My First Ever Polish Swap

Imagine my excitement when I got up to a package from LBC yesterday! It arrived!! My bag of goodies from the beautiful and talented Jeiflyn of Polished Pinay! This is my first time to ever do a swap and it's so cool to find someone to do it with here in the Philippines!

Jeiflyn came up with this brilliant idea and shared it with me. She's never participated in a polish swap either! I'm just so touched that she even thought of me. :) I can't stress enough how the world of blogging and Instagram is such a wonderful world! They get you connected to people whom you've never met before but share the same interests, passions, and obsessions as yours! And you get to make new friends! :) <3

Here's what I received (from left to right, photo below):
OMG (Oh My Golly) Crystal Sand in Emerald
Color Club in Midnight blue (with striper brush)
Revlon Minted
Revlon Tropical Temptation
Nyx Matte Sky Blue
Nyx Matte Baby Pink
Etude House in WH702
+ the Prettify pouch (see photo above)

I can't wait to swatch these for you!

Isn't she thoughtful? She gave me the white polish and the blue striper for my nail art. Such an enabler! :)

And since I've been blogging so much about the OPI Liquid Sand and Zoya PixieDust lately, she thought she'd indulge me with the OMG Crystal Sand! :) What other names could they come up with to mean the same thing? Haha! OMG is actually a local brand here in the Philippines and they came out with this product even before OPI came out with its Liquid Sand. I guess we were just ahead of our time... or we really could've just started this trend, you know. ;)

Then some more matte polish from Nyx! Cute colors! :) And the Revlon mint green and coral polishes.. oooh... I really wanted to buy these for myself! :D

Thank you so much Jeiflyn!! <3

Have you participated in any swaps lately? Aren't they exciting? It kind of felt like Christmas! I didn't realize how much fun it would be! Enjoy your weekend ladies! :)

Color Blocked Nails Inspired by the New York Fashion Week featuring Essie Butler Please

I'm very excited to share with you my latest creation! I feel so fashion forward! :D I cannot tell you how distracted I am... There's something about this design that makes my fingers look so long and slender. It's a cool illusion for those who have shorter than the average fingers and nails, like me. :)

This design is first inspired by @susieq1980 's tape mani. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to use the tape properly, so I ended up doing a freehand for my version.

It's also inspired by @martawarmuz 's #skittlette trend. Marta, from ChitChat Nails, defines this as a manicure consisting of two, or three, different accent nails on each hand; as opposed to skittle nails, wherein each nail should have a unique design. I love me some Marta's skittlettes! :*) Here are my favorites!

I've also been dying to use my new favorite blue, Essie's Butler Please from the 2012 Winter collection. Isn't it sooo pretty? Just look at how bright that blue is! I don't understand why there's so much hate around the formula or application. It dries matte, fine, any topcoat can fix that. It's not streaky or uneven. It's a solid two-coater and I'm glad that I took a chance on this. I love it!

I've also seen so many new trends from the New York Fashion Week Fall 2013 runway shows, that I can't help but do something new and creative! :) It helps to be surrounded by so many talented people with overflowing creative juices! Hooray for Instagram! Some trends that I incorporated into this look: milky white polish, dark shades, diagonal color blocking, and gem accents, in place of a glitter gradient.

Here are some links to the 2013 nail polish trends, straight from the runway:
Harper's Bazaar
Glamour
StyleList

I used the following polishes: Dazzle Dry base coat, Dazzle Dry top coat, Essie Waltz (an elegant sheer white),  Essie Butler Please (an indulgent bright blue), and Orly Liquid Vinyl (black). Then I used Swarovski crystals for the gem accents.

I went through 4 iterations. Haha! From upper left, clockwise: 1) freehand mani, 2) with OPI Crown Me Already glitter gradient, 3) with rhinestones and sponged tips, and 4) with rhinestones only. Which one of the four do you like the best? I knew I wanted to add something to spice it up. If only I had silver metal studs, I think they would have been perfect!

Lastly, I thought I'd just pose with my favorite "cuticle cream", Jack Black's Industrial Strength Hand Healer. It's the exact same color. Hehe!

It feels good to be back! Happy reading! :)
 

Cupcake Nails

My best nail art to date. Cupcake nails!!!

I learned how to do this by following cutepolish's "Cute Cupcake Nail Art" tutorial in youtube. Try it yourself! With the right tools, it's not so hard to do!

As you can see, I did some tweaks and made it my own!! :D You can play around with different color combinations too! There are a lot of cupcake nail art inspirations in Google. Some people even make chocolate cupcakes using brown instead of white! Yum!! And you can definitely make the candy sprinkles more interesting with actual beads or hex glitter, you name it!



I like my nails sparkly, so I used a white silver glitter base color. I played around with Caronia's Crystal Frosted and was happy with it.

Next, I was able to easily create the vertical stripes for the cupcake base, thanks to these new found gems! I got these Sassy Nail Art bottles from Watson's for Php 30+ (USD $0.70) each! You can apply the polish using the tip at the top, which more or less works like liquid paper. Or, you can twist and remove the top to use the thin striper brush inside. I used the latter for my stripes.

After, I used a large dotting tool to apply the fluffy cupcake in OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, my go-to white polish. I think this was the hardest step to do. But I realized that it doesn't have to be perfect. Cupcakes aren't baked all equal. Some may be fluffier than others or some may even be lopsided. It doesn't matter if they aren't even, as long as they come out still looking like cupcakes! :D At this point, the design might look bulky, but don't you worry. Keep on working on the next steps, and the top coat will even it all out.

I applied the hearts on top using Essie Coral Reef. I just followed how cutepolish did it. Thebeautydepartment.com showed how to do this trick too. It was a bit tricky, but I managed. All it takes is a little bit of practice and you can try doing it on a piece of paper first.

To decorate the cupcake with candy sprinkles, I used Sassy in pink (same as the stripes) and China Glaze For Audrey. I just made the dots randomly in no particular order.

To top it all off, I put on one coat of Seche Vite dry fast top coat. It flattened the design and made it look professionally done!

I think that the colors I used blended well together and made the design pop out more. I'm very pleased with this. It's my favorite nail art and I actually drew something out of it. :) True enough, it was very popular with family and friends. :D

I did it to all 10 fingers! Aren't they soooo cute?!?! Nom nom nom!

 I wanted to take more pictures so I posed with my matching pink and purple loofas. Heehee :*)

And then, I found the perfect accessory to my nails!! A GIANT CUPCAKE!!! In complimentary colors too! :D

Fun fun fun!! I hope you can try this yourself! You won't regret it!! :)



Thanks for reading!
 

Dotted Nails--Dippin' Dotted, that is!

My friend surprised me over last week's long weekend with a pack of goodies--dotting tools!

I immediately searched for a design that would give these tools justice. I looked for pegs and stumbled upon Chalkboard Nails' nail art dotting contest. There were so many pretty entries, I had a hard time choosing! I don't know who actually won the contest, but my personal pick is monkeybuttsmomma's Dippin' Dots nail art!

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!!

See you then!

Dotted Nails

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!

Inspiration here.

Gradient Dot Nails

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!

Inspiration here.

Altogether Now

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!

Have a good day!