King Tutankhamun and the 20s Egyptian Revival

Greek/Ελληνικά

The discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922 had a huge impact all over the world. The tomb was almost intact and the findings were so rich and beautiful that the newspapers were full of news on the subject.  Even now when we think of Egypt one of the first images that comes up is the golden mask of Tutankhamun. Add to that the 'curse of the Pharaos' and the audience was captivated! 

Such an event influenced the fashions of the day as one would expect. With that in mind I was examining the pictures of the artefacts from the tomb to find patterns on them that one can find in 20s clothes, jewellery and    decorative items. Ancient Egyptian style without the hieroglyphics if you like. Can you spot them on the items? 

The base colour is the most royal of golds, A-England - Holy Grail (the original formulation) and the blue on the middle finger is LeChat CM - Navy. The rest were done with acrylic colours and all topped with Seche Vite which unfortunately cause some major shrinkage at the tips. 

Shade (unusually sunny for England)

Shade (overcast)

Lazy Days of Summer Challenge: Favourite Fruit

My favourite fruit is a type of grape that grows in Ancient Olympia, where my parents come from and where I spent every summer of my childhood (and yes, technically I am an Olympian,  though not so much of a godess). They are black seedless grapes and usually you can fbuy them sundried as currants, but I always preferred them fresh as they have a gorgeously sweet taste and their smell is intoxicatingly summery. I also love their texture. They look like they have this pale lavender dusting that if you touch it you see the deep purple of their skin. They are an aesthetic and gustatorial pleasure! Here is my attempt at it!

A bit of sunshine: Bourjois 39 Jaune Trendy

Ανάρτηση στα ελληνικά

I am so tired of this November weather. I really needed something sunny and playful and since I can't make a quick escape to somewhere warmer and sunnier, I settled for a sunny colour on my nails with a bit of stamping to make it more interesting.

The base colour is Bourjois 39 Jaune Trendy, a lovely warm mustardy yellow that is rather goopy and I think I should add a few drops of thinner before I use it next time.

Then I put nail guides on to limit the design on the top third of the nail only and stamped it with Konad White stamping polish using Bundle Monster plate BM21. I finished it of with dots of greens and blues. From thumb to pinky they are: OPI - Jade is the New Black, China Glaze - For Audrey, China Glaze - Flyin'High, W7- Stellar, China Glaze - Aqua Baby.

Natural light (overcast)

Natural light (overcast)

Experimenting with Dots and Stripes

I felt a bit inspired and was in the mood to experiment with the striper brush and my dotting tools. The result was neither quite how I imagined it nor perfectly neat, but I'm pleased since it's only a first attempt. The more I was doing, the more ideas I was getting and it ended more messy than I initially planned, but that is the nature of experimentation I suppose!

Also, I know that some people prefer to see pictures post-clean up, but I want to mark my progress in not making a total mess when applying polish so I prefer posting my pre-clean up pictures. Eventually I won't be making a mess of my cuticles and my pictures will look neater! Enough with the rant, here's the manicure 

(artificial light)

The base colours I picked are all shot through with a subtle white pearl which makes the manicure come to life, but this element doesn't translate well in the pictures. What a pity!
Base colours (index to pinky)
Misa - Fribbelicious
Zoya - Pasha
Nina Ultra Pro - In a Tiff
Jessica - 687 Au Natural

Stripes
CM Nail Art - 4 Brown

Dots
Ciate - 030 Gold Digga
Nina Ultra Pro - In a Tiff
Misa - Fribbelicious