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. 

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. 

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! 

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. 

TPA Group Challenge: Inspired by a Country / Where In The World Challenge: Japan

Hello my lovelies! I'm back! My exams are over and it went pretty well, so now I can be officially called a doctor. First off, I would like to apologize for being absent, for not answering comments and not commenting on your blogs. It has been a crazy summer for me. I can't really promise to catch up because it's too much to catch up on, but I will at least try to keep up from now on. Speaking of catching up, the Where In The World challenge has been patiently waiting for me to finish it, and since today's TPA Group Challenge theme was "Inspired by a Country" I decided to do the next country on my list, namely Japan. I don't usually do two challenge manis in the same post, so this is an exception. I also went with something very simple because I was running out of time. My initial plan for Japan was to do Sailor Moon nails but I ended up with Hello Kitty instead. I always think of kawaii when I think about Japan so I guess it works. 

Where In The World Challenge: Colombia

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! It's been far too long since I've posted a manicure from the Where in the World challenge. I've been busy but the truth is that I've also been stuck. The fact that this challenge allows you to go at your own pace didn't help either and only worked together with my laziness. So the reason I've been stuck is Colombia. One of my favorite writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, comes from Colombia and I really wanted to honor him with a manicure. But the truth is that his books are so complex that you can't really do a simple manicure out of them. I ended up with something I'm not very proud of, but I don't know what else I could do.

Where In The World Challenge: Korea

Hello my lovelies! First of all, please excuse me for the lack of posts in the last days. I've had a rough week and even though I have tons of stuff to show you, I wasn't in the mood to write a blog post. Luckily, everything gets better when the weekend comes, so here I am finally with this post. Usually on Saturdays I try to keep up with the Where In The World Challenge. I'm happy that I've been on track with this one in the last weeks. Today we are traveling to Korea with this colorful manicure. 

Where In The World Challenge: Ukraine

Hello my lovelies! It's Saturday and I swear I have no idea where this week went. We've had some graduation related celebrations this week and it was fun. Unfortunately, it's back to classes on Monday. Today I have a new country to visit. Ukraine was the next country on my list and so I did something traditional. 

Where In The World Challenge: Singapore

Hello lovelies! It's been over a month since the last time I did a manicure from this challenge. I've been a really bad blogger, I admit. I neglected this challenge because of Easter and everything, but now I'm back and I really hope I can finish it soon. The country we are traveling to today is Singapore. There are a lot of lovely nail bloggers in Singapore and I know some of them from Twitter and Instagram. I remember a conversation I had with Radha (@thepolishowl on Twitter) about the humid climate they have over there. Singapore is also a group of islands and it's surrounded by water, so that's how I got the inspiration for this manicure.

Where In The World Challenge: Finland

Hello my lovelies! How are you on this fine Saturday? I wanted to get this post up earlier but I didn't type it up yesterday cause I've spent most of the afternoon and evening swatching my collection. I got my swatch sticks in the mail and now I'm working on getting my collection organized. I know a lot of people have been posting about these lately, but I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a post from me. Tell me in the comment box if you are! And now let's get to today's nail art. The next country I have to travel to for my challenge is Finland. I had the perfect idea for this country and luckily it wasn't too hard to paint. 

The lily-of-the-valley is the national flower of Finland. I remember having these in my garden when I was little. These flowers are so delicate and beautiful and their smell is absolutely divine. Ironically, they are poisonous, but that shouldn't bother us too much cause whey are pretty to look at. I was happy to find out that they were the national flower of this country because I really wanted to paint some flowers on my nails, even though spring doesn't want to come over here. The weather looks like October and I'm so over this rain! 

As a base for this manicure, I used p2 Wild Miss which I have shown you in yesterday's post. The color is not accurate in these photos, so if you wanna see how it really looks check out the post about it. I painted everything else using some small nail art brushes and a dotting tool. The green I used for the stems is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover. 

I really hope you enjoyed this post! To check out more Finland themed manicures click on the links below. 

