Free as a (Pink) Bird

Here's a happy manicure I did to honor the migratory birds, that are forming huge flocks, already preparing for their trip to south. They gather around their friends and family, feed as much as they can, and seem to plan their journey in an enthusiastic manner. How does that sound familiar to an academic seasonal worker? :D

In the middle and ring fingers, and on the thumbnail I'm wearing Wild and Mild Diamond - Queens
(as you might know, I'm a sucker to everything NYC-related. So I had to buy the whole New York themed collection from this brand, although I don't especially like the brand, the polishes are a nightmare to store plus the bottlecaps don't align...)
Pinky and index figers have two coats of Color Club Wild Orchid.

Stamping I made with with Kiko Mirror 618 and Essence dark grey stamping polish (a LE some time ago), both images from plate BPL-025

You will be seeing some Born Pretty stamping plates in the blog in the near future. And, hear this: all the products were purchased by me, with my own hard earnd money, from my own free will. Just so that you know. :)

A side note, though: I'm just a little bit bewildered by the discussion on bloggers selling their ethics and gravitating towards money and marketing. Maybe some bloggers do that, maybe some don't even if people think that -- and maybe there are many of us to whom this is not even an issue. I've never accepted any collaboration nor even products for review. I'm a bit confused with all the statements and disclosures and policies I possibly should be explicating, when the only thing I want to write about is the polish and stuff (bought by me) I play with and which brings me so much joy. So please bear with me and the occasionally missing commercial details - and feel free to ask if there's a question related to this bothering you!

TPC: Tweedy

So here comes my last Tri Polish challenge manicure with February colours brown, pink and gray. In this respect the mani is a bit funny - you'll see...

The inspiration for this came from the amazing blog The manicurator.
Please look up her version! My own looks like it's done by a two-year old, in comparison...

Base three coats China Glaze Digital Dawn (I got this in a goodie bag in a meeting).
I added those tweedy lines with Color Club Beyond and Wild & Mild Diamond Roosevelt Avenue mixed with Gosh Silver.

The accent fingers feature stamping with:
Gosh Silver + DRK-A (mini houdstooth) Beyond + BM316 (lines in the left ring finger)
beyond + BM322 (large houndstooth in the right ring finger)

The funny thing with this manicure is, that I'm not really sure which colour is which - regarding the challenge. Which is the grey? Which is the extra black or the silver? Is the base really brown or pink?
Keep guessing, while browsing the wonderful work of other participants!

An InLinkz Link-up

TPC: Grayscale Water Marble

Another water marble for the Tri-polish challenge this year – wow, I've been adventurous :)

I've actually found out, that I like water marbling! Who would have thought that after my first disastrous attempts?! I see water marbling as THE legitimate reason to just sit an entire hour by my desk and "do nothing", maybe browse a few nail blogs, maybe shop some nail stuff, but doing nothing productive.

The  February colours are gray, brown and pink, and only brown is missing here... Luckily this is allowed in the challenge rules!

I started out with a white base, and used Wild&Mild Rockefeller Center, Models Own Mushroom, NYX Girls Perfect Gray (giveaway score) and China Glaze White on White for marbling.

On the accent finger I added a touch of pink: Essence Multidimension Most Wanted.

This is maybe not the best water marble I've made, but I spent a lot of my precious time doing it, so I'm going to like it! Ever felt the same??

An InLinkz Link-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!!!

Green Glitter and Purple Pattern

 I've received some nail mail: the DRK-A plate!! And the new Bundle Monster set is waiting for me in my mailbox. The negative side is that I'm currently a few hundred kilometres away from that particular mailbox... Why do I so often feel I'm in the wrong town? I honestly can't recommend dividing your life between three on more towns. :(

Anyhow, in the DRK plate there are so many designs to choose from, that I almost didn't get to using it at all. It was so hard to decide!!! I won't rest until I've used all of the patterns. I love them so much!

I wanted to use some polishes from my recent small haul from Estonia. (pic above)  I was especially keen to get my hands on those Manhattan polishes which scream to be used together. But today I ended up with something else..

The base colours here are Wild and Mild (ex. Wild and crazy) Sleeping Beauty (sheer as anything!!) and SpaRitual Moss. Stamping was made using Konad light purple special polish.

I had to get some glitter in, too, so I painted glitter tips Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe and added some random dots with it to the stamping. Just take a look at the holo in the BtM!!! Holy Holo!!!

 That was it and here are the polishes:

Konad Light Purple special Polish
SpaRitual Moss
Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe
Wind & Mild Sleeping Beauty

(Now I've been a good little blogger and given you all the specs. I've deserved some wine & chocolate & a good documentary film with the hubby.)