Living in the moment. Living my life. Easy and breezy. With peace in my mind, Peace in my heart, Peace in my soul.
Wherever I'm going, I'm already home. Living in the moment.
I have grown accustomed to wearing red on the day of my birthday. Red is such a happy color and it makes my birthday feel all the more special and exciting! Also, for the Chinese, it symbolizes good luck and fortune.
Erica, my friend and classmate from kindergarten all the way to college, and I, would dress up in red on each other's birthdays which are just 2 days apart! I was born on the 7th of September, and she followed on the 9th. So when we were in college and we didn't have to wear uniforms anymore, we wore red on our birthdays! In retrospect, we were probably like flashing signs of "greet us, it's our birthdays" and people got confused over whose birthday came first! Haha!
At first, I thought about doing cupcake nails. They're so popular and everybody seems to be doing it for their birthdays. But after some reflection and after listening to my inner calling, I decided. On birthdays, we wear red! I saved the cupcake nails for our birthday party to happen the following week.
And so, I ended up with amped up super shiny and shimmery ruby red glitter nails!
This is not your ordinary red glitter polish! This is actually made of real loose glitter, the one you can get from your local supplies store.
I started off with Orly Star Spangled, a very nice glitter red polish, as my base color. It's one of the first few bottles that I bought from Polished Inthecity. :)
I then layered a coat of clear polish, before sprinkling on the red glitter powder. I suggest you use something that you're not afraid of ruining. The red glitter could easily transfer to the polish. Here, I used Face Shop's top coat because I was ready to dispose of it. Good thing I still found a use for it!
I did 2 rounds of clear polish and then glitter sprinkles to make sure that the whole nail is covered. When cleaning up, you can use some sticky tape to remove the excess glitter on your fingers and around your nails.
Orly Star Spangled, Leeho Red Glitter Powder, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat
You can really see how nice and sparkly the glitter is from the close up shot below.
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-chip Top Coat was the perfect top coat to even everything out. I know that I have commonly used Seche Vite in my past entries. However, for this purpose, Sally Hansen was thicker and had a glossier sheen which made it the best finish to go with this design.
I found this tutorial on youtube with instructions on how to do it yourself. I didn't exactly do it this way, but it's more or less similar if you want to try it out!
What's your birthday nail art of choice? :)
* UPDATE: I forgot to mention that this manicure dried rock solid. After a few days, I filed my nails short and it didn't chip, not even one bit! I ended up keeping it for a full week. I bet you can keep it for longer, which makes this a good manicure for traveling and for low maintenance and upkeep. Just a warning though, taking this off was a nightmare. Hehe! So, enjoy it for as long as you can! :)
Once again, I am catching up with posts. :D It's the last week of September, and to be honest I'm still overwhelmed with all the activities taking place. It almost feels like the Christmas holiday rush is here; and yet, the celebrations have just begun!
Let me list down the highlights for you.
September 1 marks the start of the "ber" months. Here in the Philippines, that means we start playing Christmas songs in the malls. Our beloved shih tzu, Keno, celebrates his 10th birthday on the 1st. He's now 70 in dog years.
On September 4, we watched The Phantom of the Opera at the CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines).
On the eve of the 7th, September 6, I played badminton with friends and waited up for the 7th over midnight snack at the Peacock Throne Persian Cuisine & Kebab at Mandaluyong. I was craving for their melon shake that tasted like Jonas' in Boracay. But alas, they were out of stock. :,(
On September 7, I celebrated my 28th birthday with my family at Paseo Uno buffet at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati. (More on this below.)
On September 11, my husband and I celebrated our 1st year wedding anniversary. We were supposed to stay at a hotel overnight, but then, we found out that he was sick with asthma, so we decided to stay home. Nevertheless, it was an emotional ride for me. We decided it's time to start a family. <3 :,)
On September 14, my friends and I went to the soft opening of Greeka Kouzina. It's a Greek restaurant owned by friend Kacy and her cousin Allan. It's located along P. Guevarra Street where the old Power Mac center used to be. You can't miss it! The food is to crave for!! Jor-el wrote an entry for this and you can read more here.