Where In The World Challenge: Germany

Hello my lovelies! I'm finally back with another post in this challenge. I feel so behind on these cause Gosia is already done with the whole challenge. But the beauty of this one is that you can go at your own pace. Hopefully mine will be a faster one in the following weeks. Today we are traveling to Germany. What most of you don't know is that I went to a German school and studied German as a first language even though I'm not of German heritage. I've only been to Germany once or twice, but I did take a language exam before I graduated high school. For the oral part of the exam we had to choose a theme related to Germany and do a presentation about it. I decided to talk about Caspar David Friedrich, a Romantic painter I like a lot. My inspiration for today's mani comes from his work. 

The painting I got my inspiration from is called "Greifswald Harbour" and it depicts a beautiful sunset in the harbor of the painter's place of birth. I particularly like how the painter depicts the sky in many of his works. He has a lot of sunset, clouds and fog paintings. One of his most famous paintings is called "The Wanderer above the Mists" (click on the name to see it). I took some photos of my album and of course the credit goes to the painter itself.

Polish Days: Vintage and France

Hello lovelies! It's Polish Days time again and this month the theme is "Vintage". Some of you know that I'm also doing the Where In The World challenge and the next country I have to visit is France. I don't usually do two challenges in one but this time I had a great idea that worked for both. I hope nobody will mind if I post both Inlinkz codes at the end. Here's the manicure I wanna show you today. 

The inspiration for this manicure comes from a photo I took while I was in France. This white and gold organ can be found at the Versailles palace in a room called Madame Adelaide’s Large Chamber. I thought it was very pretty and elegant and so I photographed it randomly when I was visiting the palace. 

I tried to recreate the feel of this piece of art on my nails. I started with a base of Essence Top of the Ice-stream from the Snow Jam collection. It's a very sheer white jelly with blue and purple shimmer. This polish is not for everyone as it needs a lot of coats to be opaque. I did 3 and there was still some visible nail line present. But I must admit that I love how pretty and subtle it looks, especially with the shimmer sparkling in the sun. 

Essence Top of the Ice-stream in the sun

I wanted to recreate the rich gold pattern on the nails, but of course I didn't have the proper plate. I ended up stamping an image from plate CH14 from Cheeky. It has flowers, so it's not perfect for this, but somehow I think it gives the vintage feel. I used Golden Rose Nail Art 108 for the stamping. 

Then I thought I should make it matte to give it even more of a vintage feel. I couldn't decide if I liked it better matte or glossy. What do you think? 

Please don't forget to check out the other Polish Days manicures! 

And the other France manicures! 

Thank you for stopping by! 

Where In The World Challenge: Netherlands

Hello my lovelies! I hope you are having an awesome weekend! The Where In The World challenge is back today. It's been too long again and I'm sorry. It seems that since posting on this challenge is not on a specific date, I always tend to do other stuff that is urgent and leave this on the back burner. Plus I always brainstorm too much for each challenge because I want it to be original. I think at least for this one I achieved my goal. 

The Netherlands is one of the countries of this challenge that I've actually been to. So I had to do something special, something related to my experience with this country. I went through my pictures and found one of a building from Amsterdam. Now, the thing is, I have no idea how this building is called. I looked all over the internet and I couldn't find it. It was just something pretty I or the bf photographed while taking a walk though the city. So if any of you know how this building is called, please leave me a comment. I chose the pretty stained glass on the facade as an inspiration for today's nails. 

I only did the blue part because I don't really have any of the colors in the middle. I must admit that this seemed easier to do in theory than in reality. The result is less than perfect, but I still love it. Here are all the polishes I used. 

I'm not even gonna list all of them because they are so many. If you wonder about a particular shade ask me in the comments. I started by doing a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then I did random shapes with all the blue polishes using a thin nail art brush. The lines are not perfect and I hope you will forgive me for that. 

This was also hard to photograph. The nails looked bumpy in the photos until I realized they needed another coat of top coat. So here's a piece of advice from me. If you are doing bumpy nail art like this, make sure you do 2 coats of top coat instead of one. The first one will not be enough to even everything out. 

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure you check out the other Netherlands manis below! 

