Musical Month: Ingrid

The musical month continues with the new song Niina chose for us.
Today's inspiration is Johanna Kurkela's beautiful song called 'Ingrid'

The lyrics (of the chorus – no way I'm translating the whole song!!) in English would be something around these lines:
""Today I'm cheerful, look at me -
doing my work with a smile on my lips.
And you're so blind to see
how I'm exhausted down till fingertips.""

I wanted to illustrate the dark and the light side we all have in us – and I definitely wanted to add a dash of hope in the form of wheat stalks. I believe we all have the seed for good in us, which we can foster and let grow to something beautiful – and also nourishing for others – with the right people  and love around us. The album cover was also clearly shot on a field, so maybe that's where the crop idea came from...

The base colours were picked from my oldies – as I have already packed my fave new polishes and shipped them to Spain where we are going to move shortly. The dark polish is Essence Urban Messages Nightline (it's definitely more blue IRL than in these pics), and the light peach is Nicole by OPI Persuasive Peach. They both needed four coats Now I remember, why I didn't pack them...

I picked the colours, and the idea for sponging, from the cover art of the album, which I really appreciate in so many ways. That's exactly the kind of landscape I watch from my desk at home, ever changing with the turn of the seasons, and I love it!

For the dark stamping, I mixed Konad's shimmery blue and Mundo de Unhas black stamping polishes. The bronze stamping polish is Kiko mirror 629.

The wheat stalk image came from Born pretty plate BP-L007, and the swirly image from BM-314. The latter is one of my most trusted stamping templates. It seems to save every manicure heading for disaster..  I actually have to stop myself to putting it on every other mani I make. Do you have those images, which just simply call your name every day?

But enough about me! The other girls have made awesome nails, too! Go and see at least Janina's art at her blog "Never grow up"!

K - Khaki Perry

I did have some difficulties in finding a polish starting with K in my stash. But finally I came across Khaki Perry by Catrice. It's a beautiful and quite unique polish, but unfortunately sheer.

Here I used it over two coats of OPI Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow. HT...AT was one of my oldest untired polishes, bought from a sale in a Boston nail salon in November 2011 (oops.. that's a long time ago...). I bought a great big load of OPI polishes there, and this was the last one left untied. Phew!

This one was an odd polish. It looked like a regular creme, but on the nail it was more like forest green particles in a clear base. The pic above is one coat. Maybe it was because of the age of the polish? I believe it's from the 2009 Spain collection.

 One coat of Catrice Khaki Perry was sufficient over this underwear. The polish was still a bit brushstroke-y, but I thought more coats would not change it.

I left the pointer without Khaki Perry, and coated HT..AT with a coat of Wild&Mild Gold Shower instead. I really loved this effect! The green and iridescent glitters in the Gold Shower really stood out over the dark green base. Note to self: use more glitters on dark base colours!

For the other nails I added some fenix themed stamping with Barry M gold foil and BM 314.

I was on the fence with this mani. I think I've had enough of all the murky, dark, wintery colours. Springtime and brights it is to cheer me up!!!

D – Dorian Gray

The D-polish comes from one of my favourite brands, A England.

A England Dorian Gray was one of the two polishes I simply needed to have from the Gothic Beauties collection. This one I picked up for the unique colour, but the other one was a must have for it's name - Jane Eyre. Ok, I like the polish, too, but the book Jane Eyre means a lot to me. I'll tell you more some other time (like when presenting the polish, for example), but now I just have to blurt out how the book with al its levels and nuances has influenced my view on the world more than probably any other cultural object. Go read it, if you haven't already!

But let's get to todays polish, shall we? Dorian Gray is a beautiful, shimmery pewter gray on its own. It applied like a dream and was almost a one coater.

I added some sponging to the tips with Essence Nail Art toppers in You're a Gold Mine and Mystic Mermaid.

Lastly, I did some stamping with Barry M Gold foil effect and Essence Nail Art Twins Romeo, using the BM plate 314.

I really like the combination of pewter and gold here. And I regret not using my regular silver staming polish, Gosh silver, instead of Romeo. I'd love to see more of that silver stamping.