BornPrettyStore L026 Stamping Plate

                                                                                                -press sample -

Hello friends!

I hope you had a merry Christmas and that you had the chance to spend it with your family and loved ones.
Before we enter new year, let's have a look at one of the big stamping plates from BornPrettyStore, BP-L026. This one has all kinds of leaves and the images are quite big so it will work great if you have long nails.

As usual with BornPretty plates, the images are etched nicely and transfer great, and you'll have a nice manicure in no time at all. I did 2 manicures with it so far:

This gradient is done with 2 China Glaze polishes, the purple is All aboard, and the gold sparkly beauty is Angel Wings.

This is Black Hole Sun by FoxyPawsPolish, stamped with BornPretty white stamping polish I reviewed a few days ago. You can see how well it transferred to the nail. I didn't use a stamping polish on manicure above, but it still transferred greatly, and that's thanks to the well etched plate.

This is the plate: http://www.bornprettystore.com/flower-vine-nail-stamp-template-leaves-image-plate-born-pretty-l026-65cm-p-21812.html

Don't forget to use my code RAPYX31 for 10% off your order :)

xo

Stefi

BornPrettyStore Feather Decals

                                                                         - water decals sent to me by BornPrettyStore -

Hello everyone!

You know, I am really starting to like water decals! They are so easy to apply, and you get a cute manicure in matter of minutes.
BornPrettyStore sent me these for review, and I really liked them:

They are quite easy to apply, take the foil of, cut the feather you want to use, then dip in in some water for about 30 seconds, and transfer to your nail. Be careful that your nail polish is completely dry, and you can dip your nail in water, that way placing the decal will be easier. After you have your decal where you want it, put on top coat. Just be careful, if you put too much top coat, the decal might become smudgy, they are quite delicate. This is my manicure with these adorable decals, a did a gradient of Barry M Berry Cosmo and Essie Bahama Mama

As I said, I like water decals and I sure will be ordering more from BornPrettyStore.

You can buy these here: http://www.bornprettystore.com/sheet-peacock-feather-nail-water-decals-black-white-feather-pattern-stickers-p-20711.html
Item number is 20711, decals number D463, and they are currently just $1.17 which is a great price!

Don't forget to use RAPYX31 for 10% off your entire order (because we all know you'll buy more than just the decals :) )

xoxo

Stefi

BornPrettyStore gradient sponges

                                                                   - sponges sent to me by BornPrettyStore-

Hello!

I have another BornPrettyStore product to share with you: gradient sponges.

I like gradients, and do them a lot, and the most annoying thing is when the sponge you use to tab the polishes on to your nails crumbs or starts to fall apart because it's too wet and then you're stuck with a piece of the sponge on your nail. I usually use make up sponges from my local beauty store, and they are ok, but I do have to be careful with them because they are very soft, and I go trough them fast because I use one side of the sponge for one hand, so basically, I use a sponge for one manicure.
This is the reason I was very curious about these sponges. They seemed harder when I unpacked them, and I was excited to see how they would act with polish. There are 3 of them in a package and they come in a block, and you just have to cut one triangle to use.

I was a little worried that they would crumble on the spot where I detached one from the others, but it turns out, I was fussing over nothing. Not only did they not crumble AT ALL, I used one side for both my hands. As I sad, they are a bit harder, or more dense, and they soak up the polish good, so the surface does not go all mushy and it doesn't start to fall apart. I was so delighted that I took pictures after I did a gradient on my left hand, and then after the right was finished:

See, no chipped parts, the sponges are as they were before polish. U just cut of this side and saved my sponge to use on another gradient. :) As you can see, I did a nude and purple gradient. The nude is Essence Crew First and the purple is China Glaze Looking Bootiful, and chose those polishes for a reason: Essence is a creme, and China Glaze is a Jelly, and usualy, those kind of polishes tend to moist the sponges the most and you need several layers for the gradient to look good, so I wanted to give these sponges a good test. The worst thing in a gradient when a piece of the sponge stays on the nail! As you will see in a second, they did very good:

I used BPL007 plate for this stamping, and I recommend this plate too, it's big, and it has pretty damask images for stamping. :)

The sponges are only $0.99 and you can buy them here: http://www.bornprettystore.com/3pcs-gradient-nails-soft-sponges-color-fade-manicure-p-12037.html

Item number is 12307 and don't forget to use code RAPYX31 for 10% off your order when you buy them :)

Do you like gradients? How often do you do them? Tell me in the comments.

