Magical Music Manis 9: Of the Night ~ Bastille

I intended to use the music video to inspire me to do these nails, but it’s so full of death and darkness that I made myself think differently. I ended up doing a simple night mani.

Let me show you what it all ended up looking like:

The light blue is “Quel Blue Turquoise” from Catrice’s “L’Afrique, C’est Chique”-collection. It’s a lovely sky blue texture with glitter that covers perfectly in one single coat. Over that I sponged some darker blue shimmer from Maybelline, “Blue Freeze”. By the base of my nails I sponged a Sabrina that doesn’t appear to have neither name nor number, but it’s a black with silver glitter. I figured they’d be my night stars.

I quite like how that turned out.

I used OPI’s glitter off basecoat on my cuticles to minimize the clean up. This time it actually worked, so I think I just used a too thin layer of it last time. Note to self: Don’t be tight fisted with it!

Here are the polishes I used for my mani:

I think “Off the Night” sounds like a happy cheerful song but the video suggests otherwise. Which way would you have interpreted it?

Here’s the video to Of the Night:

Check out the other girls who participate in this challenge. Would you like to join? Please feel free to – it’s never too late!

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 12: Lorde ~ Royals

Today is kind of a sad day: It's the last day in my Musical Mani Monday challenge, boo! But I chose a great song to finish this off with, wait and see!

I don’t think many people in my hemisphere know who Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor is. She’s from New Zealand, and she’s 17 years old. If you mention her stage name though, it might ring a bell for a lot of people here, because Lorde made it into the charts here, and she even reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013, making her the first New Zealand solo artist to have a number one song in the United States. That’s impressive for a teenager in my opinion.

Here’s what my mani ended up looking like:

Lorde’s great voice doesn’t reveal that she’s very young, but the music video does. It’s full of teenage boys with naked upper bodies. Not really my cup of tea, haha, but never mind. Real Women like Real Men. So I found my inspiration in the lyrics instead.

I've never seen a diamond in the flesh
I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
And I'm not proud of my address,
In a torn-up town, no postcode envy

But every song's like gold teeth, grey goose, trippin' in the bathroom
Blood stains, ball gowns, trashin' the hotel room,
We don't care, we're driving Cadillacs in our dreams.
But everybody's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece.
Jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash.
We don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair.

And we'll never be royals!
It don't run in our blood,
That kind of luxe just ain't for us.
We crave a different kind of buzz.
Let me be your ruler!
You can call me Queen Bee
And baby I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule, I'll rule.
Let me live that fantasy.

Here are the base colours I used. Pinkie and middle finger: Three coats of Attitude “Glam Glitter Top Coat”, ring finger: two coats of Sally Hansen “Gilded Lily” and pointer: Two coats of Glittering Elements “Magical, Mystical L♥ve”.

The little finger has the Blood Stains she sings about. It is the first time I’ve tried to do ‘splatter’, and I used Pahlish “Blood of the Mountains” for the blood splat. I thought that was really appropriate (and I’ve watched enough CSI Las Vegas to know what blood spatter is supposed to look like) ;)

The ring finger is the Queen Bee she wants to be and the middle finger is the diamond she’s never seen.

The pointer is representing the tigers on a gold leash. I thought that a royal purple tiger with silver stripes was just perfect for this song!

And here are the pretty polishes lined up.

I love this stamping, even though I would have loved to have been able to freehand all this. Sometimes it’s just good to be aware of your own limitations. Do you think this is cool? And have you enjoyed this little tour de Musical Mani Mondays as much as I have? I hope so.

I’ll definitely participate in challenges again, that’s for certain!

Now please head over to the other girls to see what they came up with! 
And thank you so much to the girls who participated. It has been great fun seeing what you came up with every Monday! ♥

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 11: Deep Purple ~ Gipsy’s Kiss

I’ve been looking forward to this particular challenge. Not because I had in mind what to do, because I had no clue, but I do really like Deep Purple.

But after having been excited over the song choice for a while, I started to think about how I would interpret it. I knew that I wanted to include purple, but how on earth do you interpret “Gipsy’s Kiss”? I was around clothing, colours, impressions of gipsy’s lives, you name it. This is the mani I ended up with:

Do you like it? Here’s the gipsy that inspired me:

Disney’s Esmaralda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame! I found my inspiration in her clothes.

The light blue is Darling Diva’s Blue Diamond; a lovely sky blue holo. It’s a dream – and it’s a one coater. The gold stripes are made with Sally Hansen’s Gilded Lily from the Salon line. And the deep purple on my tips is Pahlish’s My Bespoke Psychopath, a beautiful holo, also a one coater.

Here’s what the mani looks like in lower lights and without flash:

Here’s the Darling Diva “Blue Diamond” I used as my base colour. This, sweet ladies, is one coat only!

And here are the polishes I used.

That was the elleventh challenge in my Music Mani Monday. Next week is the last one up: Royals with Lorde. Please stay tuned.

Now please head over to the other girls to see what they came up with!

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 10: WhoMadeWho ~ The Morning

I am a morning person for sure. I always wake up early and I really enjoy a nice stress free morning. I am most certainly not a winter person though: I hate it when it’s really cold. But cold, clear mornings are often really pretty in the winter, the sky shifting between red, pink, purple and blue.

But let’s cut the crap and get to the point – here’s my interpretation of “The Morning” with WhoMadeWho:

I made a gradient with two Emily de Molly polishes: Indigo Flow, which is a lovely blue, and Seeing Red, which isn’t really red, but dark pink. They are both linear holos. I have been recommended to cover the area around my nails with peel off glitter-basecoat, let it dry and then do the gradient. That should be a good way to minimize cleanup after the sponging. I must admit that I’m not hugely impressed with the method, but perhaps I just need more practice. Firstly it took forever for the basecoat to dry, and secondly I found it hard to actually cover the cuticles with the basecoat without covering some of the nail. And because I’m not very good at cleaning up, I spent a loooong time trying to make this look decent afterwards!

