Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Today I would like to show you a manicure that I created quite a while ago, but have not gotten around to posting. I have been sick the past two weeks and my energy for creating manicures is at an all time low. Luckily this candy filled manicure is just perfect for a day which has become synonymous with candy overload...

For this manicure, I created a gradient using Nicole by OPI Candy is Dandy and I Liliac Gumdrops. I stamped using Essence Stamp Me! White and Bundle Monster plate BM-306. Fun and easy...

Here is a look at the gradient before the stamping. To create this gradient, I simply brushed on I Lilac Gumdrops over Candy is Dandy when it was dry. I think because they are textured, this sort of rough gradient still looks good and is much quicker than sponging...

How will you be spending your Halloween?

I will be spending my Halloween at work, leaving my boyfriend home to tend to the trick or treaters. We get lots and lots of them every year. I am sad I won't see all the cute costumes, but also kind of glad I won't have to be jumping up and down every 20 seconds to open the door.

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

OPI Euro Centrale 2013 Collection - Part 1

Today I'm excited to show you the first half of the OPI Euro Centrale Spring/Summer collection. This half contains mostly creams and one gorgeous glitter named polka.com which can be layered over any of them. Did anyone else try to visit polka.com half expecting to see something from OPI? The website disappointed  but these gorgeous lacquers do not...

OPI…Eurso Euro - "This deep blue cream is very continental."
A gorgeous dark navy blue cream. Smooth two coat formula that applies beautifully. No staining of the skin or nails which is a huge plus for me, as I've been burned on similar shades. This might be my favorite from this half of the collection. I love that it is so dark, but does not appear black when applied on the nail. Swatches are two coats with a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: OPI…Eurso Euro, NL E72 Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Polka.com - "Blue and violet are dancing partners in this glittery combo."
A mix of teal, lavender and pink hex glitter as well as small lavender glitter in a clear base. This can be applied over any base polish for endless layering possibilities. I dabbed on one coat of glitter over OPI...Eurso Euro. Swatches are with a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: Polka.com, NL E71 Number of coats: 1 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Suzi’s Hungary AGAIN! - "Thank goodness there are zero calories in this warm and yummy pink!"
A coral pink cream with a hidden pearly shimmer. My camera for some reason freaked out on this shade. In real life it is not actually more pink than peach as it appears in the photos. I used three thin coats for complete coverage. With a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: Suzi’s Hungary AGAIN!, NL E73 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

You’re Such a BudaPest - "If I let you borrow this periwinkle-purple, will you go away?"
A lavender cream with a subtle silvery shimmer. This shade really screams spring to me. The formula is a bit thin to start with, but builds up to full coverage at three coats. It is very pretty and I love the slight hint of shimmer. No top coat in these swatches...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: You’re Such a BudaPest, NL E74 Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Can’t Find My Czechbook - "I hope you take credit, because I must have this aqua!"
A teal/turquoise cream. Great smooth, creamy formula with full coverage at two coats. This is definitely way up there as far as favorites go for me. Such a beautiful shade. Swatches are two coats with no top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: Can’t Find My Czechbook, NL E75 Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

My Paprika is Hotter than Yours! - "Get the extinguisher...this fiery red is sizzling!"
A reddish orange cream with a soft hidden coppery shimmer. It is nicely pigmented and provides full coverage at two coats. The hidden shimmer softens this up and makes it very wearable. Swatches are two coats with no top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: OPI Collection: Euro Centrale, Spring/Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: My Paprika is Hotter than Yours!, NL E76 Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Which of these is your fave?

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Shimmer Leslie Stamped

I have been really enjoying stamping over glitter especially with intricate patterns that allow the glitter to peek through in spots. This is another one along those lines. It is not quite as subtle as the last one that I did, but this for me is a much better result...

The base of this manicure is Shimmer Leslie (over Barielle Rio's Rockin' Bands). For the stamping I used Dashica Beauty plate SdP-O and my favorite stamping silver which is Pure Ice Silver Mercedes (recently renamed Silver Star). To accent the flower centers, I used yellow rhinestones from Ebay. My favorite part is seeing the glitter sparkle in the flower petals...

Thanks for looking and commenting!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Shimmer Leslie & Brooklyn

Today is 12-12-12, the last of the major numerical dates for another century. Are you planning anything memorable today? More importantly have you done anything with the past eleven? I really can't say that I have and today will be no different. I plan to dedicate the day to sleep since I'm exhausted after the past week/weekend at work. If you are worried for having nothing special planned than have no fear. According to some numerology experts the real 12-12-12 is in 2019 since 2+0+1+9=12 and by that theory today is just 12-12-5. So relax, enjoy the day and take a look at these Shimmer swatches... ;)

