Giveaway winner, a few unposted manicures and a very late guest post!

Hey everyone!

Yes, I'm still alive...even though I went through some crappy stuff these past few months, I'm still here. Sorry for the long absence and for leaving in the middle of a giveaway, but I really had a tough time and even had to move twice in less than a month. But I won't bore you with my problems and I'll just stick to the nails and nail polish.

But first, let me just announce the winner of the last giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to Diana! I warned her as soon as the giveaway ended, and she already has her prize! I left the blog for a while, but I didn't keep the polishes to myself. :P

Now, I didn't do much on my nails these past 2 months, always a plain colour when I had the time, and didn't take any photos of my nails, until recently, so I'll just show you a couple of photos I took before all the craziness happened, and a couple from this past week, when I started getting back into the nail stuff. Hope you like them!

Dance Legend Optical Illusion and Purple Professional #62, stamped with Moyou Pro #8

Claire's 55171 and Kiko Mirror #616, stamped with Moyou Pro #2 and topped with Kiko 3 in 1 Mat

Purple Professional #63 on index and thump

 Zoya Arizona on pinky

White on middle and ring finger is Flormar P103 and the triangles were made with both the previous colours and also China Glaze Strawberry Fields and Innisfree #65

Layering experiment with O.P.I Every Month is Oktoberfest, Nubar 2010 and Max Factor Fantasy Fire.

Ah! Also, I made a guest post for Cristina a while back, that never saw the light of day here, on my blog. Shame on me...

Click on the image to go to Cristina's blog and find out more!

Aaaaaaand that is it for now! Have a good night, everyone. ^^

O.P.I Russian Navy

Quick post tonight! I just want to share with you my swatches of Russian Navy.

Post rapidinho hoje! Só quero partilhar com vocês os meus swatches do Russian Navy.

This is my absolute favourite navy blue! It's gorgeous, and it looks very different depending on the light. Sometimes it looks like a metallic blue, others it leans more purple, but in the right light, you can see the most beautiful red shimmer! It's not purple, it's RED!! (Even though it looks a bit purple in these, but that's because blue + red = purple. xD)
The photos show 2 coats of it, and no top coat. It was dreamy to apply, and almost no clean-up was needed. Every nail polish should have O.P.I's brush, enough said!

Este é, sem duvida, o meu azul marinho preferido! É lindo, e pode parecer tão diferente consoante a luz. Às vezes parece um simples azul metálico, outras parece mais arroxeado, mas quando a luz certa lhe bate, vêm ao de cima todos os brilhinhos vermelhos que ele tem. Não são roxos não, são VERMELHOS!! (Apesar de nas minhas fotos tenderem um pouco mais para o roxo, mas isto é porque azul + vermelho = roxo. xD)
As fotos mostram 2 camados do verniz, sem top coat. Foi um sonho de aplicar, e quase não precisei de fazer limpeza alguma. Todos os vernizes deviam trazer o pincel da O.P.I, tenho dito!

 

Birthday Presents and Nail Mail!

I turned 29 years old recently, and in my Christmas nails post, I complained that no one got me what I love the most, nail polishes! Well, that changed on my birthday...my closest friends got together and bought me 2 O.P.Is (they're pretty expensive here), and my boyfriend told me to make an order for myself, he'd pay and that would be my birthday present. I think I broke him, guys...until that day, he always said "I'm not buying you any nail polishes, you have enough."! xD

The O.P.Is my friends got me are Russian Navy and My Private Jet, 2 of my favourites from the brand and I'm so happy to have MPJ on my collection, even though it's not the original (I believe this is what they call it the Yuk Brown version, but not sure).

Fiz 29 anitos recentemente, e no meu post de unhas de Natal queixei-me que não recebi nem um vernizinho...pois bem, isto mudou no meu aniversário! As minhas amigas mais chegadas juntaram-se e compraram-me 2 O.P.Is, e o meu namorado disse-me para encomendar alguns vernizes, que ele pagava e seria a minha prendinha de anos. Finalmente ele cedeu...até àquele dia ele sempre disse "Não te vou comprar vernizes alguns, já tens mais que suficientes."! xD

Os O.P.Is que recebi são o Russian Navy e o My Private Jet, 2 dos meus preferidos da marca e estou tão feliz por poder dizer que tenho o MPJ na minha colecção, mesmo apesar de não ser a versão original (acho que esta é chamada de Yuk Brown, mas não tenho a certeza).

