Halloween Nails - Day Of The Dead Sugar Skulls!

Hello there lovely readers!

Time for another Halloween mani & I believe we are on number 4 now! The next prompt that came up in the Instagram nail art challenge I'm currently partaking in was Skulls. Well this gave me the perfect opportunity to create some Day Of The Dead Sugar Skulls, perfick for Halloween & a design I've been wanting to do for ages!

Day Of The Dead or Dia De Los Muertos is a Mexican holiday celebrated at around this time of year to celebrate & remember loved ones who have departed this world. One of the main symbols used during this celebration is of course the Sugar Skull.

There are so many colourful & fun ways to do this design. Some more intricate than others & this was my interpretation! I think my nail shape isn't particularly suited to a skull design, I think it would look much better on rounded nail beds! But hey ho! I'm still pretty happy with how these came out :)

For my base I used two coats of my favourite white polish, Primark's Marshmallow which is perfectly opaque in two coats.

Now for the Sugar Skulls themselves, to create these you basically need to go a bit doolally with some strategical placed dots! 

Grab a dotting tool & black polish, start with two large black dots side by side for the eye sockets.

Then using a smaller dotting tool & more black polish, apply smaller dots all the way around the two larger ones, around about 7.

We will add colour later but for now keep with the small dotting tool & black polish & place two small dots underneath the eyes, using your tool to join the two dots together at the top, like an upside down heart. There you have your nose!

Then for the grinning skull teeth, apply two horizontal rows of 5 small black dots directly above one other. Now using our white again & a small dotting tool, apply a dot of white inside the black dots. To finish the smile go back with the black polish & using a thin nail art brush, apply a thin line in the middle.

Now to finish the eyes with the pop of colour that really makes the Sugar Skulls! Before adding colour, again using a small dotting tool (or toothpick will do) apply a dot of white on to the small black dots. This helps make the colours that you put on top pop more than they would just being applied directly on the black. Once you've done that, select your colours to use, I used 3 mini Beauty UK polishes I had in my stash in shades blue, pink & yellow & dotted these on to alternating dots around the eyes.

On the middle nail I decided to use two pieces of colorful fimo for the eyes to add a 3D touch to the mani. Finish with topcoat of course & you're done!

Hope you liked! Thanks for reading!

Lotsa love to ya!