xoxo

Stefi

Obsessed With Tropical

Hello, friends! :)
A lot has been going on these pas few weeks. My brother in law was getting married, and that included a whole lotta organizing to do, because my Dad didn't want to go to the wedding and the party, and we had to figure something out because we can't leave him alone for a whole day and night (he's in early stages of dementia). He was at his sister's house for the weekend, so we were able to attend all the wedding stuff. Maybe I should clarify, in Croatia, if someone close to you is getting married, the wedding basically starts at around noon, we gather at the house of the bride or groom (depends which one are you related to), then you go pick up the bride (or wait for the groom), then the church, and then the party, which usually lasts the whole night :) Anyway, it was a very fun day and night. Of course I had to have special nails for the occasion, so here they are:

I did a gradient with Essence white and Parrot Polish The Lioness of Brittany, and stamped with MoyouLondon Tropical 02 plate.
They kind of matched my dress :)

Tropical theme seems to be my favourite these days, and I did quite a lot of those. There's a hash tag on Instagram #hawaiianshirtmani, it was started by LadyAndTheStamp, and we do hawaiian shirt themed manicure every friday, and I think I might have gone a bit overboard with it. I think it's because it's been so hot here for the last few days all I can think of is being in a tropical paradise :D
Here are a few of those manicures:

This is a gradient with Catrice Will You Berry Me? and China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, then dry brushed with Barry M Cotton, and then stamped with my go to tropical plate, MoyouLondon 02.

This is a gradient with Essence love is in the air, Eveline 922 and Barry M Berry Cosmo, stamped with, again, MoyouLondon Tropical 02

The base for this manicure was Misslyn Bikini season from their Neoprene Collection, stamped with A England Fonteyn and then Essence Black Stampy, all using images from BundleMonster BM-313 plate. :)

Which one is your favourite? Do you like tropical themed manicures?
Tell me in the comments, on hop on over to my Instagram @therapywithnailpolish :)

xoxo

Stefi

Nail Art Challenges in June

Hello, friends!

Last month I joined 2 nail art challenges on Instagram, and it's been so much fun, I continued it in July.
Sometimes I don't have any inspiration and have no idea what to do on my nails, so this was a very nice way to get ideas, enjoy other people's manicures, and find some very talented ladies to follow.
The first WNAC 2015 challenge, basically, you get a theme of the month and an idea, a subtheme if you will (is that even a word, subtheme?) for every friday. This were my manicures for that challenge.

If you are interested in the details, you can check my Instagram, but I think my favourite of these is this one:

This is Colors By Llarowe Young Turks, a beautiful holographic turquoise polish, stamped with black Essence Stampy and Moyou London Fashionista plate. The necklace I'm holding is hand made by my friend and polish partner in crime SecretJewelGarden, go check out her Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/thesecretjewelgarden. There was no sun when I took this photo, but this polish is pretty either way.

The second nail art challenge I joined was ClaireEstelle8, this one is very fun. These are the manis:

I'd say my favourite of these would be this one:

It's and ombre with Essie's Garden Variety and Essence play with my mint stamped with Bundle Monster BM-315. It's the first time I did an vertical ombre, and I think it turned out very well.

One of the prompts for this challenge was new technique. So, I decided to tackle watermarble. I've been trying to do it since I started blogging, and it always ended horribly, so I am quite proud of this manicure :)

There is still room for improvement, of course, but this is the first time I managed to get the polish to spread and make a decent design :) All polishes used were A England, details, of course, on Instagram :) 

What do you think? 

Do you have a favourite among these? 

xoxo

Stefi

Spring is in the air!

Spring finally came to my little country, and it was time for some spring manicures.
I think, by now, you know I'm a big fan of dark polishes, so the first one A England's Sleeping Palace, a beautiful plum/eggplant holo polish that I stamped with some black flowers. I know, black flowers are not exactly spring like, but still, it's flowers :) The image is from Moyou London Suki 07 plate.

You know I recently fell in love with A England polishes, and I'm thinking this may be my favourite of the ones I brought from London. The colour is so special and I haven't seen a polish like it before, and the holo is visible even without the sun, and it's just perfect.

