WELL. It's surely been a while since I posted on the blog - I've still been posting consistently over on Instagram @pblnails - but when I started getting my Halloween nails ready, I knew I had to post them here as well. Halloween nail season is my absolute favorite and I have some really exciting designs ready to post here this year, but I wanted to start with something fiery and fun and spooky!

So without further ado - keep reading for more!

I knew I wanted a gradient background for the witch silhouette stamping - a gradient is usually my favorite for silhouette stamping, honestly - so I decided to lean all the way into the Halloween vibes and put together a warm, fiery sunset gradient. To create the gradient, I used three shades from BioSculpture - Golden Fall*, Island Clay*, & Berry Bush*. 

I started by applying one coat of Golden Fall to all of my nails and letting that dry down completely. For the sponging, I ended up doing three passes total to get the opacity and blend that I was looking for. And finally, I added a flakie topper to up that fiery glow and also to just smooth out the blend on the gradient completely.

For the stamping, I used the Clear Jelly Stamper CjS-H24 Wicked Halloween Stamping Plate, which has these two really great witch images that work so well together. I also added a moon, some craggy branches (that didn't end up showing up so well in the stamping polish I chose), and a sort of flurry of bats. For me, this is the kind of stamping that's perfect for beginners because you can create a lot of depth in the design, but it's not too fussy.

Once I was happy with the stamping, I sealed everything in with a no smudge top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!