Where In The World Challenge: South Africa

Hello my lovelies! Saturday is a great day for relaxing and looking at some nail art. So I have some country themed nails to show you today and the destination is: South Africa! 

I know it's a cliché, but I had to use my China Glaze On Safari polishes for this one. I don't do a lot of leopard print on my nails so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. I used China Glaze Kalahari Kiss as a base for most of my nails and I'm Not Lion for the accent fingers. These two polishes go so well together! I also used them for a glitter gradient type mani (post here). 

For the leopard print I stamped with China Glaze Liquid Leather and used an image from plate QA8. I have a lot of leopard print images and I chose one with larger spots so I could fill them in with I'm Not Lion. In hindsight, I should have probably used a lighter color for the spots, as they do look a bit too contrasting with the rest of the colors. I still liked this a lot and wore it for about 2 days even though I normally dislike leopard printed stuff. 

I will most likely be taking a couple of weeks off from this challenge since exams are coming and I can't keep up with everything. I promise I will be back sooner than last time. Normal posts will still go up so no worries. In the meantime, you can check the other South Africa manicures below! 

Where In The World Challenge: Hungary

Hello lovelies! It's Saturday again and that means it's time for another country challenge! I'm gonna be short today because it's really late as I'm writing this so that it can be up in the morning. Today we are traveling to Hungary, a country that is very very close to where I live. Not only do we border it but I'm pretty close to the border and there are a lot of Hungarians living here too. Here's what I came up with. 

I had quite a bit of trouble coming up with something for this country. In the end I was inspired by the famous spicy food and by the passionate people of this country. I also had this great image and when I was desperately browsing through my plates looking for inspiration I saw it and knew what I had to do. 

This was very simple to create. I used Essie Orange, It's Obvious! as a base color and then stamped using Rimmel Stand to Attention and plate CH52 from the second Cheeky set. This is very subtle but I thought it looked cool after I put some top coat over the whole design. Of course it was a nightmare to photograph. In the end I managed to snag a few good photos.

I won't lie to you and will tell you that I'm glad I'm finally done with this one. The ones that are next are a lot easier. To see what the other ladies have done for the Hungary challenge, check the links below. 

Where In The World Challenge: Russia

Hello lovelies! It's the weekend! As I'm writing this there is still a little bit left from the week. But when the post will be up I will be sleeping in on a Saturday morning. That's a nice thing to look forward to! As promised, if it's Saturday I'm doing a Where In The World post. It's funny cause just last week I met a lovely girl from Russia and did a guest post on her blog. And today my theme is also Russia.

I'm kinda behind my fellow challenge participants and I didn't want to copy any of them, so I had to do something totally different than what usually comes to mind when you think of this country. And then I remembered. Russia had a great space program back in the day and Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. I also had this awesome stamping plate from Cheeky with space related stuff on it. 

I started with a base of Essence Alice Had A Vision - Again. The images are all from plate CH46 from the Cheeky summer set. I love the one with the planets and the rocket fits perfectly with my "first man in space" theme. These were all stamped with a-england Excalibur by the way. 

I admit that this was a simple one to do and I spent more time brainstorming than actually doing the mani. I'm in real trouble next week because the next country is Hungary. Meanwhile here are the other Russian manis. 

Where In The World Challenge: United Kingdom

Hello lovelies! It's been a (really long) while since my last Where In The World post. I know I've been a bad blogger. First there were exams, then there was the winter challenge, so I've neglected this one because I could. If you aren't familiar with this challenge, the only rules are that you have to do all countries in order, but you can post as much (or as little) as you want. To try to catch up with my partners in crime, I will try to post regularly every Saturday from now on. Hope I will keep up! So today we're going to the UK. Are you ready? 

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a manicure for this country. Yes, it's an easy one and there are a lot of famous things about it. I even went there this summer. So I wanted to do something that was sort of a personal connection between me and the country. I had at least 2-3 ideas that I was sure I was going to put into practice. Then I ended up not liking them somehow. So finally I decided that my biggest connection with this country (besides British polish, which I love) is through music. I also found this great guitar image on one of my plates and it was settled. 