On September 15, my kinderpwend (classmate and friend since Kindergarten), Erica, and I, had our joint birthday party. She celebrated her birthday on the 9th and we've been celebrating our birthdays together with our friends for years. We had a sit down dinner in our house care of the boys (my husband and her fiance) and afterwards, the girls all played with nail polish! Haha! It was a fun night!
September 17. Jor-el's birthday gift, my new 15-inch retina display Macbook Pro arrived. Woohoo! This is the first blog entry that I'm composing on my Pro! Oh yeah!
On September 18, my mom hit a huge milestone and turned 50! Jor-el and I went home to my parents' house to surprise her on her birthday eve. On the day itself, we went back to our recent favorite, Paseo Uno for another round of buffet!
On September 21, I hosted our company team building at our house. One of my teammates organized the mooncake dice game for us.
Upcoming on the 29th, my colleague's daughter is turning 1. I will be attending the birthday party in the afternoon. For dinner, I'll be going to a wedding reception for another colleague, who is getting married on the same day!
So, how many highlights were there?? 11!!! I wonder if that even beats my calendar for December! That's probably the most celebrations I've had in a month!! And each highlight probably warrants a blog post! I could still be missing some other events or they're bound to crop up sooner or later. So many dates to remember, but i'll stop boring you with my calendar.
On to my birthday celebration, and some pictures to share.
Starting from the leftmost, clockwise: Jor-el, me, Shobe, Mommy, and Papa. Shoti joined us a bit later via Skype! :)
My mom is a new member of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Makati and we thought of using some of the coupons. It was seafood night at the Paseo Uno buffet. Jor-el and I were late, and upon our arrival, my dad immediately gave us a tour of the buffet and took us first to the prime rib carving station. Here's my first course for the meal.
Lo and behold, they also served foie gras!!! Yum! It's duck liver, though, not goose. But I still enjoyed it topped with the balsamic dressing! It gave an extra kick to my steak!
Since I started off with the main course, I worked my way back to the appetizers. Haha!
Then, on to some seafood! There was sea bass too! But I ended up skipping it.
There were more lobsters on the plate before I took the picture, but our appetite got the better of us. :*)
And as they say, there's always room for dessert!!
The staff and my family were sweet enough to sing a very nice resounding Happy Birthday song to go with the cakes. :)
Here's the present from my sister. (Isn't she thoughtful?) Plus some other shots my family took while waiting for my arrival.
My sister with that dreamy look on her face. So charming :)
Mother and daughter. So pretty!
My beautiful mom. Heck! She could be my sister! :)
When people greet me a happy birthday, I can't help but say "Happy birthday!" back! It's just too happy a greeting to keep to yourself! There's just so much more love and joy in spreading it around!
So to all of you, I say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! :)
With a birthday card to boot! :) I made this some years ago, inspired by my faaaaavorite stamp-making company, Hero Arts! Get more birthday card inspirations here. You can see where I got mine from. ;)
I bought the clear stamp set locally from Auntie Helen, over at Memory Lane Store! Check out her website! Or better yet, visit her store! You'll drown in a sea of scrapbooking materials and other arts and crafts supplies!!! Fun! Fun! Fun!
Enjoy and keep spreading the love! <3
** UPDATE: Wanted to add a few of the most touching messages I received today. <3
Hello everyone! I can't resist but to squeeze in a short post here.
These are my new pink wedges from Tonic and I just love them to juicy jelly bits and pieces!!! (Drool...)
They caught my eye when I first saw them online. And they did not disappoint! When I wore them, oh wow! I felt like Barbie! Haha!