Shimmer Leslie (over Barielle Rio's Rockin' Bands)
A mix of different shades of blue and lavender in a clear base. I was in a the mood to match, so layered it over a metallic lavender. My favorite is the pop of darker blue hex glitter among all the lighter blue/lavender shades. It is gorgeous and sparkly as usual. Application is very nice with a great mix of glitter in every brush load. I've gotten in the habit of dabbing on glitter after seeing a video tutorial and get really good glitter distribution using it. These swatches are one generous coat of glitter over the base plus a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Shimmer Collection: main Color Name/Number: Leslie Number of coats: 1 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Shimmer Brooklyn (over Barielle Wanna Samba?)
A clear base with a mix of teal glitter with larger gold hex and some beautiful iridescent purple glitter. This could look great over just about any color. I chose to layer it over a pewter gray. Again the formula is very nice to work with and has good glitter distribution. I like this one a lot, but I seem to say that about every Shimmer glitter bomb. This is just one generous coat of glitter over a base plus a top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Shimmer Collection: main Color Name/Number: Brooklyn Number of coats: 1 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

You can purchase any of these by emailing Cindy directly at shimmer484@gmail.com or through ShimmerPolish on Etsy. Cindy even makes custom polishes so don't hesitate to ask her!

Also, take a look at her blog and Facebook page where she hosts giveaways of her creations. You didn't hear it from me, but she is about 120 likes on Facebook away from hosting another give away, so go join in the fun...

And don't forget to let me know what you think of these!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Sunday Stamping: Favorite Stamp

Is it just me or does it seem that every week Sunday comes faster and faster. This week for Sunday Stamping in the group Adventures in Stamping, the challenge was to use a favorite new stamp. To be honest, I don't really have favorites when it comes to a particular stamp. I do have favorite sets that I will reach for vs others when selecting images. It all depends on the mood of the day or an idea. Just in the last month I've gotten the new Mash and Bundle Monster sets as well as the large DashicaBeauty plate, making it really hard to choose a new favorite. They are all excellent quality and I'm still exploring and getting inspired by all the different images :)

For today's manicure I chose the base of Ulta Tutu Cute. It is one of the new shades that I got during their recent sale. Since most of the Ultas I currently own are dark, I had to get some new summery colors. The stamp I chose to use is an image from the DaschicaBeauty plate SdP-O. This flower image has been begging for a manicure ever since I first saw it. I kept rotating the image to get a slightly different design on each nail, but if I wanted a matching set of nails on the other hand, this stamp has a mirror image of it available on the plate. My stamping on all the nails is random and as you can imagine do not mirror each other...

I stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Grape Escape. It is one of those blurple colors that looks purple, but photographs blue. Interestingly enough, when I stamped with it, all the purple dissapeared. It really is just blue on the nail as you see here. It looks as though someone took a blue pen and just doodled flower patterns on my nails. I love it. Will have to try stamping this over white. Or maybe a nice henna color over a tan base would look good, but I'm getting side tracked... Also, in true ink fashion, the image smeared when I applied the top coat so zoom in at your own risk ;)

After wearing the manicure as seen above for a day, it started to look kind of flat, so I topped it off with some sparkle in the form of Pure Ice Busted. It is a great purple fleck shimmer that gave it some life and movement. It also muted down the stamp a bit and hid the smudges...

Ulta Tutu Cute is a slightly dusty lavender cream. It is very pigmented, two coats for full coverage. The formula is smooth and easy to work with, although maybe just a touch too thick for my preference. Nothing a few drops of thinner can't handle. It dries slightly darker than bottle color...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Ulta Collection: Salon Formula main line Color Name/Number: Tutu Cute Number of coats: 2 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Born Pretty Store Dried Flowers Manicure and Review

I received an offer from The Born Pretty Store to review their nail art Dried Flowers. I have been wanting to try these flowers for a while so I couldn't resist. The package contains 12 different flowers, each one in it's own little plastic jar.

Six of the jars contain small five-petal flowers. Each jar contains five flowers of one color. I got lucky and got six yellow flowers in one of the jars. All the rest had five flowers...

The other six jars contain cluster flowers, two flowers in each jar. These flowers dyed so they are a bright color on one side and mostly while on the other. I think they can be used on either side. Depends on the desired effect...

I chose to use the purple cluster flowers for my manicure and applied them over Color Club Secret Rendezvous. Because there are only two flower clusters of each color and I didn't want to mix colors in my manicure, I cut the flowers apart to have enough for each nail. I applied about one third of the cluster on the ring finger as an accent. The rest I separated into individual little flowers and applied on other nails. I am really impressed just how perfect these tiny flowers are...

A flower I stole from my mom's garden... :)

The flowers were very easy to use and are so pretty for spring. I only wish that there were more of each flower in this package... :D

Have you tried these dried flowers before? I would love know what you think of them.

I have a few other ideas to try out with these flowers so I will hopefully be showing those soon :)

You can find these Dried Flowers at The Born Pretty Store. They were kind enough to send a 5% off code that you can use on any purchase.

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** These polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **