Monday Blues: p2 Crazy Beauty and Born Pretty Store Studs

Hello my lovelies! Today's Monday Blues posts comes a little bit later than usual because I'm still facing my post holiday laziness. I have a few things to tell you first. This is probably going to be my last post for this year (and the last Monday Blues of 2013 for sure) so I want to wish you all a very happy and amazing new year. 2013 was not a good year for me and I'm happy that it's over and I get a brand new start. Secondly, for those of you that want to take part in the Monday Blues of 2014, Ariel over at Lacquer: the best medicine has created inlinkz codes for every month of the year. Click here to see the document with all the links. I will also have it linked to the banner in my sidebar for easy access. Hope many of you will join in 2014! Now that we have that out of our way, let's take a look at today's nails. 

Maybelline Brocades Rosy Rosettes

Hello my lovelies! I've been a lazy blogger in the last few days, but at least Christmas was nice and I feel very rested now. The polish I'm showing you today was my actual Christmas manicure that I wore from Christmas Eve to yesterday. You all know that I'm not a big fan of red, pink or gold, yet this polish kept me entertained for 3 days and it had all those colors so it must be something special. 

Maybelline Rosy Rosettes indoors, artificial light

Getting Ready for Christmas: Christmas Party!

Hello lovelies! Merry Christmas! As I'm writing this it's still Christmas Eve and I'm waiting for my official Christmas manicure to dry (it's glitter, what a surprise). Here in Romania we celebrate on the evening of Christmas Eve, which means we'll be opening presents and having dinner soon. The last couple of weeks have been very busy for my blog and I posted daily for 10 days straight. I'm gonna take a couple of days off to relax and spend time with my family and friends, so there won't be a post tomorrow. Today's post is the last from the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge and I'm very proud because I've finished it by the actual holiday. To be honest, I've cheated a bit on this challenge. First off, we had to do a manicure and makeup look but I only did a manicure. Secondly, my manicure isn't exactly party inspired but it is Christmas related so I hope you won't mind. 

Getting Ready for Christmas: Christmas Movie Inspired

Hello my lovelies! It's Christmas Eve! To all of you who are celebrating, I wish a very merry Christmas! For today's entry in the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge we had to do a manicure or a makeup look inspired by a Christmas movie. Of course I chose to do a manicure, the only problem was picking a movie. There are many traditional holiday movies that involve Santa and so on, but the one that I watch every single year is Love Actually. I usually watch it 5 weeks before Christmas, which is when the action in the movie starts, but this year I didn't have time so I saved it for Christmas day. I can't wait to watch it! The manicure I created is very simple because I got inspired by the poster of the movie. 

Monday Blues: KBShimmer Hex Appeal

Hello my lovelies! Another week, another Monday. At least there are only two more days until Christmas so everyone is gonna enjoy some rest soon. I'm taking a break from the holiday manicures to show you some blue nails. They are actually very sparkly so they still go well with the season. 

KBShimmer Hex Appeal indoors, artificial light

Getting Ready for Christmas: The Christmas Red

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! I feel like this week has been a great one for my blog because I managed to post every single day. So what better way to end the week than another entry from the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge. It's time for me to show you my classic shade of red for the holidays and I've chosen one that everybody knows and loves. I hope you will still enjoy these photos even if I'm sure you've seen this polish a lot. 

China Glaze Ruby Pumps indoors, artificial light

Getting Ready for Christmas: All I want for Christmas...

Hello my lovelies! It's day 7 of the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge, which means that I have to show you my wishlist for this year's holiday. I remember that this time last year I was doing a little thing called Polyvore Collage Day every Sunday and I did a holiday wishlist post too. It's interesting to see what I wished for last year and this year in comparison. Some things haven't changed, while others tend to be a little unusual. Let's see what we have on this year's list!

Getting Ready for Christmas: Snowflake Manicure

Hello my lovelies! This week has been full of swatches, which means it's time for some nail art. I've been waiting to post this entry for the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge for a while now because I had these nails ready from the beginning of the month. Snowflake manicures are my favorite thing to do in the winter and this time I went for a more unconventional color. But I love it! 

