NAILS | Sally Hansen x Stranger Things "Missing" Crackle

 

Purchased by me

Happy Halloween! When I first started my nail polish journey in the 2010s, crackle polishes were VERY popular! They came in all sorts of colours and I think I even have a crackle polish that crackles into a crocodile print from BarryM! Then they disappeared for 10 years and have recently come back (since we are all into nostalgia now ) and I could not be happier!

NAILS | Jack O' Lanterns #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

It feels like an eternity since I have done my nails, let alone nail ANY nail art! I couldn't even find my nail art brush so now I have to buy new ones from Amazon because I have looked everywhere! I felt incredibly rusty trying to draw so these warped Jack O' Lanterns are as good as they are gonna get!

NAILS | Glow-in-the-Dark Ghosts #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples and self purchased

FINALLY! A true Halloween manicure from me! Nail art has been getting tougher and tougher for me to sit down and do over the years, but I keep reminding myself that once I sit down and get it done, I'm always so happy with the results and though I have done ghost nails in the past, I really like how these turned out!

NAILS | Sally Hansen x Reese's Halloween Nails #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

I adore Halloween makeup collaborations probably even moreso than Christmas and and when I was lurking on Amazon the other night, I came across the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri collaboration with candy company Reese's! I thought this was one of the cutest collaborations for Halloween and ended up getting four shades from London Drugs - two of which I will share with you today!

NAILS | Let the Halloween Glitter Begin! #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

This is my first week where I have some breathing room and time to catch up on things at work. I had today off after working Sunday (normally we are closed) for the most dreaded retail event of all time - INVENTORY! We decided that we would start at 8am and power through and we were mostly done around 12pm. The other manager and I stayed until 2pm as we were still looking into some discrepancies, but we were able to sort them out and all in all our Inventory was near perfect!

NAILS | Happy Halloween! #CBBxManiMonday

Press samples

I told you I would make it in time for Halloween! I really was very close to just not doing Halloween nails at all because I have been feeling so lazy, but I am so glad I did these! I could not decide which ones to do so I went and did the top four designs that spoke to me the most! I was also feeling some veiny eyeballs, but I guess that will have to wait until next year!

NAILS | Jack O' Lanterns #CBBxManiMonday

Press sample

We have had our new kitty Huxley for about a week now and it has been...a challenge getting him integrated into our home and not because he doesn't want to be part of it! He was rarin' to leave the bathroom and see the rest of our space within 48 hours, but our resident princess Harper has been less than pleased with this new young boy in her space. While I thought she was needing someone to play with, it seems she finds young Huxley a bit annoying so we have been trying to get them to play together. She seems to be hissing at him a little less now, but if he charges at her or gets too close, she hisses at him. She also hissed at him from super far away when he got really excited over a paper bag so I think she just hisses whenever she doesn't like noise or sudden movements. She does this with my husband's shoes too if they are too big. He once had MukMuk slippers and she found those terrifying! I am hoping things get better between the two of them as we only adopted Hux as a companion for Harper. We are still grieving Hugo though it helps a bit that Hux looks a lot like him. 

NAILS | Candy Corn Gradient 2022 Version #CBBxManiMonday

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I totally did not realize that today was actually Thanksgiving (it kind of crept up on us don't you think?) so I didn't think to do Turkey nails, but here we are with an updated version of candy corn nails instead! The last time I did candy corn nails was almost 10 years ago in 2013 the month of our wedding! I had done them as a tutorial post for another "supposedly bigger" blog which in retrospect was probably not the best decision as this was a time where I was"ok" with doing a ton of work for "exposure" instead of what I really should have asked for, which was MONEY. When I started receiving nail polish PR on my own, the person behind this blog (who was in PR themselves), accused me of using PR that was meant for their content for my own since they were the one who "passed my name along". I had emails to prove that these companies never had my name on their press lists until I emailed them myself. In the end, the relationship died out and I never heard from this person again nor did I ever see their name pop up in the PR world, so know your worth people!

NAILS | Tiny Skeleton Bones #CBBxManiMonday

 

Press sample

After more than 10 years of doing Halloween nail art, I honestly feel like I am redoing things I have done before and that's ok since my skills 10 years ago are not the same as they are now! There are always some basic designs that I feel need to be done every year like the pumpkins, spiders and blood, but I am going to see if I can try some different things or improve upon older manicures. This year, I happen to have very looooong coffin-like nails so I wanted to take advantage of the length and when I found these tiny skeleton nails from @kuypernailart, I knew I was off to a good start! The bones were a bit intricate to draw, but I think it turned out really well!

NAILS | Cadillacquer Halloween 2021 Crepuscule Thermal Nail Polish (With a Spooky Surprise!) #CBBxManiMonday

How is everyone feeling today? I have been moving at what feels like the pace of a sloth and trying to not feel guilty about taking it easy. We had Thanksgiving dinner just the two of us, but we still made quite a bit of food plus I decided we needed some dessert and baked a vanilla cake with homemade icing using one of the Jenny Can Cooks recipes and it turned out very yummy! I didn't have time to prepare my Halloween nails so I ended up painting AFTER dinner at midnight. Not ideal, but because I had today off as well, I figured I could afford to stay up and sleep in. I "slept in" until 9am because the guilt of not being all that productive yesterday jolted me awake. Also, as an adult, I find it very hard to sleep in past 9am. Even without an alarm, my body just wants to get up so I look forward to being 80 years old and puttering around at 6am!  

Purchased by me

NAILS | Coronavirus Halloween Nail Art #CBBxManiMonday

I love Halloween nail art, but after 10 years of doing nail art here, I'm starting to feel like I am just repeating the same things over and over again so I thought I would try something new this week and go with a new thing that has scared us all - COVID-19! Yes, you will still see some of the traditional Halloween things like pumpkins, monsters and blood, but hopefully inspiration will strike and I can find a new way to reinvent these timeless classics!

Some polishes are press samples and are indicated with a *

NAILS | Halloween Skittles #CBBxManiMonday

It's my 7 year wedding anniversary today! I know that has nothing to do with my Halloween nails today, but for the first time since my wedding day, I have the day off and now that my husband works from home, we can celebrate together! While we normally go out and celebrate, we both aren't quite ready to dine in restaurants yet so we splurged on a really nice steak and other food goodies and will be cooking dinner for ourselves tonight! I am contemplating dressing up too just for the hell of it! I am going to get a much needed pedicure today since I had to cancel last week when hives appeared on my legs the day of my original appointment. Definitely could not subject the esthetician to that!

Press samples

NAILS | Pumpkin Pumpkin #CBBxManiMonday

I don't think I've ever posted a #CBBxManiMonday late, but I have been in a bit of a state the last two days as my weekend was going just fine until I developed hives. What started on my legs and back spread to my arms, neck and hands so I spent all day yesterday itchy despite taking antihistamines. I went to my family doctor who was puzzled as I have no food, seasonal or known allergies and the last time I have had any form of hives was when I was a kid and even that was just in a localized area not on my entire body! I had fully planned on going into work today, but when I work up and had welts down my legs and arms again PLUS my face, I just had to take the day off. I am not one to stay home from work as it stresses me out knowing that things are happening without me and I will just come back to more emails, but working with hives for the whole day just didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. 

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