From my boyfriend, I got 5 Innisfree! Well, I ordered them for myself and he paid, but who cares? xD The eBay seller was having a 4+1 sale, which means I would pay for 4 and get a free one! They said we could choose the free one, but unfortunatelly, they completely desregarded my request and sent me a random one...BUT, I already contacted them and they're going to send me the correct one, so I'll get 4+2 out of this deal! Lucky me!! xD

Do namorado recebi 5 Innisfree! Bem, eu encomendei-os para mim própria e ele só pagou, mas que interessa isto? xD O vendedor do eBay que escolhi estava com uma promoção de 4+1, o que significa que pagaria por 4 e receberia 1 de oferta! Eles diziam lá que podiamos escolher o que queriamos de oferta, mas infelizmente a minha mensagem foi totalmente ignorada e enviaram-me um qualquer...MAS, já contactei com eles, a contar o sucedido, e vão-me enviar o que tinha pedido inicialmente, por isso acabei por ter 4+2! Sortuda eu!! xD

Innisfree #65 (the wrong one/o que veio errado)
Innisfree #85
Innisfree #101
Innisfree #102
Innisfree #104

And finally, my most precious babies arrived!! The wait was long on these ones...
Me, and a few other girls, got together on a group buy to get these from Brazil, they're brazilian indies made by Kelly and Penélope Luz. They're absolutely gorgeous! Too bad I didn't have the money to order more, at the time...

E finalmente, os meus bebés mais preciosos chegaram!! A espera foi longa com estes...
Eu, e umas quantas meninas, juntámo-nos e fizemos uma compra em conjunto para ter estes meninos do Brasil. São indies brasileiros feitos pela Kelly e pela Penélope Luz. São absolutamente magníficos  Pena que não tinha muito dinheiro na altura, senão teria pedido muitos mais...

Esmaltes da Kelly Crying Wolf
Penélope Luz Wicca
Penélope Luz Tendresse

The Innisfree and the indies were delivered to me at the same time, and boy was I happy that day! xD

Os Innisfree e os indies foram-me entregues ao mesmo tempo, e senhor, como fiquei feliz naquele dia! xD

31 Days Challege #10 - Gradient

Hah, another easy one! I've told myself lots of times, that for my next gradient I would have to try and replicate the most beautiful gradient I've ever seen! This one...

I tried...it doesn't look exactly the same, I used different polishes, but it does look alike (to my eyes at least xD)!

I started this with 2 coats of O.P.I Fly, placed some striping tape on all of my nails, and then did the gradient using Fly and Essence Grumpy, from the Snow White LE. After that, I applied 1 coat of Hits Valsa and this is the final result:

None of my photos show how awesome this looks in real life and I'm really sad that I need to take this off tonight...but what can I do? The challenge must go on!

Tomorrow we have polka dots and I still have no idea of what to do... :S

31 Days Challenge #9 - Rainbow

This one was easy, I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

I started with 2 coats of Purple Professional #32, then, on my accent nail, I placed some striping tape and then painted each remaining space with the rainbow colours. For this I used Kiko 334 (2 stripes), Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Good to Grape, O.P.I Fly, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Limewire, Sally Hansen  Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Basic #291 and Andreia #40 (2 stripes).

Some stripes don't look perfect, but I'm happy with this, I think it looks cute! xD

Having Fun with Water Marble

And we're back to our usual schedule, which means you'll only get 2-3 posts a week. Blogging every day stresses me out, it's just too much to handle. xD

Today I want to show you my first time with a complete manicure made with water marble. I used to do it just on my accent nail, because it was just so annoying to do it right...I guess I was using the wrong brand of nail polish for it, this time I tried it with O.P.I Fly and China Glaze For Audrey and it was so much easier! Had no problem with the colours spreading in the water or drying too fast! It all went great and here is the result:

Loved it and I'll definitely be doing this again when I have some time.

O.P.I Fly and Stamping Failure #1

Obviously, the first polish I wanted to try, after the reddit swap, was O.P.I Fly. 
The only other O.P.I I own belonged to my mom and it is really old! It's Happy Anniversary and I barely use it. I had to see if the brand was as good as everyone says it is and if they are worth the price (here, they cost 16.90€, that's around $22 for a bottle). 

Well...the polish was awesome! Good pigmentation, awesome formula, the brush is amazing and makes application so easy. Damn you, O.P.I! Why did you have to be so expensive and so awesome? So out of my budget... -.-'

I wanted to try my new stamping plates as well, but boy, did I fail! xD I applied top coat before stamping, because I wanted my nail polish to dry faster and that was a complete mistake! The stamp wouldn't stick to my nail like that, and when it did, it was barely visible, so I grabbed a toothpick and decided to freehand it using the lines I was able to stamp as a guide.

This was what came out of this adventure, it's pretty crappy though. xD

 Natural light in this picture

 This is Sally Hansen #620 Limestone

Did I do too bad on the leopard print? xD