Kiko Sugar Mat Nail Lacquer Set - review and swatches part 2

Hello lovelies! As promised yesterday, I'm back with the second half of the Sugar Mat holiday set from Kiko. If you've missed the first post you can go read it by clicking here. In addition to the warmer shades in this collection, the first post also includes photos of the box these come in so make sure you check it out if you are thinking of buying this as a gift for someone. It's the perfect gift for a polish lover in my opinion. 

Kiko Sugar Mat Nail Lacquer Set - review and swatches part 1

Hello lovelies! This is the first of two posts that are a little different from what I normally do. I don't review whole collections and rarely do a post that includes more than one polish (besides nail art, of course). The lovely people at Kiko have come out with some holiday collections this year, two of which are made out of polish. The biggest purchase on my trip to Germany was one of these sets, and I decided to swatch all the polishes and show them to you as soon as possible in case you wanna get them yourself. These are available in all Kiko stores, as well as on their website that now ships to 25 European countries (including Romania). So without further ado, here are all the polishes in this set. 

Golden Rose Matte Velvet 105

Hello my lovelies! I finally have a bit more time for blogging and decided to catch up on some posts. These pictures are actually a month old, I just didn't have time to write a post to go with them. This is also a shade that is perfect for winter in my opinion. The finish is suede, which I absolutely love and feel like I haven't shown here in a very long time. 

Golden Rose Matte Velvet 105 indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues / Getting Ready for Christmas: Blue and Silver

Hello my lovelies! It's time for day 5 of the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge and since the theme is "blue and silver", I had to schedule it on a Monday to cover the Blues as well. I know most people think of red and green when it comes to winter and holiday manicures, but for me there has to be a lot of blue in there as well. My favorite winter holiday blue is Blue Year's Eve by China Glaze. Last year I used it as a base for a snowflake manicure that turned out to be one of my favorites of all time. I had to do something similar this year too, so here's what I came up with.

p2 Sand Style Opulent

Hello my lovelies! It's a lazy Saturday for me and I really meant to post this earlier but somehow the morning ran by. You all know that I'm a big fan of textured polish, especially of the sparkly kind. The p2 brand is one of my favorites and they brought out some new Sand Style shades this fall. While I wasn't quite into most of the new shades, I did like one of them and had to buy it. I think it's a very interesting polish. Let's take a look! 

p2 Sand Style 090 Opulent indoors, artificial light

Getting Ready for Christmas: Red and Gold

Hello my lovelies! I think everyone is excited that it's Friday today. It's time for day 4 of the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge, which means red and gold. You know that I'm not a big fan of red polish and I don't wear it often, so this challenge will be a record for me. For this theme I went for a darker red, a Christmas polish from a couple of years ago. I paired it with some glitter and some stamping and I love the result. 

Getting Ready for Christmas: Under the Mistletoe

Hello my lovelies! I'm back from my trip with lots of energy and polishes to show you. The Getting Ready for Christmas challenge is well on its way and I'm a little behind the other girls, but I plan to catch up soon. Today's theme is a little tricky and can be interpreted in many ways. I decided to not take the obvious approach of painting mistletoe on my nails and instead tried to paint something that can be found under the mistletoe: a Christmas sweater. I know a lot of people like to wear this type of patterned sweaters this time of the year, so I tried to recreate it on my nails. It didn't come out quite as I wanted but I still like it. 

Monday Blues: Navy Texture Mix

Hello my lovelies! I'm still away from home but I couldn't miss Monday Blues so this is another post I've scheduled for you. The manicure I'm showing you today involves a lot of stuff I love. You all know that I'm obsessed with blue polish and my absolute favorite polish of all time is China Glaze First Mate. I was very happy when I found out that Zoya came out with a textured version of this color in the form of Sunshine. I immediately knew that I had to combine these two beauties in one manicure and that's how this was born.

Rimmel Diamond Dust

Hello my lovelies! This is a scheduled post because when you will be reading this I will be away on vacation. I didn't want to leave you without any blog posts so I decided to show you an older manicure that I haven't had time to post. This polish came to me as a gift and I'm so glad because I probably wouldn't have picked it up myself. I'm happy that I got to try it though! 

Rimmel Diamond Dust with top coat, indoors, artificial light

Getting Ready for Christmas: Glitter Overload

Hello my lovelies! It's time for another post from the Getting Ready for Christmas challenge created by Elsa from Like A Candy Shop. I'm going on vacation today so I will take a little break from the challenge until I return. Today's theme is glitter overload, so I decided to do a manicure inspired by Santa's suit. It looks like this. 

Golden Rose Rich Color 45 and Carnival 01 indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: KBShimmer I Got A Crush On Blue

Hello my lovelies! I've got a very special polish to show you today so let's just cut to the chase. We polish lovers all have our lemmings and our wishlists. And usually at the top of that wishlist there's that one polish we always think about and hope we will get someday. The polish I'm showing you today was my number one lemming for many months. And through the kindness of Fingers Polish Mania I finally managed to get my hands on it. Naturally, I had to use it for my birthday mani yesterday. 

KBShimmer I Got A Crush On Blue indoors, artificial light

Where In The World Challenge: Romania

Hello lovelies and happy Sunday! Today is finally the day when I finish the Where In The World challenge. I'm not proud of myself because it took way more than I wanted it to take but I blame the lack of rules. I guess I just need a bit of a time guide if I wanna make a challenge work. Anyway, the last country of this challenge is my own, so I thought I would do a little special post today. The first of December is my country's national holiday and it also happens to be my birthday. I've always enjoyed having the day off for my birthday and people always joke that the fireworks are in fact for me. I decided to do a manicure with something that represents my country for me and I want to show you that Romania is so much more than vampires and Dracula. We have mountains, rivers and the sea. Beautiful landscapes that deserve to be seen and admired! I tried my best to depict that on my nails. 

November favorites and haul

Hello lovelies! It's the last day of November so today you get two posts. I posted my vintage nails this morning and now it's time for the November recap. I can't say that November has been a bad month but I'm happy it's over and December is here. It's my favorite month of the year because it starts with my birthday and then a bunch of holidays follow. I also have the whole month off so yay! Let's look at last month's favorites first. 

TPA Group Challenge: Vintage Nails

Hello my lovelies! Excited for the weekend? The weather is sunny over here so it's not too bad, even if it's pretty cold. We had the first snow yesterday but it was very little, which means it's gone now. It actually got me more into the Christmas spirit so now I can't wait to have a full white carpet at my feet. The TPA challenge is back today with another fun theme. Even if it's not really holiday related, I still had to participate because I love it. Here are my vintage nails! 

Getting Ready for Christmas: Not Yet, But Almost!

Hello lovelies! What a crazy week this has been! I've been running around town trying to get all sorts of paperwork done so I can go on holiday next week. I haven't had the time or energy to write any posts although I have tons of stuff to show you. Today I'm very happy to introduce you to a new challenge created by the lovely Elsa of Like a Candy Shop. It's called Getting Ready for Christmas and it has some really great themes. With this challenge I can officially say that the holiday manicure season has started. Here's the banner with the themes. 

Monday Blues: Flormar BD04

Hello my lovelies! Monday again and on top of everything it's supposed to snow today. I'm so not ready for that! At least I have a beautiful blue polish to show you and take your Monday blues away. I was very excited when the Black Dot collection from Flormar came out because they reminded me of the Illamasqua Speckled polishes that are completely out of my price league. I waited patiently for these to show up at my local Flormar counter and then picked up the brighter blue one. The collection also has a lighter blue, a mint, a grey and a pink one. They all have the same type of black glitter, only the base color is different. The one I'm showing you today is BD04. 

Flormar BD04 indoors, artificial light

TPA Group Challenge: Cupcake Nails

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are all doing well! I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that it's supposed to start snowing here soon. On the one hand, I do like snow but on the other hand I still feel like I skipped summer, so I'm not feeling the winter holiday spirit at all. To cheer us up today I have some very colorful nails. I've skipped the TPA Challenge last week but I'm back this week with some cupcake nails. Feels like we're all about sweets here with lollipops first and now cupcakes. I wasn't very original for this one but here's what I came up with. 