The Beatles is one of my favorite bands and I've been listening to them since forever. I remember being obsessed with them when I was around 13. Talk about weird teenagers, huh? Even though I'm not as obsessed as I used to be, I still listen to them and I know most of their songs by hard. I tried to recreate their iconic logo on my ring finger with a nail art brush. Of course it's a mess compared to the original, but it's the best I could do. I used 2 coats of Rapsodi 302 on the other nails, then stamped the awesome guitar image from plate CH31 using China Glaze Liquid Leather. 

I really hope you enjoyed my manicure. Here's a little video if you are nostalgic like me: 

Monday Blues: Color Club Gossip Column and Sweden

Hello lovelies! Yeah, it's that day of the week again. Better not mention its name and pretend it's still Sunday. Today I've got a double challenge post for you. Besides my regular blue post, I'm also showing you my Sweden nail art for the Where In The World Challenge. I have mixed feelings about the outcome of this one. I had a great idea and a gorgeous inspiration photo, but the result wasn't that great. I'll let you judge for yourself, but first let's take a look at this blue. 

Color Club Gossip Column indoors, artificial light

Gossip Column is actually a dark teal creme but it's the blue type of teal rather than the green one. I did several nail arts with this polish before and I even posted a swatch, but it was one of the first posts I did and the picture is terrible. So I thought swatching it again would be a great idea. Well, that was until I started to take pictures. I could not, for the life of me, take accurate pictures of this one. They were so bad that I had to alter the color to make them look close. I rarely do that but this time I had to. Even so, they are still not 100% accurate, but you get a good idea of how the polish looks in reality. 

Color Club Gossip Column indoors, artificial light

I love this polish because it's pigmented (which makes it great for nail art and stamping) and it applies very well. I did 2 thin coats for these pictures but I guess you could get it opaque in one thicker coat. It has an amazing formula and just glides on the nail. The bad thing is that because of the pigmentation it stains. You have to use base coat with this one or else you'll get smurf nails. 

Color Club Gossip Column indoors, artificial direct light

Now let's get to the nail art. The inspiration I chose for the Sweden challenge was the aurora borealis or northern lights, a phenomenon that is pretty common in Sweden. So I googled some pictures and chose this one as an inspiration. I tried my best to recreate it but I'm not that sure I succeeded. The base is my Gossip Column manicure and everything is either sponged or painted with a nail art brush. The green is China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard. 

So what do you think? Was this a total fail of a semi-fail? 

Check out the other Monday Blues ladies: 

Gosia from Life in Color

Marisa from Polish Obsession

Joanna from The Treasure Chest

And here are the other Sweden manis:


Have a great week!

Where In The World Challenge: Denmark

Hello loves! It's time for another country themed nail art on the blog today. I really wanted to do two of these a week but I don't really have the time for that. So I'd rather do one every week and put a little extra effort in it. The beauty with this challenge is that you can do it as slow as you want, which gives you extra time to brainstorm instead of just doing something quick and under pressure. So naturally I gave today's country, Denmark, a lot of thought. The first thing that came to mind was Lego, but that has already been done and there are not many ways to do it differently. So I resorted to my second thought, namely the fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen. I think his most famous tale is "The Little Mermaid", so I tried to recreate a mermaid tail on my nails. 

I know mermaid nails are not very original and they've been done before, but I tried doing them my way and even filmed a little tutorial and posted it on YouTube. I used several polishes to recreate the complexity of the mermaid tail and also did some stamping to resemble the scales. Honestly, I think I like them better without the stamping. Here's how they looked before I stamped them. 

without stamping

I used Sephora by OPI Skinny Jeans, Essence Colour & Go Choose Me! and Seventeen Supreme 104 to create this look. I then stamped with Illamasqua Strike and plate CH10 to create the fish scales. 

without stamping

with stamping

Next I'm gonna include my little YouTube video. I used some better lighting this time and changed the angle with the help of a tripod, so I really hope you like it. Please let me know what you think in the comment section! 

Thank you for reading and watching! Make sure you check out the other entries for Denmark!