I really liked another spring mani I did, it's light blue and, in my opinion, very spring like:

The blue base is Kiko 849, a light blue and slightly shimmery polish, stamped with Models Own Chrome Blue, a polish I got in London that is absolutely perfect for stamping. I bought anothe blue, a dark one, and now I'm sorry I didn't buy more of the Models Own Chrome collection. I'll have to do some online shopping, me thinks :)

The last one for today was my special , 1st day of spring manicure. I did a gradient with Eveline 922 (lilac) and Misslyn 568 (mint), and stamped some flowers with A England The Blessed Damozel:

What do you think? Which one of these do you like the best? Tell me in the comments :)

xoxo

Stefi

Waiting for the spring

I know, I know, I've been MIA for a while, but what can I say: sometimes life gets in the way and the time just escapes me. Maybe I haven't been writing blog posts, but I certainly have been doing my nails :)
So, here are a few of the manis I did over the past 10 days.
Znam, znam, nije me bilo neko vrijeme, ali ponekad se život upetlja i pisanje bloga, pa jednostavno nisam stigla. Iako nisam stigla pisati, to ne znači da nisam stigla lakirati nokte, pa evo nekoliko manikura koje sam radila u proteklih 10 dana. 

This is Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Hydrangea, currently one of my favourite polishes. It's blue, it's holo, and it's named after my favourite flowers, so, yeah, you get it :) Stamped with MoyouLondon Fairytale 08 plate and Essence Black Stampy polish. Fun fact, my cat, Simba, wanted to make sure the polish was dry (it wasn't), and managed to scratch me while doing that :) I'm sure cat lovers out there know the feeling :)
Ovo je Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Hydrangea, trenutno jedan od mojih omiljenih lakova. Plavi je, holografski, i nazvan po mom omiljenom cvijetu. Štambiljala sam sa MoyouLondon Fairytale pločicom broj 8, i Essence Black stampy lakom. Zabavna činjenica, moj mačak Simba je odlučio provjeriti da li se lak osušio (nije), pa me usput uspio ogrepsti. Sigurna da sam da svi vi koji imate mačke, kužite osjećaj :)

This is Misslyn 569 stamped with Suki 07 plate and Kiko Silver Metallic. We had heavy snow, and I really wanted to cheer myself up with this mint colour. It's so pretty! I liked it so much I made a gradient with it, and then, you see a pattern here, stamped :) Here it is: 

Ovo je Misslyn 569, štambiljan sa Suki 07 pločicom i Kiko Silver Metallic lakom. Htjela sam se razveseliti nakon onog snijega koji je pao, pa sam se odlučio za ovu mint boju. Predivna je, toliko mi se svidio ovaj lak da sam odlučila napraviti gradient, naravno sa stampingom: 

For the gradient, except the Misslyn mint, I used Kiko 385 and the stamping is Kiko Metallic Silver with Fairytale 8 plate. 

Za gradient, osim Misslyn mint laka sam upotrijebila Kiko 385 i opet Kiko Metallic Silver i MoyouLondon Fairytale 8 pločicu. 

That's it for this time, stay tuned :) 

To je to za ovaj put :)

xoxo

Twin nails aka Croatian Women Making It Complicated

I love Instagram. It's fast, it's simple, and there are hundreds of accounts with awesome nail art. And because everybody speaks English, the fact that someone lives near you sometimes escapes you :)

That's what happened to me and @secretjewelgarden. I commented on one of her post and she replied in Croatian, and we discovered we live 50 km from one another. 100 emails later, this came to life: 

Volim Instagram, brz je, jednostavana i postoji hrpetina fotki s prekrasnim nail artom. Svi pričaju engleski, pa je ponekad teško skužiti da se pratite s nekim tko živi blizu vas. To se dogodilo meni i @secretjewelgarden: komentirala sam jednu njenu fotku, ona mi je odgovorila na hrvatskom, i skužile smo da živimo 50 km jedna od druge. 100 emailova kasnije, nastalo je ovo: 

Yes, we decided it would be fun to do twin manicures, and we chose this red and black gradient with stamping because it turned out we're both crazy about stamping and own a few similar plates. 

It was a lot of fun, but we went trough HELL for this. Red polish, as we should've known, is a clean up nightmare: my fingers looked liked I murdered someone when I tried to clean it up properly. I actually did the gradient twice, because I messed everything up the first time. Then, we wanted to do fleur de lys stamping, but then I messed up mine, and at the same time, I received an email from her saying that she had trouble with hers too, so we decided on something similar, but different.  We both take pics of our manicures during the day, and of course, next day, the sky above Croatia was so grey and dark it could barely be called daytime :D 

But still, this was so much fun we decided to make it a regular thing. :) 

Here are the solo shots. 