KBShimmer Oh Splat!

Hello my lovelies! I've been a bad blogger again and was too lazy to write posts for the past few days. But today I decided to show you one of the latest and most exciting additions to my nail polish collection. We all have indie brands that we love and would want to own every single polish from. For me that brand is KBShimmer and until recently I didn't own any. But thanks to the kindness of Fingers Polish Mania I was able to get my hands on a few, including my biggest lemming of all time. But that one is a subject for another post. The one I'm showing you today is probably the most famous polish KBShimmer makes. 

KBShimmer Oh Splat! indoors, artificial light

Golden Rose Carnival 11

Hello my lovelies! It's finally time for me to show you an amazing glitter polish. These swatches were done a couple of weeks ago and I just haven't had the time to write a proper post. The Carnival collection from Golden Rose consists of 16 layering glitters that look amazing. I have a few that I purchased, but the one I'm showing you today was kindly sent to me by Golden Rose Romania. It was one of the shades that caught my attention because I haven't really seen anything like this before. I wasn't sure of how I should layer this to make it look good so I swatched it both over white and black. You can see for yourself which option you like better. 

Ro: Buna! In sfarsit am reusit sa fac aceasta postare si sa va arat o minunata oja cu sclipici. Am facut pozele acestea in urma cu cateva saptamani dar n-am avut timp sa scriu postarea pana astazi. Colectia Carnival de la Golden Rose contine 16 nuante minunate de glitter, care se pot aplica peste o baza colorata. Detin cateva oje din aceasta colectie, iar cea pe care v-o arat azi mi-a fost trimisa prin amabilitatea celor de la Golden Rose Romania. Nuanta aceasta mi-a atras imediat atentia pentru ca nu am mai vazut un glitter asemanator. Am incercat oja atat peste alb cat si peste negru pentru a vedea cum arata mai bine. Puteti sa decideti chiar voi care varianta va place mai mult.

Golden Rose Carnival 11 over black, indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Revlon Surf

Hello my lovelies! I can't believe it's Monday again. It's been a busy week for me, hence the lack of posts in the last days. But I'm happy to be able to show you another beautiful blue today, one that is pretty special to me. This polish was a gift from a lovely lady I met via Instagram. She lives in my city and her name is Kinga (@kinganak on Instagram). I met her and Andrea (@funandi) a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast. Of course none of us showed up empty handed, so I got spoiled with beautiful gifts. Kinga knows I'm obsessed with blue so she made sure to include a few blue polishes for me. Long story short, Revlon Surf is one of them. Thank you, Kinga!

Revlon Surf indoors, artificial light

Purple with a Purpose

Hello my lovelies! I hope your week is going great so far. I'm rather busy and don't have a lot of time or patience to write posts, but I managed to do these nails that serve two important purposes. First off, Golden Rose Romania is running a nail art contest on their Facebook page and I couldn't miss it. Secondly, November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, a cause very dear to me, so I had to do at least one purple manicure to support the cause. 

Monday Blues: Golden Rose Rich Color 42

Hello my lovelies! I'm very proud of myself because I'm actually writing this post in advance instead of doing it last minute. The blue I'm showing you today is a true beauty. Two weeks ago I showed you some polishes from the Golden Rose Rich Color line and told you how much I loved them. Well naturally I had to get my hands on a few more of these polishes, number 42 being first on the list. 

Golden Rose Rich Color 42 indoors, artificial light

TPA Group Challenge: Lollipop Nails

Hello my lovelies! It has been a busy week for me and I didn't get to post as much as I wanted. I have a lot of polishes to show you and no time to write the posts. I couldn't miss the TPA group challenge though, so I'm showing you a simple manicure that I hope you'll enjoy. The theme was lollipop nails, which naturally requested for some fun colors. Here's what I came up with. 

