Purple Fall Nail Art

I think the beginning of fall has put me in a purple mood! I just can't seem to get enough of purple! This is the design I did last week:

I found this design idea from Kimiko's Nail Art. I don't have acrylic paints, so I just used regular polish and it seemed to work pretty well. I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Pat On The Black which is this beautiful, rick, deep purple that I just picked up and I love! To do the dots, I mixed the Pat On The Back with Sinful Colors in Snow Me White, slowly adding more and more of the white to make the dots gradually lighter. This worked really well and was super simple! The only downside is that I ended up using A LOT of white polish, especially toward the end, in order to lighten it up so much!

But I love this simple "dotticure" and it got me a lot of compliments at work!

This weekend, I still had purple on the brain, but wanted to do something different for each nail.

 (Please don't mind my ugly thumb nail... I had to break up a fight btwn our dogs and my nail got cracked in the process :( )

So, after my Beauty Secrets base coat, I painted each nail a different color. The thumb's color is the same Sally Hansen Pat On The Black. Then my fingers pointer to pinky are: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Trouble Maker; China Glaze in Exceptionally Gifted; Sinful Colors in Out Of This World; and Finger Paints in Be A Pal-ette.

For the nails with Pat On The Black as the base, I used this picture as an inspiration. For the dots, I used Finger Paints in Be A Pal-ette, Sally Hansen in Trouble Maker, China Glaze in Spontaneous, Nina in Lilac-ing Discipline, and China Glaze in Exceptionally Gifted. I did larger dots for the darker purples, and tried to go smaller the lighter the color. I also put in some dots of China Glaze in Fairy Dust to put in a little sparkle. Here's the result::

 For my fingers with Sally Hansen in Trouble Maker as the base, I used striping tape to tape some designs and then put the Pat On The Black over it to make a slight contrast.

 For my fingers with the China Glaze in Exceptionally Gifted as the base, I used the Tie-Dye technique that I've already written about. I used Be A Pal-ette, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Save The Date, Sinful Colors in Dancing Nails, and a drop or two of each China Glaze in Rich & Famous and in VIII. I then later went in with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme wear in Golden-I to draw in gold swirls over the marble design. I used this picture for inspiration, although I do not have that cool foil that they used (but I wish I did!).

(I forgot to tape up around the nail, so I made a mess!! Oops!)

For the nails with the Sinful Colors in Out Of This World as a base, I did a gradient inspired by the third nail of this picture. On the sponge, I painted Out Of This World at the top, then a strip of Sinful Colors in Dancing Nails, and then Sally Hansen in Save The Date. I love the combination of these colors!! I'll need to do this again!!

And then for the last fingers, with Be A Pal-ette for the base, I used Orly in Too Fab to put some gold glitter toward the base.

And that rounds out all my nails! I love the variety in this manicure! It sure took a lot of different colors, but it was totally worth it!