Views counter

You might have noticed that I've just added a blog views counter to my blog. I thought it'd be nice to know how many people actually visit my blog. Curiosity killed the cat. Or maybe it's that whole popularity contest thing that is embedded within human nature, sorry if I'm making a VUG. Either way, I just find it helpful to know if I'm helping you to spend your money or not. Obviously the more you visit, the more you'd want to spend and more you'll become like me.

I went to the Pronail Supply shop in Bankstown that everyone's been raving about. They weren't kidding about the size although I wish they had a larger range for OPI. There are a lot of reds that look like twins or triplets or whatever, you get what I mean: similar looking reds. I want a bigger Essie stock! I want my Sag Harbour! It'd be absolutely terrific if they stocked Zoya too. I'm kind of embarrassed to be buying everything online because the Post Office lady knows me now & teases me everything I go to pick up my package (which is at least once a week). But nonetheless, it's a terrific shop although the train ride is ridiculous long and tedious.

Does anyone know an Essie stockist in Sydney? You'd be a total lifesaver! I'll leave you with a photo of some nails that I did over a year ago for Troll's birthday.

OPI Yoga-ta get this Blue as base

I'm off to paint my nails! Two days of naked nails should be enough to revitalise them, right?

Nail foils tutorial

I'm not feeling motivated to do any proper work or revision so I'm here presenting you with a nail foils tutorial instead. Like I've explained before, nail foils are like a cheaper alternative to Minx. However, it doesn't last for more than 24 hours because it can be scratched off easily. So it is best to apply it right before an event. It doesn't take long at all because there's no waiting time.

Alright, let's get started. Always start with clean nails. Arrh! Bare nails! The horror. But this is what the nail foil adhesive looks like. You need to apply this to your nails before placing the foils. Any brand will do. Most online shops sell generic no-brands with your foils for half price.

I always recommend using basecoat. It is a good habit to have because most darker nail polishes will stain your nails and that is not an attractive look. So apply basecoat!

I wish I had another hand then I wouldn't need to use the stupid timer while balancing the camera on a tissue box. Quite sad. Anyways, after the basecoat has dried, apply a layer of the nail foil adhesive. It is iridescent when wet. Dries clear.

Yuck, fingers. The instructions that come with the adhesive will tell you to wait 1-2 minutes for the adhesive to become tacky before applying the foils. They are WRONG. You have to wait a lot longer than that, more like 5 minutes. I find that the foils apply better this way as the adhesive is most tacky. In the meantime, you can cut up the foil strip into pieces as it comes in a roll.

Don't worry about cutting the foil into your nail shape or anything. The foil only sticks to where the foil adhesive is applied. Mess free and idiot proof. All you have to do is place the foil with the right side up and press. If the adhesive is the right tackiness, the foil should lift itself off as you're pressing.

It may look ugly upclose, use the unused areas to fix up any bits that you've made. Just repeat the process mentioned above for the bald spots. I don't see the point to apply a base polish when the foil is opaque.

You are left with the option of applying topcoat. Personally, I don't recommend it. Any topcoat will wrinkle up the foil (no idea why) and it doesn't extend the wear of the foil, so why ruin the effect? You could try special nail foil topcoat but apparently, they're not much better either. You'll see why.

Sorry for not cleaning up the edges and things. I'm planning to remove this tonight anyway. The foils are so reflective that you can see my reflection. I also did a scratch test. The scratch is much larger on the nail with topcoat using the same amount of force.

The foils can be easily removed with nail polish remover (no acetone required) or by soaking in warm water. So easy.

Yucky looking cottonbud. Looks like someone's sparkly booger. Yum. On a much nicer note, check out the result! Such bling-ness! Such mirror-esque finish! I can even see my own reflection.

Woaw fat fingers, Maybe I shouldn't have blurred it so much. Oh wells.You're more than welcome to bug me if you want to know more about such a wonderful product and where you can get it. But you'd need to be able to either use internet banking or have Paypal.

Flakies

I kind of don't have the inspiration to paint my nails right now after scrubbing for 2 full hours trying to get China Glaze Doll's House off. No joke. Down side of ultimate bling-ness, I guess. My nails hurt from scratching. Maybe I'll paint my nails tomorrow because I have an idea right now.

So in the meanwhile, I thought I'd share with you something that I wore a while back. Nubar G188 over black. The black is Revlon Black Lingerie. It is a pure black with no fancy glitters or shimmers. Nubar G188 is a topcoat. Iridescent. Before your mind stray to Gwen Harwood, focus your eyes on the photo below.

