Wonderland Inspirations - Prenons le thé avec le Chapelier

 Bonjour à toutes! Me revoilà au Pays des Merveilles avec aujourd'hui un des personnages et des thèmes les plus populaires: le Chapelier Fou et sa tea party!

Rendu fou à cause du mercure utilisé dans la confection des chapeaux, c'est un personnage un peu inquiétant dans tous les cas mais limite flippant dans son incarnation burtoniesque sous les traits de Johnny Depp. Dans tous les cas, c'est un être ébouriffé avec nœud papillon et chapeau bien sûr!

A Disneyland, son chapeau est démesuré et il est complètement barrée (j'ai eu l'occasion d'avoir un jour avec lui un échange assez surréaliste!). Outre l'entre du labyrinthe où l'on retrouve un topiaire en forme de théière, on trouve un point photo dédié à la tea party, un point restauration avec une immense théière d'où sort régulièrement la tête d'un mulot et l'attraction des tasses du Chapelier fou, avec ses tasses colorées et ses lanternes.

Pour accueillir le Chapelier dans notre salon, nous avons d'abord reproduit les lanternes (de longues heures passées à peindre des boules chinoises en regardant le catch), puis nous sommes parties en quête de tasses dépareillées histoire de dresser une table complètement folle!

 

En termes de nail-art, le Chapelier version Disney et le Chapelier version Burton se partagent la vedette pour des résultats vraiment sympas!

De mon côté, je ne pouvais pas ne pas sortir mon chouchou OPI Mad as a Hatter pour l'occasion, et j'ai ensuite fait deux ongles en base beige avec la carte "10/6" et des tasses en différents tons de verts, et sur le pouce, une base verte avec un chapeau plus foncé et une tignasse orange!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderland Inspirations - Alice & Oxford

Me voici de retour avec le 3ème message des inspirations du Pays des Merveilles avec l'héroïne Alice. 

L'image d'Alice est beaucoup moins variée que celles des autres personnages et on retrouve toujours des cheveux blonds et une robe bleue. 

Alice est une figure emblématique de la ville d'Oxford où vivait Alice Liddell, la fille du doyen de l'Université qui a inspirée Lewis Carroll à l'époque victorienne. L'une de ses sœurs, Edith, a également inspiré William Morris dans ses vitraux de la chapelle de Christ Church. C'est autour de ce célèbre collège que l'on trouve le plus de références à la jeune fille, que ce soit dans la Alice's Shop qui se trouve juste en face ou dans les vitraux du grand hall.

Curieusement, Alice n'est pas représentée dans la zone du Labyrinthe de Disneyland, on ne la voit que dans la parade, avec le char de la maison du  lapin blanc, mais le plus sûr moyen de la voir est de scruter les vitrines de figurines!

Côté manucure, il est rare de trouver une manucure "100% Alice", il y a souvent des éléments d'autres personnages comme les cartes de la reine ou l'horloge du lapin blanc. Dans tous les cas, on retrouve la couleur bleue, la dentelle blanche et le nœud noir, et c'est également de que j'ai utilisé, avec un accent nail du sublime "Absolutely Alice" d'OPI.

 

 

 

 

NOTD - Alice's Peacock

Soo, back to nails today, with what is actually my manicure of the day, a very festive combo to bring some colour and glitter in those grey days. This morning, I was in the mood for some blue, so I took Orly Sweet Peacock, and after wearing it alone for a couple of hours, I realise the base colour was the same as that of OPI Absolutely Alice, so I decided to pair the two and add just a line of golden liner to match the golden shimmer in Absolutely Alice. The second photo, in shaded light, is the one that shows the best the brightness of this manicure, it's quite in tone with the end-of-year festivities!

As you can see, my nails have been shortened again, the middle finger was a casualty of the snowball fight I had with my brother on Christmas day, but with my pinkie catching up, I should soon have all my nails at the same length!

OPI Burlesque Glitters + comparisons

Are you bored of glitter yet? I hope not, because it's not quite over!! Today you have three for the price of one, as I'm showing you three polishes from OPI's Christmas collection in 2010, Burlesque. When I first saw promo pics from the Muppets collection, I thought it might take the place of my favourite OPI Collection, de-throning the Burlesque collection. But Burlesque is still on top, I have 7 out of 12 polishes in this collection (and only 6 from the Muppets, with two I'm not completely a fan of, Meep-Meep-Meep & Pepe's Purple Passion), with two having back-up bottles. 

You've already seen Sparkle-icious, aka Mardi Gras in a bottle, and I have three others, the purple one, Show it and Glow it, the blue, Simmer and Shimmer and the gold, Bring on the Bling. The Burlesque glitters were all made on the same pattern: fine coloured glitter with silver and some multicoloured particles. They apply easily and are opaque in two to three coats.

As you can see, even if the main colour really shows, you can see multicoloured particles that add a beautiful dimension. Since I love glitters, you might guess I have comparison material.

