DIY Zombie Manicure

 
Looking for the perfect manicure for your zombie Valentine's Day shindig?  These nails will have you looking like you just crawled out of the grave.

I've done a post on zombie nails before, but if you're looking for a simpler, more wearable undead manicure, this one may be a better bet.  Also, this one has a photo tutorial, so if visual cues are helpful to you, then this one may be more useful.

The fake bruising actually looks a bit more muted in person than the above photo shows.  I've included a picture from the book review photo shoot I was using this nail art for to give you a better sense of what the end result looked like:

Materials:

*Semi opaque nail polish in a shade close to your natural nail color (I used arm candy by Sally Hansen)

*Light purple nail polish (I used tempest by Sinful Colors)

*Dark purple nail polish (optional)

*Nail polish the color of dried blood (I used garnet by Sally Hansen)

*Nail polish base coat (I used the regular base coat by Holo Taco)

Directions:

*Paint on a base coat and let dry.

*Add 2-3 coats of your semi opaque nail polish, maybe even more than that if your skin is much darker than your natural nails.  Our overall goal is to make it look like the nails are peeling away from the skin, so you want to minimize the appearance of the line separating where the nail meets the skin.  It's okay if it's still visible at this stage, as we'll be adding more of our semi opaque polish later, but it should be less noticeable.

*Add some light purple nail polish going most of the way up toward where the nail meets the skin.

*I then dabbed on a little dark purple polish, but I ended up covering over it with the dried blood colored polish and it didn't really show through, so you can probably skip this step and still achieve similar results.

*Now it's time to add the dried blood color.

*The dried blood color shows up pretty dark initially, but with a few more coats of the opaque polish, you can reduce the intensity so it looks like bruising under the nail instead of blood on top of the nail.  The picture below shows what it looked like after a couple of coats of the opaque polish.  I think I ended up adding another coat after that.

I used these nails for a book review, so I didn't do my usual full zombie look.  (I was dressing in the vein of Gertie Shea from The Winter People.  She's not necessarily exactly a zombie, but she is undead.)  Here's what my finished look was like:

The nails may look a little less convincing up close, but from a distance, I think they look pretty convincing.

Got any zombie craft ideas?  General Gothic Valentine's Day ideas?  I'd love to hear them.  Message me in the comments, or tag me @amberscraftaweekblog on Insta.