Da, odlučile smo da bi bilo zabavno napraviti iste manikure, i odabrale smo crveno crni gradient sa stampingom jer se ispostavilo da smo obje lude za stampingom i imamo nekoliko sličnih pločica. Bilo je jako zabavno, ali smo prošle PAKAO da bismo ovo napravile. Crveni lak, što smo trebale znati, je noćna mora za čišćenje. Radila sam gradient dva puta, jer sam prvi uspjela totalno zamrljati. Onda smo htjele fleur de lys za stamping uzorak, što sam uspjela zabrljati i u isto vrijeme sam dobila e mail da ni njen ne štima, pa smo se odlučile na nešto drugo, ali slično. Obje fotkamo manikure po danu, i naravno da je sljedeći dan bilo oblačno i sivo kao da nije dan. 

Ipak, super smo se zabavljale dok smo ovo radile i odlučile smo da ćemo napraviti još istih manikura. 

I used Kiko 239 Vermilion red with Maybelline Colorshow black, and stamped with MoyouLondon Fairytale 08 plate and Kiko 857 Metallic Silver for stamping. 

Iznad su pobrojani lakove koje sam koristila

@Secretjewelgarden used Essie Russian Roulete and Catrice Black to the Routes for gradient, and Kiko 616 Mirror with MoyouLondon Tourist 07 plate for stamping. 

Lakovi koje je @secretjewelgarden koristila. 

We did a mani swap few days later, and this is how it turned out: 

Nakon twin manikure, napravile smo i zamjenu manikura i ovako su ispale:

You can find us on Instagram: @secretjewelgarden  @therapywithnailpolish, we even have a hashtag it's #croatianwomenmakingitcomplicated :)

Iznad su linkovi na naše instagram profile, a imamo i svoj hashtag :)

xoxo

Dusty gradient

Hello, friends!

I'm in the mood for gradients, and since the weather has been foggy and snowy, I decided on something low key. The darker is Misslyn 275 and an the light one is an old Avon called Luxe Lavender. I have no idea when I bought it, it was in my vanity with all the other polishes I don't use often, but I'm thinking it's around 5 years old :) (See, husband, I use them all, not just the new ones).
Coincidentally, these colours match perfectly to my blog colours. :) 

Pozdrav svima!

U posljednje vrijeme sam raspoložena za gradijente, a budući je vrijeme maglovito i snježno, odlučila sam se za ove dvije boje. Tamnija je Misslyn 275, a svijetlija je stari Avon lak Luxe Lavender. Nemam pojma kad sam ga kupila, bio je u ormariću sa ostalim lakovima koje često ne koristim, mislim da je star oko 5 godina. (Vidiš, mužu, ipak ih sve koristim, ne samo nove ;)
Ispostavilo se da se ove boje savršeno slažu sa bojama ovog bloga. :) 

Since am also obsessed with stamping, naturally, I had to stamp it. I used MoyouLondon Fashionista 08 plate with my go to stamping polish, Kiko 857, Metallic Silver. You like?

xoxo

Budući da sam također opsjednuta štambiljanjem, naravno da sam morala staviti neki uzorak na nokte. Ovo je uzorak sa MoyouLondon Fashionista 08 pločice, a štambiljala sam sa Kiko 857 lakom. 

Sviđa vam se? 

xoxo

Snow balls gradient

Hello, friends!
It's the first day of winter, officially. I'm not a fan of winter, so I'm not complaining at the current weather in Croatia, it's unusually warm, and, thank god, sunny.
However, I tried my luck in doing a wintery mani. I think I could have done a better gradient, but still, here it is:

Pozdrav, prijatelji!
Službeno je prvi dan zime. Nisam baš obožavatlej, pa se uopće ne bunim na ovo vrijeme koje nas je zahvatilo, konačno, sunce!
Ipak, probala sam napraviti zimsku manikuru. Mislim da sam gradient mogla napraviti i bolje, ali ipak.
Za gradient sam koristila Wet'nWild White Creme i Kiko 385, a onda sam štambiljala sa Kiko Metallic Silver i MoyouLondon pločicom Pro04. Dovršila sam svojim vjernim Essie Good to go nadlakom.

I used Wet'nWild White Creme and Kiko 385 for the gradient, stamped with Kiko Metallic Silver and MoyouLondon Pro04 plate, and then top coated with my faithful Essie Good to go.
This is probably the only wintery thing I will do, as I said, not a fan of winter. :)

xoxo