Kim brought these for me last week when we played badminton. I just had to try them on the moment I got home! You'll see me below still in my post-badminton outfit. Heehee
And of course, I had to wear them that same weekend. We were going to the new mall, Robinson's Magnolia, to watch "Katy Perry The Movie: Part of Me" and I thought they'd be perfect! But alas, we were mistaken and the cinema didn't show it in the evening. :,( I ended up watching "The Campaign" with Kacy (thanks for being a true friend haha!), while all the others switched to "The Possession". (For the life of me, I can never ever EVER watch a horror movie.) To end our evening, there's nothing like a good old classic Banana Split from the Magnolia Creamery! :)
My outfit for the day: Mango dipped hem cold shoulder top, Mango tie dye skinny jeans, Tonic Pink Jenica plastic peep toe wedges, Agnes B. black tote bag, Forever 21 layered necklace, Thomas Sabo charm bracelet, and Swatch date ring.
Great elevation! My shoes kept my feet dry when it rained that night. :) Perfect for those unexpected rain showers! And needless to say, they were comfy to shop around in!
Here is the product shot.
You can order these beauties online from Tonic Bags and Shoes! These are also available in The Ramp Glorietta, The Ramp Trinoma, Wisdom Rockwell, PopCulture Alabang Town Center, and The Maze Ayala Cebu.
If you feel like pink is too loud for you, these come in bone white too! Check out the Jenica album and see for yourself!
Before we end this post, I have a surprise for you! What's a post without any nail art? Haha!
Here's a preview to Kim's aztec nails challenge! Don't they look so good with the shoes?? :)
Details to follow in the next post! Hope you enjoyed this one for a change. :)
The inspiration is the revolutionary ice cream brand Dippin' Dots--"the unique, futuristic and fun way to eat ice cream!" I fell in love with this design right away! Banana Split is also my favorite flavor! Sadly, I don't have any yellows in my stash and couldn't replicate this color combo. And what's a banana split without the banana???
So here's my take on it.
This looks like a yummy jelly!
Close up shot
I settled with 4 colors that looked good together. I don't think they resemble any of the Dippin' Dots flavors though. From left to right, I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Orly Country Club Khaki, China Glaze For Audrey, and L'Oreal Steel Colour Hard Core Creme.
Here are earlier variations that i tried.
I can't wait to try this again with a new combo. It's so easy, you can do it yourself!! Trust me!
Here are the simple steps:
1. Put on a base coat. I used Orly Bonder.
2. Choose 2 or more colors of polish. If you don't have a dotting tool, just get a hair/bobby pin and dot away! Make random dots all over the nail, interchanging the different colors of polish. They don't have to be evenly spaced. The more sporadic, the better!
3. Finish with a top coat. I used Seche Vite dry fast top coat.
Easy peasy? Easy peasy!
Be prepared to be a head turner! :) This design catches a looot of attention. I wore this to the office with my red blazer and people greeted my nails right away! Haha! Such nice compliments too! My husband thinks that my nails look like they have sticker on them though. I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. :)
Now, I said that it's easy to do, but I didn't say it was fast! (You've been warned.) The challenge about not having a base color is that you have to fill the whole nail with just dots. And I found it nicer to layer different colors randomly versus doing all the dots 1 color at a time (which is kind of how I did it). But it's really fun to do! Don't be discouraged if you don't like how it looks after a few dots or a few nails! You have to see it in its entirety.
Don't they just look fun and playful? :)
Before I removed my polish, I played around with some finishes to see if they would improve the overall design. The Orly Matte Top coat stood out and I realized that the matte finish really looks good with this manicure!! It almost looks like the real Dippin' Dots ice cream in its frozen state. Nom nom nom. :)
Now, if only I could take a shot with a cup of Dippin' Dots!! Crave. I think I'll go have some this weekend. :)
I'm taking a break from all the dots after this manicure. I'm excited to show you what's next!!
With my new found love for nail art, I searched for some other designs that looked easy to do. Dotted nails are very popular and are recommended for beginners like me.