Golden Rose Holiday 73

Hello my lovelies! In today's post I'm gonna try something for the first time: I'm gonna do a bilingual post. I decided to occasionally translate some of my posts in Romanian, but I'm not going to do it for all the posts, just ones that I think would interest my Romanian readers. It's the first time I write in my language and I'm really nervous, but I hope I will be up to the task. The polish I want to show you today is my very first textured polish from Golden Rose. They have a whole line called Holiday, with 31 lovely textured shades. You know how much I love this type of polishes, so I was excited to try the Golden Rose ones. 

Ro: Buna tuturor! Postarea de astazi va fi ceva mai speciala pentru ca va fi si in romaneste. Am decis ca din cand in cand voi scrie in ambele limbi, dar n-o voi face tot timpul, ci doar pentru acele postari care ar interesa in mod deosebit cititoarele din Romania. Este prima data cand scriu in romana pe blog si am mari emotii, dar sper sa iasa bine. Oja despre care voi vorbi azi este prima texturata de la Golden Rose pe care o incerc. Golden Rose are o intreaga colectie de texturate, numita Holiday, cuprinzand 31 de nuante. Mie ojele texturate imi plac la nebunie si de aceea abia asteptam sa le incerc si pe cele de la Golden Rose. 

Golden Rose Holiday 73 indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Essie Avenue Maintain

Hello my lovelies! It's Monday, it's November, it's foggy, and I don't like any of those things. So how about a spring blue? I finally got around to owning and swatching this beautiful blue from Essie's spring collection. Better late then never, right? 

Essie Avenue Maintain indoors, artificial light

Where In The World Challenge: Brazil

Hello lovelies and happy Sunday! I have finally managed to get to the second-to-last country of the Where In The World Challenge. That means I only have one country to go, namely my country, Romania. I really hope I come up with something good for that one. But until then, today we're talking about Brazil. When you think of Brazil, there are a few things that always come to mind, like football, the carnival or the beach. I decided to dig a little deeper and found out that Brazil is one of the world's largest jewelry manufacturers and they use gemstones that are mined locally. I chose to do an emerald inspired look for this post. 

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by an Animal

Hello my lovelies! The theme for today's TPA group challenge manicure was finally an easy one. What usually happens with easy themes is that you have so many choices that you really don't know what to choose. You want something original, that hasn't been done before. I wasn't that creative this time, but decided to go for the sparkly effect. So I did another butterfly manicure with a very special base. 

October favorites and haul

Hello my lovelies! I have no idea where October went. Feels like just yesterday I was telling you how happy I was that September ended. October was a good month, with mostly sunny, warm weather, which is great for an autumn month. I've blogged quite a lot and have a few favorites to show you. I would like to apologize in advance for the randomness of these pictures. I also changed my camera this month, which resulted in my pictures looking all kinds of ways. Hope you don't mind! 

October 2013 favorites

Golden Rose Rich Color 34

Hello my lovelies! I have a very fall appropriate polish for you today. I didn't do any new Halloween nail art (besides the one from Monday), but I used a Halloween glitter and that has to count for something, right? First, let's see the main character of this post.

Golden Rose Rich Color 34 indoors, artificial direct light

Monday Blues: Golden Rose Rich Color 15 and a Halloween manicure

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are all full of energy to start a new week. And even if you're not, with the winter time change we are technically waking up an hour later, so that's always a plus. The blue I'm showing you today comes from a newer Golden Rose collection named Rich Color. These have been around for months but it's the first time I actually got my hands on some. As usual with Golden Rose polishes they don't have a name, just numbers, which is sort of annoying. But let's take a look at this beauty. 

Golden Rose Rich Color 15 in natural light

Shimmer Polish Erica

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! It's time for your weekly glitter dose, so today I'm showing you the last of the Shimmer Polishes that I was kindly sent for review. I didn't really know how to wear this one so I tried a couple of options. They both turned out great in real life, even if they were a little hard to photograph. I first decided to layer a coat of the glitter over a similar base color. 

Shimmer Polish Erica over Pretty Serious Phantom Planet indoors, artificial light

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by Your Favorite Quote

Hello my lovelies! As usual on a Saturday, it's time for the TPA Group Challenge. The theme for this week was the hardest of all the themes we had so far. I had absolutely no idea how to do a manicure inspired by a quote. I could have cheated and picked a quote from a movie, then do a manicure inspired by said movie but no. I actually chose one of my favorite quotes. Written by an actual philosopher! 