2 coats of Black Lingerie, 2 coats of G188

I love it! So much. G188 has iridescent flakies floating in a clear base. Similar to Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure and Nfu Oh's something because I keep forgetting the number. G188 was released as a special 2010 polish by Nubar and I stumbled upon this in my quest to find a dupe for China Glaze Fortune Teller, a polish released part of their 2009 Halloween collection, if my memory serves me right. You should look it up. You'll fall in love with it too.

In my opinion, it looks even better than Fortune Teller and is also more versatile as G188 is a topcoat. It can be layered over any colour and reflect different colours depending on the base colour. I won't try to explain it because you'll just give me a weird look. I'll save myself the embarrassment.

I wish I lived in a doll's house

I absolutely love nail polish. Especially unusual ones. I bought China Glaze Doll's House with the previously posted Ghoulish Glow because shipping is cheaper with 2, well not really but I'm sure you understand.

China Glaze Doll's House is a topcoat that has a clear base. Pink hexagonal glitters of approximately 1.5mm in diameter float in the clear base. 3 layers of this topcoat cover most empty spaces. The camera seriously cannot capture the bling-ness of this polish. It is absolutely mesmerising.

2 coats of Chapel of Love, 3 coats of Doll's House

I've used OPI Chapel of Love as the base nail polish. Black would look awesome with this too. Personally, I think this is something worth looking into. The photo just doesn't do justice.

Yay for handsewn ribbon bows

On Thursday, the pointless day with bludgey periods, I decided to stay home and make earrings. I really liked the way that they turned out and decided to turn them into a birthday present for my friend.

Y for yellow and happyness with a 'Y'

Everybody loves pink

Polka dots are like the cherry on top

I got sick of making bows

After hours of squinting, cutting, burning and poking myself with a needle, I've succeeded in making 4 pairs of earrings although superglue is a nightmare. The stupid glue got onto my nails and I had to remove the polish. Boo. But I made these into a present.

Present!

This was so simple to do. Just print out a message on paper and stick it onto a piece of cardboard. Poke the holes with a needle where the earrings are going to be placed. Then viola! Perfectly presented. With some polyester wadding on the back to prevent the earring posts from poking the wrapping paper, this would be a great present. For birthdays, Christmas, whatever, everything.

Since this was such a success, I decided to make some more. With more yellow polka dotty ribbons and even some gingerbread man (well girls because they're wearing skirts) that I've fished out from the sewing box. All I had to do was clip off the button loopy hole thing. If I can do it, so can you.

I can't wait to wear them. Then maybe I'll take photos if I'm bothered.

The perfect model

I love my cat. Maybe I should tell you something you don't know instead. No, not bothered. I love my cat and if you're reading this, you love my cat too. That means I love you too for loving my cat. I'm totally making sense. I'm in a weird mood tonight because a particular someone is ruining my life and I'm seeing that someone tomorrow. I'm torn. So meanwhile, I'll occupy myself with my cat to take my mind off of that someone. Gay.

Meemee modelling my textiles major work

She is so so so adorable. Such a poser. She loves my MTP. At least someone appreciates my blood and tears. Too bad it was sent out last Wednesday. Otherwise she'd be calling it bed right now.

Woaw cat eyes

Should I upload photos of my MTP?

China Glaze Ghoulish Glow Topcoat review

Everyone loves a good novelty nail polish, whether it be a matte finisher or a colour-changing polish like Del Sol. So when I discovered OPI's "Glow-ink the Dark", I spammed the Ebay searcher. At the same time, China Glaze "Ghoulish Glow Topcoat" came up during the search too but I've merely dismissed it because I couldn't find any reviews on it at that time. This is a Halloween release, like "Glow-ink the Dark". Here's a review, or rather a post to show off such an awesome polish.

Recently, I've been on a spending spree due to exam stress. So I bought this baby. Its in a milky base with tiny yellow particles, most likely the glowing particles. It needs to be shaken vigorously before application, producing pesky bubbles but the gobsmacking result overrides such issue. However, because this topcoat is pale yellow in colour, it does alter the colour of the applied nail polish.

I've applied the China Glaze "Ghoulish Glow Topcoat" over OPI's "What's the Cattitude?" so the light blue is turned slightly green with the topcoat since I've applied 4 layers to achieve the effect.

3 coats of OPI What's with the Cattitude?

