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. 

p2 Sand Style Strict

Hello my lovelies! I have to apologize again for the lack of posts this week. I have no excuse except that life got in the way. On the bright side, I plan on posting every day of the weekend starting today. I have nail art planned for tomorrow, but today I have a very interesting polish to show you. You know I like textured polishes, especially ones with plenty of glitter in them, so this one had to be mine. 

p2 Sand Style Strict indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues / Where In The World Challenge: China

Hello my lovelies! My little travelling challenge has finally made it to China, and the manicure also seemed appropriate for Monday Blues, so I decided to do a combined post today. I've always been in love with Chinese ceramics and I've been meaning to do some China pattern nails for quite some time. I finally managed to find the perfect stamp for this and also the perfect polish to stamp with so here we are. 

OMG Nail Strips Review

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! Today I have a product for those of you who are not that good at nail art or don't have the patience or time to do an intricate design. I've been contacted by a company called OMG Nail Strips to review some of their products and I picked out 2 fun designs to test out. The ones I'm showing you today are the nail polish strips in Gold Stars*. 

OMG Nail Strips in "Gold Stars"

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by Tattoos

Hello my lovelies! Saturday means another theme from the TPA Group Challenge and this week we had to get inspired by tattoos. I wasn't in the mood to use a nude base because I feel I've been doing plenty of neutral manicures lately, so I decided to go for red and black. I feel that this color combination really goes with the rock chick tattoo kind of look. I also did a studded accent nail to spice it up a bit. 

Sation Plenty of Frogs and Strumming my Nails

Hello my lovelies! It's Friday! What are your plans for the weekend? I'm probably gonna stay in and since the Gymnastics World Championships are on, I will have plenty of entertainment. Today I have another set of pictures that has been in my vault for a very long time. I've purchased 3 Sation polishes a while ago and I've only showed Oh My Oceania, so I'm showing you the other two in today's post. First up we have Plenty of Frogs. 

Sation Plenty of Frogs indoors, artificial light

Shimmer Polish Cristina

Hello my lovelies! It's Thursday which means there's just one more day left until the weekend. It's extremely cold and rainy where I live, so staying in and being cozy is probably the best thing to do. The polish I'm showing you today is a lovely glitter from Shimmer Polish. I have to be honest with you and say that I was not able to photograph this properly. I tried two different times and failed miserably. I can assure you that this is much more beautiful in reality and its beauty is very hard to capture. 

Shimmer Cristina indoors, artificial light

September favorites and haul

Hello my lovelies! It's the first of October and that means it's time to do a recap of September. It's has been a hard month for me, but I'm really happy that I was able to do some nail art here and there. The shopping part wasn't very successful because I didn't have much time for that. But let's take a look at my favorite manicures from last month.