Do-It-Yourself Dotting Tool
Again, I was inspired by another video from cutepolish on how to make your own dotting tool from basic household items. As I said, I don't have any tools for nail art, so I resolved to creating some myself. A dotting tool is one of the most commonly used tools in the nail art world and I’m finally getting my hands on one!
Here’s a list of household items that you can use:
- Toothpick
- Bobby pin / hair pin
- Straight pin / dressmaker’s pin
- Paint brush / makeup brush tip
- Ball point pen
I felt like the toothpick makes too small dots for my liking. The paint brush and makeup brush tips make too big dots. Then, I don’t have any straight pins. And being a ballpen lover and collector, I don’t want to ruin any of them. So, I settled with various bobby pins. The bobby-pin dots are juuust right! And at that moment, I understood the ordeal that Goldilocks had to go through. :)
Then again, if you have straight pins at home, then this DIY from thebeautydepartment.com might work better for you.
It really boils down to the size of the dot that you want to make, so you can actually make use of a variety of dotting implements!
Now that I had my own dotting tool, there were so many techniques to try online. I had 2 design inspirations in mind, both from pshiiit.com. Pshiiit is another blog that i frequently follow. Her nail art designs are very clean and wearable. And she makes these cute gif tutorials from time to time. If you follow me on Pinterest, you'll notice that a lot of my pins also come from her.
Back to the designs. First is your common polka dotted nails. Next is a variant called gradient dotted nails. I didn’t wear a full manicure for these since I was just experimenting and playing with my new-found tools. I decided to share the behind-the-scenes shots with you because I just fell in love with them. I could only wish they were full manis!
Polka Dot Nails
I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and China Glaze For Audrey for this design. It’s pretty simple. I alternated the colors for the 2 nails. If you’re doing a full mani, you can alternate the colors for some accent nails like your ring and thumb nails. I started with my dots on the center then worked my way outwards. The size of the dots and the spacing in between them are totally up to you!
I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme for this design. Instead of covering the whole nail with dots, I did some dot-layering. Starting at the tip of the nail, I created a lot of dots. Some over the top of the other. Then, I made fewer and fewer dots as I worked my way up towards the cuticle.
If you look at the picture, you'll notice that I was able to make various sizes of dots. Surprised? I just used one bobby pin really. It all depends on the amount of pressure that you use. If you dot your nail lightly, then you’ll get a smaller dot. With more pressure, more polish gets transferred from the bobby pin onto the nail and the dot gets bigger.
I really like this look! I couldn’t stop looking at my nails after I had this on!
I actually tried recreating the black and white gradient for a full manicure after a week, but I couldn’t get the same look for some reason. So I will park that for now and will try again some other day.
Until then, I can keep the memory of these beauties!
Disclaimer: This is one of my longer entries. Please indulge me in taking you through my journey, my new found love, for nail art.
My Inner Struggle: Nail Art Fears
My sister-in-law sent me a link to a video one day on how to do this new nail art design called braided nails. The video was a tutorial done by cutepolish. You can watch it here.
It got me excited to see a new design, but at the same time disheartened because I knew I would never be able to pull it off.
You have to understand that I've never done any nail art before. Maybe I have "tried" by just using my normal polish brush and putting on dots or stripes on my nails, but they were all messy and never came up nice. All my attempts had failed, so I just stopped trying.
I also had this notion that I would never get into nail art because I just didn't have time nor the patience to sit down and wait for my nails to dry before I do the next step. I usually just put on nail polish as it comes in the bottle. Plain and simple. When I get bored with it after a few days, I would layer it with some effects like glitters or a matte top coat to update the look. When i have a good color combo or effect that I wanted to play with, I would do some accent nails on my ring finger and my thumb. Other times, when I'm totally indecisive and I couldn't pick a color to use (it has happened a few times), I just put on all 5 colors. One color for every finger. The style for putting different colors together on one hand is called "Skittle Nails". If you're brave enough, it's really fun to try and wear around! But I digress.
