Gelish Mani Sunday | Halloweeny Spiders + A Proposal!

Last weekend my girlfriend and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary.

We had a nice dinner and we made plans to go to Gay Day at Disneyland last Saturday -- Disneyland Gay Day is alllways a fun time! While we were wandering around our friend said, "Hey! Let's go over to the Snow White wishing well! I think there's a hidden Mickey there!" and I was all, "herp-a-derp okay." So we get over there, the castle starts to chime for noon (I had no idea it did that), and suddenly "I'm Wishing For The One I Love" started playing in the tucked-away Snow White grotto. Very cute and Disney magic-y.

Out of no where my girlfriend pulls out a box and says, "Oh, I have something for you for our anniversary." I'm like, "Okay! Thanks!" and open it to find an awesome Snitch necklace (from Harry Potter). She tells me to open it, I struggle to figure it out (in retrospect, maybe I should've kissed it). I finally get it open, and this happened:
I look up and she's down on one knee proposing!!
She then hands me a ring I've been waaaaanting for YEARS from a manga I've loved forever. Geekiest and BEST proposal EVER. I never even expected or wanted a proposal - wasn't even on my radar. We've always been like, "Someday - when it's legal - we'll get married..." and I figured that agreement was a proposal. But my fiancée is a romantic who wants proposals and weddings and the whole shebang.

I'm glad she's a romantic. ♥

Even sweeter? She made SURE my nails were done and picture-ready before we went. ;)

SPEAKING OF NAILS (OMG this is a blog about NAILS!?) We can finally get to this week's Gelish mani: black and red Halloween spider nails!!
Ooh ooh look at that Matte Top It Off! ANY excuse to use that! I've spent way too much time agonizing over what I was gonna do for my Halloween nails. Idek. But I'm really happy with what I finally decided on! For the middle finger I used striping tape, and let me offer a tip: I cured 2 coats of Black Shadow (to achieve opacity) and 1 coat of Matte TIO OVER the striping tape. The striping tape did NOT peel off without problems. If you're going to do this with Gelish, use as few coats over the tape as you can and, once you get to the TIO, flash cure it for 5 seconds (15-20 secs or so in a UV lamp), then slowwwwly peel off the striping tape, THEN cure the TIO for the entire time.

Also... I bought myself a pot of Gelish Structure and tried it out on this manicure. I had one nail in particular that had been slowly disintegrating throughout the week and needed some extra strength. Plus, I was just curious to see how it would work. It's actually pretty nice! It creates a really nice smooth, even surface for the polish and thickened up the nail plate a smidge. I'm anxious to see how it performs over the next couple of weeks!

For the above manicure I did the following:

Thumb Nail:

1. 2 coats Backstage Beauty, cure all coats
2. 1 coat Life of the Party, cure
3. 1 coat TIO, cure
4. Wipe tacky layer. Using a nail art brush, painted swirls with Black Shadow, cure
5. Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Index Nail:

1. 2 coats Backstage Beauty, cure all coats
2. 1 coat TIO, cure
3. Wipe tacky layer. Using a nail art brush, painted web with Black Shadow, cure
4. Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
5. Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Middle Nail:

1. 2 coats Backstage Beauty, cure all coats
2. 1 coat Life of the Party, cure
3. 1 coat TIO, cure
4. Wipe tacky layer. Lay down striping tape
5. 2 coats Black Shadow, cure all coats
6. 1 coat Matte TIO, cure 5 seconds in LED (15-20 seconds in UV). SLOWLY remove striping tape using tweezers; keep tweezers close to the polish while pulling. Once tape is off, cure fully

Ring Nail:

1. 2 coats Backstage Beauty, cure all coats
2. 1 coat TIO, cure
3. Wipe tacky layer. Using a nail art brush, painted spider with Black Shadow, cure
4. Dabbed Gelish Structure onto the polish and pressed the studs in, cure
5. Finished with 1 coat of TIO, cure

Pinky Nail:

1. 2 coats Black Shadow, cure all coats
2. 1 coat Matte TIO, cure
3. Wipe tacky layer. 2 coats of Backstage Beauty on tip, cure all coats
4. 1 coat Life of the Party over the Backstage Beauty, cure
5. Finished with 1 coat of TIO only over the red polish, cure