Not only is it beautiful, the weather is usually gorgeous, the leaves change color...
It's also the month of my birth, and the month I married my sweetheart!
October's birthstone is the Opal and it's my favorite gemstone. I'd rather look at a beautiful opal than diamonds. As a matter of fact, for my 10th wedding anniversary my husband asked if I wanted a big diamond ring and I told him truthfully that I wanted an opal ring! Since he spoils me rotten, he got me one!
In honor of this fabulous month and its fabulous birthstone, I did opal inspired nails.
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| Sunlight |
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| Shade |
This look was actually pretty labor intensive. I started out by dripping four different colors onto a plastic sandwich bag. I chose pastels: Blue (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear #481 Breezy Blue), Pink (Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine #402 Tickled Pink), Green (Essence Color & Go #146 That's What I Mint!), and White to add depth (Pure Ice #1100 Pretty N' Patriotic.)
Then I folded the bag in half and smooshed the colors together. While that dried I painted my nails with my normal base coat, then one coat of OPI Nail Lacquer Happy Anniversary.
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| Rorschach Test, I see nail polish! This is actually one of two I made. This one was too thin and you can see where it chipped right in the middle. |
When the polish on the bag was dry I peeled it up and put large pieces over my nails like a whole-nail decal. I don't think it was completely dry because it got a little messy around my cuticles. Otherwise it worked great. I trimmed the edges off and used a metal file to clean it all up.
After I got the swirly part on I added one sparse coat of sparkles with Nails Inc. London Special Effects #164 Knightsbridge. I added this one to try to get the "fire" that you can sometimes see in opals.
I finished up with one more coat of Happy Anniversary to top it off and dull down the sparkles. I added the Sally Hansen Big Matte Top Coat to give it the same kind of finish as an actual opal.
I'm pleased with how these nails turned out. They don't really look a lot like opals, but I did some new techniques and the finished result is quite pretty. I liked this so much I think I might challenge myself to trying out a new look every month based on that month's birthstone!