*picture source*

Born Pretty Store QA66 Stamping Plate Review

Hello my lovelies! It's Friday, so it's time for some fun nail art! I've got a great stamping plate from the Born Pretty Store to show you today. Tribal prints have been very popular this summer and since manicures always follow the trends there has been quite a lot of tribal nail art floating around. I've attempted to do freehand tribal designs a couple of times, but the results haven't been as crisp and clean as I would have liked. So when I saw this stamping plate, I knew I had to try it out. 

Born Pretty Store plate QA66*

Born Pretty Store Wax Pen Review

Hello my lovelies! It's time for me to show you a tool that will completely change the way you do nail art. This very simple utensil comes from the Born Pretty Store and is extremely handy for picking up rhinestones, studs and any kind of glitters you want to put on your nails. It's very easy to use. Let's take a look! 

Born Pretty Store wax pens*

Born Pretty Store Textured Nail Polish Review

Hello my lovelies! I have a bunch of Born Pretty Store products to show you, so be prepared for some nail art related posts in the following days. But first I would like to start with a cute set of textured nail polishes from the brand Tribal. There are a few color options for this set, with brighter or more elegant colors. I didn't have any red textured polishes in my collection, so I chose the set with the number 10, which looks like this. 

Born Pretty Store Tribal textured nail polish set*

Monday Blues: Mermaid Scales

Hello my lovelies! I'm not particularly happy that it's Monday again, but the sun is shining and I hope that the nails I'm gonna show you are going to cheer us all up. I've done mermaid inspired nails before using different techniques (glitter tips, stamping) and I'm particularly excited about the technique I've used today. Check it out! 

Pretty Serious Phantom Planet

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! It's a beautiful day and I'm about to go out and get some fresh air, but first I wanted to get this post up because the pictures have been waiting patiently in my folders for a while now. I actually have a lot of stuff to show you and it seems that I never have enough time or energy to write the posts anymore. Anyway, the polish I'm showing you today is a gorgeous duochrome from the brand Pretty Serious. 

Pretty Serious Phantom Planet indoors, artificial light

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by Cartoons

Hello my lovelies! I'm very excited for today's post because it has some really fun nails. For this week's TPA Group Challenge theme, we had to get inspired by cartoons. I decided to do some freehand nail art and chose a TV show that has made it to its 25th season this year. So I think no introduction is necessary. 

Rimmel Round and Round the Garden

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are all doing well. Today I have a simple swatch for you and it's something very appropriate for the season. Rimmel came out with some new colors in their 60 Seconds line this summer, many of which were already dupes for polishes in my collection. I did however pick one up and saved it for the colder months because to me it's the perfect green for fall.

Rimmel Round and Round the Garden indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: S-he Stylezone 295 and Seventeen 104

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are not too sad that it's Monday today. My only consolation is that the sun is shining and it's still pretty warm for this time of the year. Despite that fact, my nails are already in fall mode, so today I will show you a very dark and vampy manicure. The polishes from today's post have no names, just numbers, which is pretty annoying but what can I do. Let's start with the first one. 

S-he Stylezone 295 indoors, artificial light

Where In The World Challenge: Madagascar

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! As promised, I'm back with another nail art post today. Three countries are all I have left from the Where In The World challenge, so I'm finally gonna finish it this month. I'm not proud of myself for stretching this challenge out over a year, but I guess the fact that you can go at your own pace didn't pressure me enough to post more regularly. I'm still proud of myself for not quitting and for almost finishing this. Today we are travelling to Madagascar! 

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by Celebrity Nails

Hello my lovelies! The TPA Group Challenge continues today with another theme, namely nails inspired by celebrities. Usually, celebrities either have their nails very neutral or they have very blingy and flashy designs on them. None of those fits my taste, so it was pretty hard for me to find something I could recreate. I finally settled for two simple designs using tape. Let's start with Rihanna.