I stamped palm trees and birds on it. I found the palm trees on Moyou London stamping plate Back to the 80s-04, and the birds on Moyou stamping plate Sailor Collection-01. I stamped with a black no name stamping polish.

The palm trees were on an XL plate, and the motifs are too big for my relatively small nails, so I had to split the motif up, and the trees on my thumb are only the top half of the actual palm trees.

Here’s the picture of a morning sky that inspired me:

And just for the record, here’s what the gradient looked like before the stamping.

WhoMadeWho is a Danish band, and “The Morning” is from the 2014 album “Dreams”.

That was the tenth challenge in my Music Mani Monday. There are only two challenges left now, so stay tuned next week to see how I interpret Gipsy’s Kiss with Deep Purple! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 9: Adele ~ Set Fire to the Rain

We are moving on fast through this series of Musical Mani Mondays. I can’t believe that this is challenge number 9 already.

Set fire to the rain – that’s a challenge. Fire and water don’t usually go very well together, and they definitely aren’t the same colours either.

I am so lucky that I actually own a polish called Set Fire to the Rain. It’s a lovely blue holo and it’s from Too Fancy Lacquer. I used that as my base for this nail art:

Fire and rain – I must admit that I really like this!

I used three different Sally Hansen Insta-Dris for the flames: A deep red called Quick Brick, An orange called Orange Impulse and a yellow called “Lightening”. I made the effect with a dotting tool.

It’s only the third time I try this effect. The first two times were in my last Music Challenge, and they were both in interpretations of Deep Purple’s Smoke on the water. You can see my attempts here and here. Just please know that those posts are a year and a half old, and I trust that I’ve become better at both applying polish and taking pics since then, haha!

I want to show you the base colour on its own as well. It’s a one coater, but I applied two coats out of habit. The second coat didn’t make any difference though.

Is that beautiful or what? I think it may be the perfect blue!

Here are the four polishes I used:

I must admit that I really like how this turned out. I love it when I get impressed with myself :D

That was the nineth challenge in my Music Mani Monday. Stay tuned next week to see how I interpret The Morning with the Danish group WhoMadeWho.

I can’t wait to see what the other girls made on their nails!

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 8: Timbaland ~ The Way I Are

I’ve been giving this week’s challenge a lot of thought. I think that’s one thing challenges are really good at: They make you think about your manis instead of just doing them heedlessly.

Let me show you the result of this challenge. This is The Way I Are:

How did I end up with that result, you might ask yourself?

  

If you have been around for a little while, then you’ll know that I love glitter. The sparklier and shinier the better, which is also why holos have taken up so much space on my blog lately. I love blingy things so much that my boyfriend often says that I must have been a peacock in a previous life. Oooo, I like peacocks, they’re beautiful! I would love to have been one!

Here’s the picture that inspired me:

I considered making this a dotting mani, but I changed my mind at the last minute.

I made this by cutting the pattern with craft scissors and then taping onto my nails.

I thought it was appropriate to make this an all holo mani. I did consider glitter too, but ended up with peacock green glitter, and that wouldn’t have matched any of these colours.

Here are the polishes I used:

Cupcake Polish: Los Angeles, Ellagee: Living Just As Free As My Hair, Colors by Llarowe: Young Turks

And that’s the way I are. 

This was the eighth challenge in my Music Mani Monday. Stay tuned next week to see how I interpret Set Fire To The Rain with Adele. I promise you it won’t be boring!  

Check out what the other girls made on their nails: 

An InLinkz Link-up

Musical Mani Monday, week 7: Eminem feat. Rihanna ~ The Monster

This week number 7 is by far the one I’ve had the most fun with so far. First of all I needed to figure out how I wanted the song to inspire me. I went through all sorts of monsters in my head, but honestly, my freehand skills are rather limited. I can’t even draw a proper monster on paper, so drawing one on the nails seemed rather impossible.

I had almost decided to go for Frankenstein’s Monster, but all of a sudden it struck me: The cookie monster! That’s the monster I want on my nails!

And here’s what they ended up looking like:

Here’s the “real deal”:

Close? Well, close enough! I didn’t do the cookie for two reasons. 1: I knew they’d be ugly and not look like cookies, and 2: I don’t do brown polishes ;)

I did them with regular polish, no acrylic paint involved.

I want to show you how I achieved the little monsters. I started out with one coat of Julie G’s Gumdrop polish “Sleigh Ride”, which is a lovely blue texture. Cookie Monster is furry, which is why I chose a texture.

I wanted  to get a more “furry” look, so I added a coat of Divage Cosmic in the colour #9806, and before it dried I removed some of it with a makeup sponge, and here’s the more furry look I achieved:

This is the sponge, I used:

I was afraid to fuck up the mouths, so I took some pictures after having dotted the eyes on, in order to be able to post at least something if I didn’t do good with the mouths.

Here are the polishes I used:

Julie G Gumdrops “Sleigh Ride”, Divage Cosmic #9806, OPI “Alpine Snow”, Essence “Black is Back”

 I had fun making these and I loved having them on my nails! 

Here is The Monster sung by Eminem and Rihanna: 

 

That was the seventh challenge in my Music Mani Monday. Stay tuned next week to see how I interpret The Way I Are with Timbaland! 

See what the other girls made on their nails: 

An InLinkz Link-up