First for the blue Simmer and Shimmer, with the famous Absolutely Alice from the Alice in Wonderland collection. AA is a magical polish that I will show on its own, because it's really worth it. While Simmer & Shimmer's base colour is pale blue, Absolutely Alice is resolutely turquoise, with only a touch of gold.

I had compared Bring on the Bling with Sparkle-icious in my previous post, and here it is with Color Club Gingerbread.

Gingerbread's base colour is lighter, and while Bring on the Bling can offer good coverage in two coats, it's not quite enough for the CC polish. Both have other colours in their mix, but Bring on the Bling has multicoloured non-shifting colours while Gingerbread has holo glitter, which makes it more versatile.

Friends' Friday - Mad Dripping Mani

Another Friday, which means another blog presentation. I have to mention that apart from the first one, which I had to dedicate to Tenshi, there's no order of preference in my presentations. I'll try to keep a balance between French and English blogs, but that's all. It also depends of which nail-art I can / want to do (and for that the length of my nails is important). So today's blog is Fashion Polish. I quite hate the Fashion Police show, I find it tacky and pathetic, but this blog is anything but that. One word for it is classy! The pictures are beautiful and my only regret is that there isn't more nail-art, because all those I saw are a hit (the "Valentine" one in taupe and black is one I've desperately tried to reproduce, I'll have to wait for my nails to grow again, I'm not giving up!!). My pick for today is the Mad Dripping Mani. I could have tried some of the other combinations that were proposed, but you know how much I love Mad as a Hatter...

OPI Mad as a Hatter

Today's polish is really, really special. Not because it's an OPI, you've seen a lot of these in here, but because it was my first one. I've always loved taking care of my nails (I remember buying the Yves Rocher French manicure sets when I was a teenager to master the technique), but my journey into "real" nail art and polish addiction started with OPI's Alice in Wonderland collection. I'm a huge Burton fan, a huge Johnny Depp fan and I love English litterature, especially of the Victorian era, so I was really excited at the prospect of the Alice in Wonderland movie. It came out roughly at the time of my birthday and I had planned an Alice in Wonderland party, complete with decor, costumes, themed cooking, and gifts! I was spoiled rotten since I got this ring:

 as well as the Urban Decay Book of Shadow palette and the two OPI glitters in the cutest pouch:

That's how I discovered OPI, I fell in love with Mad as a Hatter and no other glitter can compare. Right now, I'm finishing my second bottle, and I have two others as back-ups!! And funnily enough, I always managed to pay less for them than what they cost in Sephora in France (we are cursed for that, in here a bottle of OPI is 14 euros). My only complaint about this polish is that it dries awfully fast. I clean up the neck of the bottle and screw it tightly each time I use, and my polish is a thick mess. I thinned it before doing my manicure and I could barely manage the second hand, it would have needed thinning midway... But it's so beautiful that it's worth the effort!! Get ready for many pics (I kept the blurry ones on purpose to show the different colours of the glitter), here is Mad as a Hatter in two coats with Orly Shield: 

Silver with tons of colors giving it a lavender metallic hue, what's not to love?? Ok, it's a glitter, but with polish remover baths such as Sally Hansen's or Sephora, removal is not so much of a pain now, I dread the cuticle cleaning much more!!

Another thing you  have to be careful about is which top coat you use. Of course you need a top-coat, and while Seche Vite is great because it gives a smooth finish, there's the problem of shrinkage. It usually doesn't bother me, but with that polish (maybe because it's so thick), it was awful. I took pictures and just couldn't bear the sight of it, so I re-did my manicure completely, this time with Orly Shield. No shrinkage, but the result is far from being as smooth and shiny, you need at least two coats of top-coat, and with the glitter, it does make a thick manicure. I'll see when I start my new bottle of MaaH if the shrinkage is as bad, it had never bothered me so badly before...

And just because I'm so proud of our Alice in Wonderland party, here are some picture of the decoration and food we had done. There were three parts in the living room, the Mad Tea Party, the Red Queen's corner and the Flowers/Caterpillar part. I kept the pics tiny but they are clickable.

This was in the corridor, where we had placed the welcoming cocktail and some tiny bretzels that I had shaped in keys, and the door had been free-hand-painted by Minnie (it's a copy of the one from the Disney movie)

The Mad Tea Party with the red chair (and on the ceilings, decorated lamps like the ones in the Mad Hatter's Cups attraction at Disneyland)

The Flowers/Caterpillar corner (click to see - among other things - the chocolate caterpillar and the flowers with faces). The coloured leaves are also inspired from Disneyland, you can see them in the Labyrinth.

And the red Queen corner (the playing cards in the tray were actually fresh cheese and fish-eggs toasts).

All pictures are copyrighted ©Minnie for The Purple Fairy Book

And a very merry Unbirthday to you all!!