Guest Post From Amanda of The Nail Polish Enthusiast!

Hey girls! I have the distinct honor today of guest posting for Dana, who has been a sweetheart and a blogger I truly admire. We decided to do fall themed posts for each other, and here's my contribution!

When I think fall, I think of two things: our local huge fair where I eat a lot and Halloween. Since I can't really depict a fair because of my lackluster nail art skills, Halloween it is! I had this whole elaborate mani in mind and... none of my polishes would cooperate. Here's attempt #1 with the fabulous LA Colors purple that Dana sent me that:

1. Is a beautiful color.
2. Pooled at my cuticles.
3. Stained them.
4. Took four coats for opacity.
5. Refused to dry.
6. Once I applied fast-dry topcoat, continued to refuse to dry.
7. Which I only noticed when the following picture occured when I lightly touched them five minutes later to check their dryness:

So that polish needs some thickener and it'll be right as rain, but at the moment, I was determined to finish this mani and not get distracted by polishes in need of TLC. So I turned to Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer, which is a lovely purple but photographs as blurple as you can imagine. I assure you, it's a really vibrant violet and I love it on, but this polish does. not. photograph. accurately.

Then I continued my idea of sorts, a tape mani. However:

1. The polish was apparently not dry, when I was sure it was dry.
2. The tape I used apparently was too sticky.
3. The orange I used (OPI Flit a Bit) was not opaque enough.
4. Buffy absorbed Flit a Bit and made a murky brown tip until I had four coats of orange tips over the tape and then I removed the tape for this hot mess:

So, back to the drawing board and I decided on something much simpler but with the same effect. I used OPI Flit a Bit on all my fingers except the ring finger, which had Sinful Colors Black on Black. Then, I used my China Glaze Black Mesh on the orange and my Nail Republic orange crackle on the SC, and voila! My fall-themed crackle mani was born.

Here's a close up of the nails so you can see the details in cracking (the orange usually cracks much better but I think the 3rd mani of the day had something to do with my amount of patience...)

So, I hope you guys like this. Hopefully I didn't make you think more of "fail" than of "fall" ;) I guess third time really IS the charm! Thanks Dana and her kind readers for sticking through this experience with me!

xoxo,

Amanda