What I’m trying to say is that I've never succeeded in doing nail art and I didn't have a strong inclination to actually try it out again until this video came along. At first, I was skeptic. I was only tempted because cutepolish made it seem so easy to do! What's more is that you don't need any tools (which I don't have) to do this design! There was nothing that prevented me from trying it out. I had hope.
Taking the Plunge: Attempting Nail Art
So I checked my collection in search for the 3 colors that looked closest to the ones cutepolish used on her video. I ended up with Orly Rage for my metallic, Essie Coral Reef for my neon (it’s not a neon, but I think it’s bright enough to pass), and Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Funky Frost for my pearlescent color. You can mix and match any 3 colors you like, but luckily I had 3 similar colors and didn't have to be creative to come up with my own.
Aren't they gorgeous? Not a bad first attempt, if i could say so myself!
The process turned out as easy as how it appeared on the video. I had to go back and look at the video from time to time though, just to check if I was doing the color order correctly. When I got the hang of it, it was just really like braiding your hair except you're braiding your polish (hence the name of the design, braided nails! Duh! Slap on the head.) The hardest thing about it, I guess, is having to keep a steady hand. But that's more or less a requirement for putting on nail polish yourself right? So if you can do your own nails, then you should be able to do this too! If you can dream it, you can do it! Lol! Just a little "Blades of Glory" humor there. :)
I also really like the fact that there is no waiting time needed. Well, maybe there is, but i just didn't bother and it worked out for me. And thank goodness for Seche Vite, which works best by directly applying it onto wet polish. Right after I did my last stroke/braid, all I had to do was to put on the wonder top coat and wait for the magic to afix itself on my nails! :)
In direct sunlight
With flash
Tips and Tricks
Keep your nails long for this design. It will allow you to produce more braids. But as cutepolish said in her tutorial, “Three stripes from each side of the nail looks best. Too little or too many can ruin the effect.” If you're curious to see what this design looks like with shorter nails, check out the pictures below and compare for yourself. I ended up filing my nails short after a few days because I just couldn't stand long nails. Hehe!
As much as possible, use polish that is opaque in 1 if not 2 coats. Better use something that dries relatively quick too to avoid smudging.
Avoid using polish with the pro-wide brush (e.g. OPI or some Sally Hansen polishes), they are harder to maneuver for this design and are too thick with the strokes. But if you have longer nails, then I guess you have more space to work with and could use thicker strokes.
Use thin coats. Too thick will take longer to dry and will make your nail look clumpy. And it's more prone to smudging.
When doing the braided strokes, keep your polish brush steady and instead, roll your finger or nail from left to right or vice versa. This will help produce even results.
Don't worry if it looks messy at first. You can clean it up afterwards.
Wrap your tips properly. Else you will end up with multi-colored ones.
Do each step to all of your nails to give it more drying time in between coats. I tried doing this design on my ring finger and my middle finger first because I thought it would be too hard to do all but it didn't look right and came out much better when I did all my nails. Perhaps it's the color combination that I used.
Lastly, have fun and don’t give up!
My Thanks
All my thanks to my sisters-in-law, Raissa and Mac, who found this video. And most especially to cutepolish for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of nail art! Nail art is now a new undertaking yet to be explored! The possibilities are endless! I have renewed enthusiasm to try new designs, and to try out the tips and tricks and DIY's I've only read about. It is no longer a fantasy, it's a reality!
Thanks also to one of my favorite online bloggers, Marta, of chitchat nails for continuing to inspire me and for keeping me up at night. Haha ;) The picture below is a tribute to her. Her pictures are always divine! Go check out her website. You'll know what I'm talking about. I got this idea of posing with accessories from her. It's a fun way to personalize your photos. I think she's a great role model and I can only aspire to make nail art and take pictures as well as her. :)
Have you tried this design? What other color trios do you think would work with it? For those who have tried this, I'd love to see what you came up with! Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.
Watch out for more attempts at nail art next time! Thanks for reading!