Eww wrinkly cuticles. I hate the cold weather. It makes my skin super dry and flakey. It's going to be Spring in a few days. My nails are so short now. A huge chunk broke off my middle finger and I didn't even notice until at lunch today. So I was forced to cut and file. At least my nails are able to glow. Check out the result.

4 coats of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow Topcoat

The photo doesn't do the topcoat justice. The actual effect is a lot more vibrant and whiter in real life. It wasn't easy to obtain this awesome shot. It took half an hour in the dark bathroom adjusting my camera in vain, 'charging' my nails under a lamp, and madly dashing to the bathroom after charging. I found that the effect is intensified by shining a bright light at it first. In a way, its solar powered but not. If I'm making sense.

Overall, I think this is something definitely worth checking out. The slight colour alteration of the base nail polish is something that is easily overlooked because everyone loves a good glow. I love Halloween polishes. Review of OPI's "Glow-ink the Dark" coming soon!

Pinking of cotton candy

Another nail art uploaded just for you. This was done a while ago for my friend. All of my nail art designs are kind of spur of the moment things thats why some look quite odd. I'm just too lazy to reposition the jewels. I should win an award for laziness.

Pinking of cotton candy (wonderful name, no?)

I wish I had taken better quality photos. I love how the pink turned out because the polish was a no-name that looks too sheer for my liking on my fingers.

I also can't wait to turn the background fabric into a summer skirt. If my cat could stop sleeping on it. I've realised that I'm saying a lot of "I"s today. Feeling quite self centered at the moment.

I finally have a header

Yay for header! Got to love Photoshop & Illustrator. Maybe I should tone down the colours a little.

4AM marathon

Politics. Yeah I'm one of those crazy people who enjoy watching it, listening to it, analysing it and talking about it. So obviously I stayed up late yesterday to see the election polling results. I sat in front of my computer, with the ABC website and the supposedly 'live' results at 4AM pressing F5 like a mad woman until I finally realised that nothing new was coming up and the counted percentage was stuck at 77.85%.

So I went to sleep in hope that the results would be there to greet me in the morning. WRONG! Because apparently this is the first hung parliament since WWII with Menzies and Curtin. I just hate to see Julia Gillard claim Prime Ministership after back stabbing Kevin Rudd (he looks so much like my uncle). Although I don't like Tony Abbott's conservative and somewhat sexist remarks a while ago, I was impressed by his efforts.

I'll shut up now because I'm pretty sure no-one is actually reading this. I just want the results so hurry up and make up your minds, indepedents. But Wyatt Roy is quite impressive being the youngest member of parliament at only 20. I mean like wow.

Girls night in

After slaving over my major work for an entire year, it is finally due in for marking tomorrow. I don't know whether to feel relieved or fearful because personally I don't feel 100% satisfied with what I've achieved. Maybe I'm just noob and seriously lacking in natural artistic talent.

Meemee taking a bath unwillingly

Plucking eyebrows

Facial mask

Shaving

Make-up

Does my butt look big in this?

Bored to death

Girls night in

I'll explain my concept because you're probably confused like my mum. As a female, we go through a whole beautification process just to make ourselves socially presentable before going out. Its partially due to social pressures but for me however, it is the self esteem boost that I receive as I hide behind a layer of make-up. The whole processes of plucking buggered stray eyebrow hairs, shaving (or the more painful alternative of waxing), facial masks and does my butt look big in this are the annoying things that I would not do if everyone looked like caveman too. My cat also gets washed but she doesn't mind it too much, I think. My art teacher just likes the notion that I'm acknowledging my cat in my painting. But in the end, we just end up having a crappy time, stuck in Maccas because we're all fiancially deprived high school students and frowned upon prejudicely by adults in restaurants. We actually have more fun when we're by ourselves, sleeping over, enjoying each others' companies without worrying about social expectations.

I've based these paintings on some of my friends and painted from photographs using acrylic on paper. Nothing fancy because that's what I really want life to be but then it'd be kind of boring. I'm hypocritical. I do apologise for the bad quality photos though. My lights just refuse to cooperate and my camera wasn't much of a help either.

Big shout out to Troll

This post is dedicated to my beloved Jenny for having such an awesome party last night. I thought I'd better do this before I forget because I'm so absent-minded these days. Here's an uber dodgy photo of my half successful attempt at foils because I tried so hard to capture the mirror-like reflective surface so I apologise for the blurry photo.

