Musical Month: Big Big World

And the Musical Month continues with Niina's oldie but goldie: Emilia's Big Big World.
Congratulations to all of you, who received an instant earworm! :) I did!

I decided to go for a freehanded city landscape, because the music video is clearly filmed in New York – which is my favourite city EVER!!!
And, on some nails I decided to sponge on galaxy nails. World IS big, even bigger than NYC...

 The base in all the nails is Delush Polish Tonight's the Night. First coat was a disappointment, second coat a 'hmmm' – and the third coat pure awesomeness!! It really paid off to go through the first two!

Galaxy nails were made with Orly Opposites Attract, Revlon Parfumerie Autumn Spice, Kleancolor Holo Blue and random white polish.

Last but not least, go and see Janina's nails from the same theme!!

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"!

Musical Month: Ungettable

My newer favourite in the Musical Month challenge (see more about the challenge in the previous post) is, ironically, an old song from the Finnish Band Naryan. Or well, not an old old, but from their album published in 2013. Maybe I'm so old already, that two years ago is practically 'now' for me.. :D

The song is called 'Ungettable' and I simply love the atmosphere, rolling guitars and beautiful violins in the song – and the band's way of visualising their art.

It might be deep, it might be dark – but somehow it's still hopeful and purging!
You can read and see more about Naryan on their website, and hear the song 'Ungettable'in Youtube.

The base in most of the nails is OPI Skull & Glossbones, and on the ring finger GAP Starry Night. I have to say I was a bit disappointed on the Starry Night: it took four coats to be passably opaque, and still I felt the glitters got a bit buried in the base..

The stamping is from BP-L015 With Essence Dark grey Stampy polish. Thumb and pinky got some simple marbling with saran wrap – and the pinky a tribute to the band logo with striping tape.

The other girls have been listening to these same songs, and striving to find inspiration in them. I think the results are really pretty! See Janina's awesome work in her blog 'Never grow up'!!

 Let's see, what we are going to make up of Niina's songs...
<3

Musical Month: You Learn

Nail art community is a wonderful thing – and dangerous in a way! How many times you have emptied your wallet because of a fellow nail maniac? How many times you have jumped onboard a crazy challenge without knowing where it might take you? And how many times have you enjoyed the ride immensely?

 Well, the latter two are what I did just recently. With a few Finnish nail artists we decided to go for a music related challenge this month. Basically, everyone picks two songs – an oldie and a new favorite – to inspire the nail art of others, all weekend. And this weekend is mine! :)

My "oldie" is Alanis Morissette's You Learn from the album Jagged Little Pill. It might just be THE comfort&motivation song for the girls in my generation. I still drive around with the CD in my car, and pop it in when I need uplift and want to sing my lungs out like no one's listening (and I make sure no one is..)

 I took my inspiration partly from the song itself, and partly from the album cover:

 And, of course, I made a holo version. Holo all the things!!! :D

I used Color Club Harp On It as a base, and sponged on other holo pretties: Girly Bits Too Hot for Pants, A England Tristam and A England Saint George.

I chose to stamp from the plate BP-71, with A England Saint George.

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

 You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

These wise lyrics were written by 20 year old Alanis Morissette. Now there's a benchmark :)

My new musical favorite coming up tomorrow! Meanwhile, check out the other girls' nail art!

Links coming soon!

GOT Polish: Purple

I did my golden oldies purple manicure to honor the greatest purple polish on the surface of earth: Zoya Aurora! 

It's special for me, because bought this on a trip to Chicago - where I landed a day late being at first stranded to the Netherlands, and had a room booked in a 12-bed dorm at a hostel.... Oh, those sleepless nights... But it paid off when I could haul both Storm and Aurora released in the same collection!

You may disagree, but I just love the holo glitter on this, the application, the opacity.... all of it!

The base in this manicure is two coats of Astor Pop Color 141.
Over it I used China Glaze Crackle Luminous Lavender - plus some tape and Zoya Aurora - the awesomest purple polish there is..

An InLinkz Link-up

TPC: Flashy Green & Blue

As you might have noticed, I was away last week, but as a compensation I've got an awesome feature coming up this week... just wait and see...

 Meanwhile, here are my first Green, blue and purple Tri polish challenge nails:

 The green polish I'm also holding in these pics is Kiko 441 from the Digital LE.

After the first coat I was disappointed, but after three coats I was happy I purchased this holo glitter beauty. It's so flashyyyy..... And it has actually got bar glitter! How awesome is that?!

To meet the challenge, I sponged the tips with China Glaze Water you Waiting For, plus added some

stamping with Konad black from BM305 (flashes) and Pueen 09 (peacock feathers)

I hope I had caught the holo sparkle in the Kiko polish better... But I loved these so that I wore them all last week in Jerez de la Frontera – and I was thinking of you, my dearest readers :)

An InLinkz Link-up

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

GOT Polish: Textured Chevron

This Golden Oldies Thursday aka GOT Polish manicure features something old, something new, nothing borrowed but a lot of blue. And it's published on Saturday...oops...

 Today's oldies are from Orly Magnetic FX collection from 2012.

Actually I didn't ever realize these were magnetic polishes - I bought them from clearance in NYC as I had to rush to cathc a train to Baltimore, and they didn't have any tags or magnets on. Sadly, they had stayed in the untrieds since.

The base colours in this manicure were Orly Force Field (the purple one) and Opposites Attract (the blue one).

As a brand, I feel that Orly is underrated. They've released some trustworthy baseline polishes and some really extraordinary collections like the Mineral effects (Stone Cold and its mates) or the Birds of a Feather (featuring Fowl Play). Someone just said in facebook their bottles are ugly, but at least the handle enables a very good grip.

Chevron print was done with Kiko 454 (the purple one) and 457 (the blue one). These are their textured Sugar Mat polishes, which I bought this year in a set on sale. If you like texture, you will love these!

I begun to do the chevron with ordinary craft tape, but that didn't really work out after the first stripe.
I mean where was I supposed to put more tape? Maybe I should invest in some real striping tape...

An InLinkz Link-up

TPC: Spun Sugar and Dots

Here comes -at last- the Tri polish Tuesday manicure from last week. This has been a crazy week!

The base here is Barielle Make it a Latte – the only clearly brown polish I've got with me.

First I added some spun sugar with Barielle The Pink of Fashion. The polish worked extremely well for this technique - and it's a pink - so a total winner for spun sugar!

I also did a couple spins with OPI Skull and Glossbones - and used the two polishes for double dots. All the pics are without top coat - although I did add some later on for wearability..

An InLinkz Link-up