiration, but for now tell me this: do you decorate for Halloween?

{image credits: all images linked to their respective sources}

NOTD: It's Chanel, darling

I bought some little Chanel stickers on eBay ages ago but am only getting around to playing with them now - don't they look brilliant?! They're surprisingly brittle which makes them awkward to work with, and a couple actually broke as I tried to gently coax them into a curved shape to fit my nail bed. 

Oh, and of course I lost one that turned up in my hair an hour later. 

When I managed to find a few non-rogue stickers, I settled on doing some Chanel accent nails with gold borders inspired by this mani by Emerald Sparkled. I wanted to create a vintage look so I opted to use a dark green-black rather than true Chanel-appropriate black polish as my base colour. My idea for the other nails was for them to have an antiqued effect reminiscent of foxed mirrors.

The end effect is eye-catching and very, very opulent. I think it's the fanciest my fingers have ever felt!

Products used:
CND Stickey
Essie Stylenomics
OPI Goldeneye
Essence Make It Golden
Chanel stickers
Seche Vite top coat

Wedding Wednesday: And now for something completely different

It's time for the final instalment in my mini-series on colourful wedding nails, and today we're looking at nail art and embellishment. I recognise that this will be a lick of polish too far for most brides and as a result it's hard to turn up very many (nice, non-tacky) examples of bridal nail art in action at real weddings.

Still, if the recent enquiry I had from a bride-to-me looking for some awesome handpainted nail art for her big day is anything to go by, there are those who do want something genuinely different when it comes to wedding nails.

I reckon that one of these manis might just fit the bill.

{this design is now available for purchase here}

And yes, that last one is of a real bride with a "pow!" headpiece and matching accent nail in her coral gradient mani. Respect.

{images via: 1. Me!; 2. My Pinterest board - original source unknown; 3. Me; 4. CND; 5. Landmark Report; 6. The Illustrated Nail; 7. Offbeat Bride}

Mani Monday: James Bond nails

I've got two takes on James Bond nail art to show you today, inspired by the 50th anniversary of Dr. No, the imminent release of Skyfall, the recent launch of a dedicated Bond channel on Sky Movies, and my doomed attempt on Saturday to go to an exhibition of costumes from the Bond franchise that finished last month.

D'oh.

Thumb - little finger: agent code name; the Bond martini (the motion lines show it's shaken, not stirred, you see); my attempt at recreating the gun barrel sequence from the opening credits; gooooldfinnngaaaaah with three coats OPI Goldeneye from the Skyfall collection; tux.

Set of tuxedos with a gooooldfinnngaaaaah accent nail. Click here for the guide to DIYing tux nails that I wrote for Beaut.ie.