Literary Nails: The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams

It's been almost a year since I last did some book-inspired nail art. I mean, I still do nail art, just not bookish ones. However, earlier this week I was part of The Babysitters Coven blog tour and I had the sudden inspiration to do some nail art for this book. It was literally last minute. My review went up on Tuesday and on Monday afternoon as I was finishing up my post, it just suddenly struck me that I wanted to do this. It was like 2 pm when I started and I needed to get it done before I went to bed 'cause I had work the next day. But I did! It actually wasn't as difficult or time consuming as I thought it would be, especially considering a lot of it was hand drawn. Yeah, I hand drew stuff! 😱
Anyway, if you have not heard of The Babysitters Coven, you need this book on your radar!

The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams

Adventures in Babysitting meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this funny, action-packed novel about a coven of witchy babysitters who realize their calling to protect the innocent and save the world from an onslaught of evil.

Seventeen-year-old Esme Pearl has a babysitters club. She knows it's kinda lame, but what else is she supposed to do? Get a job? Gross. Besides, Esme likes babysitting, and she's good at it.

And lately Esme needs all the cash she can get, because it seems like destruction follows her wherever she goes. Let's just say she owes some people a new tree.

Enter Cassandra Heaven. She's Instagram-model hot, dresses like she found her clothes in a dumpster, and has a rebellious streak as gnarly as the cafeteria food. So why is Cassandra willing to do anything, even take on a potty-training two-year-old, to join Esme's babysitters club?

The answer lies in a mysterious note Cassandra's mother left her: "Find the babysitters. Love, Mom."

Turns out, Esme and Cassandra have more in common than they think, and they're about to discover what being a babysitter really means: a heroic lineage of superpowers, magic rituals, and saving the innocent from seriously terrifying evil. And all before the parents get home.

And here is what I came up with:



These are alllll the nail polishes I used...



F.U.N. Lacquer - Ridge Filler (basecoat)
Nine Zero Lacquer - Stolen Grace
Twinkled T - Glow Up
Cirque Colors - Rehab
Cirque Colors - BAM
Hunter's Helper Nail Polish - Tuesday (this nail polish is limited edition but every once in a while it comes back in stock)
Twinkled T - Vibin'
Twinkled T - Goals
Sally Hansen - 109 Invisible (used for the nail decals)
Orly - Bonder Rubberized Basecoat (this dries slightly tacky, so I also used this to stick the nail decals)
INM - Northern Lights (awesome holo top coat that can be found at Sally's!)
Glisten & Glow - Top Coat

I swear it's not that hard to do, I just used a lot of stuff 😅 Anyway, here is a little bit of how I achieved these nails:



So the first thing I did was I made a bunch of nail decals. Yeah, I hand painted them all, but I didn't paint them directly on my nails. Pffft. I'm not that talented 😉 Starting with the first picture, on the left column there, I drew a bunch of stars until I got one that I liked. I considered just stamping a star onto my nail, but as I looked closely at the book cover, the star there looks handmade, so I felt better of including my jenky hand drawn star 😅 Next I drew some lollipops! These weren't that difficult to do. And last I drew an eight ball and a teddy bear... well, just its ripped off head. Lol. I only did one of each because they actually turned out pretty well on my first try. Okay, so maybe my teddy bear head kinda looks like a pink Mickey Mouse, but whatever! He's cute 🥰
Next, on those square grid things above The Babysitters Coven patch, I stamped some clouds and filled them in. I could've also painted these... but why would I when I have this stamping plate? 😅😂



Okay, so before I did any painting or stamping I applied a layer of clear polish to my nail art mat, let it dry, then did all my nail art on top. That is how you get home made nail decals! (You could easily use a sandwich bag instead of a fancy nail art mat!) Then I just carefully peeled them off and cut them up! Now we get to actually painting my nails!



Base colors: two white nails and three light blue nails. Okay, so I wanted a light blue to match the light denim on the cover, but amid my 100+ nail polishes, I couldn't find one! Can you believe it? I don't have a light denim blue in my immense nail polish collection! Not a creme one anyway. So I went with this holographic one that is very similar. You know I love my holo 😉



Next, I did a gradient on my middle nail to mimic the gradient behind the sun on the cover, I stamped a circle to represent the sun, then I added a couple of pink and blue clouds! On my ring finger I just covered the entire thing in clouds! This part was a little difficult because I had to apply a layer of clear polish to stick the decals to it, but then it would dry and my decals wouldn't stick so then I had to go back in with the polish and then I went in with a brush and acetone to sort of melt the decal onto my nail... it was just a whole thing 🙃 But I eventually got them to behave 😅 And that's those two nails done!



On my pinky I placed the star (after I added a clear coat to make the decal stick), on my pointer finger I added the lollipop and eight ball, and last, the torn teddy bear head on my thumb! And if you take a look at the book cover, you will see that there are some sparkles on it, so to finish off the design I added a holo top coat to my middle and ring finger! (Really it was just an excuse for more holo 😉).

And that's pretty much it!



I am particularly proud of this set of nails because I hand drew a lot of it! Hand drawing things is always very intimidating for me—I much prefer to use nail vinyls and stamping plates, but I really love how they turned out! I mean, I could use practice, but overall, it's not too bad. Lol.

And there you have it! The Babysitters Coven nails! What do you think? Did I nail it? 😜

Make sure to also check out the book—it was a lot of fun and it just came out earlier this week!