Superheroes v Villains - ULTIMATE HERO

Hi Goddesses

Welcome to the last post in this short Superheroes and Villains series, and tonight it's the Ultimate Superhero.   Remember on Tuesday I said I almost went abstract with my villain, well, with these, I went VERY abstract indeed.

Ok, if anybody is NOT clueless at this point, you must be a mutant or a freak!  I don't think anyone can guess my hero from this mani :)   

Actually, it's not just A hero, but a whole collection of them, a collective if you will - Writers.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not so much for the comicbook characters or supervillains, and so this week especially has been hard for me, and when I stepped back and thought about who I thought were the heroes of the world, writers were one of the things that felt right in my heart (ooooh, went a bit Lynnderella-speak there!).

Why?  Well without writers there are no books or songs.   Writers give children imagination and education.  A childhood without books deprives a child just as much as a lack of love or nurtrition.  And without writers, we wouldn't know how to put what we feel into words, how to love, how to ache, how to hurl back a witty one-liner.   Writers.  Heroes.

So, what the hell hoo-hah have we got on these 'ere nails, then ?  Welllll, we have a stamp of a pen and paper on the thumb, and an echo of it on my little finger.  Both of these have a base of Nails Inc Colville Mews, and the stamping plate is SdP-P.

The 3 middle nails are where my true heroes lie - Kate, Tori and Sylvia.  Bush, Amos and Plath.   You may recognise the ring finger - it's an echo of an earlier homage I did to Sylvia Plath using BM-204 as the tulips which are on the cover of her most famous book of poems, Ariel.

The middle finger is Tori Amos, awesome flame-haired pianist, writer of epic songs with banshee harmonies.  Her hair is CG Riveting, and then I just used a white and black to represent the piano keys.

And then my index finger, which is my favourite of all, and based on this, the cover to Kate Bush's epic album, Hounds of Love.

It's a photograph that's always captured my imagination.  There's just something about her langour, the chiffon and the soft furry doggy ears that makes for an iconic image.  I used OPI Sparrow Me The Drama for my base, sponged on a little OPI Planks A Lot and then drew the hair on with Orly Instant Artist (striper) in brown.

And they are my heroes.  

I hope you've enjoyed this series.  I know I've whinged a lot, but I'm really proud of the manis that came out of it, and I've even watched 3 X-Men films now and know who Magneto is!!  (defo Gandalf, not Jean Luc).

xx :)  don't forget to check out my partners in crime -

Sammy @ Nailasaurus

Debbie @ the crumpet

Sarah @ Spellbinding Nails

Jo @ NorthernNails

Charlotte @ Charlottes Nails

Kerrie @ PishPosh and Polish

Stamping Sunday - Large Flowers

Hi Goddesses   

Now, I do know it is rude to toot one's own horn, but OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS MANI !!  I could not be more in love with it if I tried.  It's big and it's bold and it's awesome - a bit like the Crumpet herself lol.

So, the technicals -

* base colour is 2 coats of OPI Vampsterdam - sublime colour, just sublime

* stamping plate is BM-204

* stamping polish is Barry M silver foil - there is NO better stamping polish in my opinion than Barry and his M's foils.  At the moment, he only does silver, gold and lilac - here's hoping he brings out a whole rainbow for my birthday :)

I just LOVE how this mani works.  It's one of those where the end effect is far more than the sum of the parts.  I love Vampsterdam as the base as it's so dramatic, and you just can't guarantee EVER that the base and stamping colours will collide so beautifully.  I also love the boldness of the flower print - it's exactly the sort of pattern I like.

Again, this reminds me a little bit of wallpaper, especially the velvety goodness of Vampsterdam.

Anyway, anyhow, I LOVE THIS LOTS.

Have a great Mothers Day if you're in the UK - I'm off to spend the rest of my day snuggling with Beth.

Enjoy xx :)

Purple Crumpet Fairy - Inspired By Your Favourite Book

Hi Goddesses

So, this week's challenge was chosen by Caitlin, and I've pretty much hated her all week because of it lol.  I detest these "inspired by" challenges.  Don't get me wrong, I love it when other people do them, but man I find them hard.

Here's the thing - you inevitably get caught between knowing your skills can't create what you really want to do, and fighting the urge to compromise and pick something you don't really want to do but which you can probably render on the nail.   Catch 22.  So all week I've been pondering some of my favourite books, but not THE favourite, and thinking of doing landscape nails for Wuthering Heights or blob-shaped things for the Dementors in Harry Potter, or godknowswhat for The Time Traveller's Wife.  But do you know what happened goddesses, I decided I must not compromise and be lazy, I must step up to the plate lol.

So here they are, as inspired by ARIEL by Sylvia Plath.  She's probably the most famous woman poet of the last century and someone who blew me away when I first read her.  The cover of the volume I read at 16 is this one above, and it depicts the vase of tulips which was the inspiration for one of her poems (the other reason I had been resisting doing this was because there's a tulips challenge in the Spring Challenge, but more on that at the weekend).

This book defined me.   It really put me in touch with my inner voice, and it set me some very specific definitions of what female power is and can be.  To say I was obsessed with these poems for over a decade is no exaggeration, and it does pain me that so many people view them as depressing; they're not, but they do speak from a place of pain about love, loss, motherhood and womanhood, and the struggle between wanting to live and wanting so badly to just curl up and withdraw from the world.

My mani is 2 coats of OPI Skull & Glossbones, and then stamped with SH Insta-Dri in Cherry Blaze using BM-204.  I debated free-handing the tulips, but when I was looking through my plates for something that would give the optical illusion of the "ff"s on the cover, I found these lovely bulb-shaped things, and ta-dah .....

I do really like this actually, it's got a lovely retro vibe going on,and it's just sad that the red hasn't achieved full coverage, but it's definitely a stamp I'll be coming back to.

Really looking forward to seeing what the other girls come up with - if you want to join us, just click here :)

Enjoy xx :)