I really did just get insanely excited to have ordered Uberchic Beauty's 2021 Halloween themed plate and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it - so much so that by the time Canada Post got their act together and got it to me I already had at least a dozen loose ideas and a handful of firm ones on how I was going to use it. Today's mani is one that was definitely a little bit both loose and firm in that I knew I was going to do a full mani using this particular image but I just wasn't quite sure how I was going to it. That's one of my favorite things about nail art. You start with the sort of loose idea of a design and then you have to dig into the details. 

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I'm really good at talking myself out of buying things. Like, you'd actually be surprised at how good I am at it. That's actually the reason that for a long time my collection of indie polishes was quite small - I wanted them, but talked myself out of them. Why am I telling you this? Because not only could I absolutely not talk myself out of picking up Rainbow Clouds by Paint It Pretty Polish when it was released, but I am SO GLAD that I didn't because it's easily a favorite in my collection. Though it's technically a white crelly base, I find it ends up having more of a soft grey vibe on the nails and it's just absolutely packed with these gorgeous shifting metallic flakes. It's absolutely stunning, I am obsessed with it, and I hiiiiiiiighly recommend picking it up over on the PPP Etsy shop because it's just sort of perfection, in my opinion. 

For this mani, I applied two coats of Rainbow Clouds to all of my nails and let them dry down while I did my reverse stamping. 

I really was deciding how I wanted to fill these in that left how this mani was going to turn out sort of wide open for me. Initially I was definitely planning to go with sort of brighter Halloween-y colours, but in the end I decided I wanted to keep it more of a monochrome type of look so I ended up going with black for the pickup of the image and then three different shades of grey for the fill. For the bats, I went in with a cool toned charcoal grey. For the skulls, I went in with a sort of medium cooler leaning grey. And finally, for the itty bitty ghosts I went with a warmer, very pale grey that almost leans a teensy bit pink. 

I used both a dotting tool and a brush to fill in the image right on my stamper head and then left them until they were dry to the touch but still flexible (like if you press into it, you can see the slightest indentation of your fingerprint.) To transfer the images, I applied a thin layer of sticky base coat and let it dry down for about a minute until it was tacky and then just transferred the image straight to my nail.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I applied a nail art top coat to all of my nails to seal in the design and then followed with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

I seriously love this image and I wouldn't be surprised if I do another version of this mani next year with a completely different vibe just by using a different base and some bolder colours for my reverse stamping. I'm seriously falling a little bit in love with Uberchic Beauty plates, so keep an eye out for more of them here on the blog!

We're getting close to the end, but keep checking here and over at @pblnails every day in October for more Halloween themed nail art designs. Also, if you're not following me over on Instagram, you're missing out on video tutorials for all of the designs I post here on the blog, so be sure to head over there for those!

Thanks for reading!