I have to admit that this mani was mostly, if not entirely, inspired by me looking at the selection of designs I already had finished here and thinking, "Well, I need more orange, don't I?" And I knew exactly which orange to reach for because as soon as I got my hands on this bottle of polish in the mystery Polish Pickup bag I bought over the summer it was slotted in for use during Halloween. And because this polish is so clearly perfect for a classic Halloween design, I decided to keep it simple and not overthink it. (Which, let's face it, is not my strong suit!)

Keep reading for more!

This design was actually pretty significantly inspired by this mani that I did back in the spring, though I think we can agree this one has a distinctly different vibe. As I said, I knew that Pampered Polishes' Est 1928, which I got in a Polish Pickup mystery bag, was the perfect polish for this time of year. It's a neon orange jelly with various different flakes as well as a fair bit of various black glitters. Because I do tend to polish a little bit heavier, I did two coats to get opacity for this design and let them dry down completely before moving on to my stamping. 

That first part of this stamping was applying the sort of grungy abstract elements. I decided to use three different images that give that vibe of having used spider gel, with the straight verticle images on my pinkie and middle fingers and the more looping image on the rest of my fingers with varied placement to give a unique look to each nail. For the splatter, I used the same image on all of my nails but played around with the direction, placement and portion of the image to, again, give a unique look to each nail. 

For the accents in this design, I knew that I wanted to use the Happy Halloween text image because this such a distinctly Halloweeny design, so I decided to pair it with a reverse stamped sheet ghost from the same plate for a really sort of classic, on the nose design. For the text design, I did layered stamping of the same image, first in white and then in black, trying to offset it slightly so that I got that highlight from behind to really pop the design. For the ghost, I picked up the image in black and then filled it in with a crisp white. I let it dry down on the stamper until it was dry to the touch but still flexible and then applied a thin layer of sticky base coat to the nail and let it dry down for about a minute to get tacky before transferring the image.

Once I was happy with all of my nails, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat before finishing with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat to really pop the design and the base color. And voila!

It's interesting because I feel like this mani is a really currently representation of really classic Halloween elements. This type of abstract design has become really popular and is really, really versatile, but with adding the text and the ghost I feel like it pulls it into something a little more classic as well. I don't know, maybe my brain works in mysterious ways, but I love the chord this is striking.

Be sure to check back here to the blog every day all month for more Halloween themed nail art designs and follow me over at @pblnails for all of my nail art along with video tutorials for each design!

Thanks for reading!