Wordless Wednesday: Quick Halloween Nail Art

Buttery Roasted Peaches with Greek Yogurt

This is an idea I've been meaning to try for a while, but I whenever I got peaches they always disappeared too quickly! I first saw it on The Londoner, and I've come across it several times since. We're heading into the first days of autumn now, but to me this recipe is the best of summer.

I definitely recommend roasting any peaches that are not very good for eating on their own. The batch I used this time was not great, plus they might have been sitting in the fridge for 2~ish weeks waiting for me to get to them...But roasted, they were delicious!

Black Bean Brownies

So these are INSANE. I read about them and got the recipe from The Table, and I admit I was pretty skeptical. Black beans, I said, do not taste like chocolate. Yes, they are the right color, but they are still BEANS, I said. But...they are brownies, and if you go light on the chocolate chips and use dark chocolate cocoa powder, they are practically HEALTHY for you to eat. That can't be right.

But the blind test convinced me to give it a go. I pulled out the blender and started mixing them together while my husband was out...I wanted to get it done and in the oven before he got back!

Butterfly Wings Nail Art

This is probably my favorite nail art that I've done. I was worried it would be too complicated, but it came out fantastic! 

I have some nail art pens, which made this actually pretty simple, once I had a couple reference images in front of me. When I was looking up some different examples, I just couldn't decide what background color to go with, so I ended up using five different ones! I love the rainbow effect that it made.

Cute Yoda Coaster

So I made this for a coworker...I don't recall exactly why, but some Star Wars quotes were getting thrown around the office, and when I got home I was inspired to make this. I used this tutorial as a drawing reference. 

The coaster is just a promotional cork one with some company print on the other side, and I used a Sharpie pen to draw on it. No need to seal it or anything! I've done this before and I've never had a problem with the ink running.

Rainbow Nails

Sometimes all you need for really fun nails is a few different colors! I didn't have time to do anything super complicated, so I just picked out a few different fun colors that worked together. I love how it looks like candy - it reminds me of Skittles!

Summery Flower Nails

It has actually been a gorgeous summer here so far, not too hot with plenty of beautiful weather. I've been feeling super into the sunshine lately and I really wanted to try some more nail art, so something summery was an obvious choice! After a little poking around I decided on a daisy-ish design.

UPDATE: Wow, from now on I'm definitely going to start with a clear coat...that lovely green turned out to stain my nails a horrible yellowish color!

July 4th Nail Art

I had a lot of fun last week coming up with these nails! Unfortunately I had some trouble with chipping before we quite got to the 4th, but I was able to repair them all right. I like how it kind of ended up looking like Captain America nail art instead of just 4th of July. It makes me want to do some Avengers-themed nails at some point!

I don't have a full tutorial for this, but I can tell you that I used painter's tape - it turned out to be really easy to cut thin strips to make the stripes. Make them longer than your nail so you have some extra to peel it off later. My biggest problem was, as usual, impatience. You have GOT to wait until the nail polish is completely dry to peel off the tape, or it will take the rest of the polish off with it!

Playing With Makeup

I'm not really sure what made me do this. I recently dyed my hair red, and I LOVE it even though it's not the darker red I was hoping for. It's brighter, and is now fading into basically a strawberry blonde, but when I took these photos it was still really strong. This isn't a cosplay or anything, although it definitely has a fantasy feel to it. Inspired by this photo. 

Ombre Nail Art

This was one of my first tries ever at nail art! A lot of the methods for doing an ombre design called for supplies I don't have, so I ended up winging it. I started with a bottom coat of the lighter color (actually a very pale lavender). To get the shading, I mostly just used the brushes to paint the nail polish colors back and forth, adding a little more of one or the other depending on what it looked like. I did try mixing some polish together and painting that on, which helped for the middle section. I like how instead of a smooth gradient I ended up with something a lot more vibrant and visually interesting, but still shows as an ombre effect at a glance.

Chocolate Cake With Coconut Filling

This recipe turned out great! I believe I originally got the idea from "From Cupcakes to Caviar," but ended up looking up several for reference, so I'm not entirely sure. 

I think possibly my favorite thing about it is how fantastic and classy it looks, and how simple it actually is to make. I had some trouble with the coconut rope falling apart, but it wasn't too bad because instead of trying to poke it down into the batter (why you would even do that I don't understand) I poured about a third of the batter into the Bundt pan, placed the rope in the center (I did poke it in just slightly with my fingers) and then poured the rest over the top. It was as simple as that.

Ugh, I hate how messy the plate is in this picture, but it does give you a good view of the filling!

Color Coordination FTW!

Nothing special to post today, except that the flowers on the bush outside my back door almost EXACTLY match the shade of my new dress! Color serendipity? Absolutely. This clearly meant that I was destined to wear some of these flowers in my hair.

And then, I painted my nails in colors that I usually refer to in my head as "Frozen nails," which pulled in the blue in my jewelry to make a nice contrast.