Peach Burst nail foil

 Nail foils are kind of like Minx imitations. They have the same reflectiveness and pre-printed designs but foils are so much more affordable. But the down side is that foils last for one day max and do not apply perfectly because you're trying to fit a piece of flat 'paper' to the curvature of your nail. Plus top coat just makes the foil wrinkle like crazy. Other than that, foils are a great alternative to Minx for poor souls such as myself who are looking for the same blinged effect and it is quick enough to do just before an event. I had to stick on flowers on the tips because the glue didn't dry properly so yuckiness happened. Warm tones honestly don't match the yellowness of my skin.

What baby?

Since I was complaining about the Zoya Get Even Basecoat, I thought maybe I was a bit too harsh on it and shouldn't have made my mind up so quickly. Milani's Blue for my Baby is basically a blue version of Key Lime Shine with the same consistency and chrome finish. However, it applied with no trouble whatsoever with my China Glaze Strong Adhesion Basecoat.

3 coats of Blue for my Baby with topcoat

Maybe its the colour or the lighting or the angle or whatever, the ridges appear to be more visible on this than with Zoya's Get Even Basecoat. Or maybe its just purely psychological because my inner Asian is screaming "Money should never be wasted!" You can decide for yourself since I'm feeling indecisive today after 3 cups of coffee.

Franken: Squeaky

Making my own nail polish is a really addictive process. It induces a sense of accomplishment because I'm recycling and turning a pre-loved colour into a dazzling new value. I am really happy with how this one turned out.

It's a purple-ish pink with tiny shimmers. The jelly finish absolutely mesmerizing. I'm usually not a fan of sheers but this one just blew me away. Not only because it's my own baby but it looks so jelly-like and squishy that it gives off the feeling that if I rub my nails then they'll squeak. Too bad they won't really squeak...

So I named it Squeaky.

3 coats of Squeaky with Revlon Quick Dry Topcoat

Squeaky was created using half a bottle of Revlon's Grape Shimmer with about 15 drops from each OPI's Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Chapel of Love and Funny Bunny. The bottle is only 8mL and I got the colour 2 years ago and extremely sheer. Plus the original Grape Shimmer was too subtle for my liking. So now it is this wonderful colour that I'd definitely use over and over again.

Now everybody's happy. By "everybody" I mean me.

Current work in progress

I'm on a blogging rampage today! I guess the excitement of having a blog is still nagging at my head. So I thought why not share my current nail art work in progress?

This is inspired by Alice in Alice in Wonderland, like just about everything out there after Tim Burton's movie. I've actually started this months back and just didn't touch it because of HSC. The stress of it is like a giant barrier on one's inspiration and creativity. I've just handed my textiles MTP on Monday and packaged it then sent it away yesterday. I'm hurting everywhere from kneeling on the ground, cutting up small cardboard boxes and masking taping them into a giant 1m x 1m box to fit my stupid crinoline cage. I never want to box anything else ever again. My fingers suffered tremendously. Then art is due next Monday and guess what I'm doing instead? Yeah, this, while watching ABC kids. Seriously got to love channel 22.

Sorry, got side tracked. I should think of a name for this set. Something not cliched like Absolutely Alice (ahems OPI).

2 thumbs, 2 middle finger, 1 ring finger, 2 pinkies

 

Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling Basecoat review

I'm the kind of person to flip through 5 pages on Google of reviews until finally buying the product. So before I bought the Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling Basecoat on Ebay, I've tried to find some reviews on it but there just aren't enough out there. This is step 2 of Zoya's Colour Lock System but I just wanted a ridge filling basecoat so I bought this thinking: "the less chemicals the better, right?"

I'm kind of disappointed although this is only the first time I've used it. As you can see the actual product is white and it goes on the nail white. After it dries, the dents of the nail ridges are still white while other areas have dried clear. I applied 2 coats of it to be safe. Then 3 coats of Milani's Key Lime Shine.

2 coats of Zoya Get Even Basecoat, 3 coats of Milani Key Lime Shine

My ridges are still there! Sorry about the cuticles. It was also quite difficult to apply with the basecoat. The nail polish went streaky and uneven, yuck. Overall, I think this basecoat is kind of pointless because what's the point of having a ridge filling basecoat if it doesn't work for chromes? But I'll try this with Zoya's polishes later and keep you updated because I hate knowing that I've wasted my money on a useless product.

Filling up space

I know I'll probably grow to hate my blog name, address and the whole blogging process but at least I'd be doing something 'productive' while procrastinating.

This is probably an opportunity for me to achieve a sense of accomplishment by sharing bits and pieces of me with the world (although I don't think anyone will actually care) through simple things.

You can stop reading now, since this is the end of my very first blog entry. Pat on the back for me.