Rainbow drip nail art (with tutorial, kind of)

Hey everyone! Today I have a super fun nail design that was inspired by Karla. I saw her drippy nails and decided to do my spin on it this week.

Taken indoors at my poorly lit table where I do my nails :P

Here's a picture of the colors I used - only the dots; the swatches were done a while ago. From red to purple:

• China Glaze - Salsa
• A random orange polish
• Orly - Glowstick
• Sally Hansen - Lickety Lime Split
• Essie - Naughty Nautical
• Orly - Snowcone
• The Face Shop - BL602
• Orly - Charged Up

How I did these nails (I did them a little differently from Karla):

1. Use a base coat (please, it's important to use a base coat if you want to protect your nails from ugly staining)
2. Paint two coats of white polish; I used China Glaze - White on White.
3. Put a blob of polish (you might be thinking, what a waste and yes, it is kind of a waste) on a piece of scrap paper/hard paper/cardboard/whatever you want to put it on.
4. Use a dotting tool/toothpick/end of a pen/end of a skewer/whatever qualifies as a dotting tool and create a random dot on your nail.
5. If there isn't enough polish on your dotting tool, dip it into the main blob and create a downwards line from the small dot. You don't have to drag it all the way down to the tip of your nail. Now you have a 'spore' (think enoki mushrooms).
6. Make another 'spore' beside your first spore at a different height.
7. Connect the two spores at the base, making sure to make a U-shape connector and fill in the polish at the tip of the nail.
8. Make however many spores your nail can fill and finish with top coat.

Here is my, um, attempt at showing you how it's actually done on the nail... using Paint. Haha, I'm sorry, I should have done a step-by-step like Karla did.

(My sister claims that my tutorial is cool... Well... if you say so, haha!)

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken under sunlight

Taken with flash

You can't see Glowstick because Orly wasn't lying when they labeled it as neon. It's blinding. I'm sorry for the terrible flash pictures. I need to build myself a light box stat!

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

I've always wanted to do these nails but some other design would always distract me and steer me away from doing this. So glad I saw this on Karla's blog.

How do you like my drippy nails?? Ever done them yourself? What color combos did you use? Would you try this? Inspired to do this for Halloween?

Thanks, as always, for reading! :)

Shades of red nail polish

Hey guys! So I used to think that red polish looked kinda tacky because I used to see a lot of people wearing chipped red polish (why, I don't know lol). Well, I take that right back... or rather, I'll amend my statement. Red polish is awesome!

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

• Thumb: China Glaze - Infra Red
• Index: China Glaze - Ruby Pumps
• Middle: China Glaze - Salsa
• Ring: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Little: Essie - The Girls Are Out

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken indoors

Taken indoors (poor lighting, I'm sorry)

Hmm, Strawberry Fields looks a little orange in these pictures but I assure you that it's as pink as pink can get.

Taken with flash

Some blurry goodness, anyone?

Which is your favorite polish out of these five? Red nail polish - yay or nay?

Thanks so much for reading!

China Glaze - Infra Red and Elephant Walk

I bring you my first ever holographic polish and a fall favorite of mine.

Taken with flash

Taken in natural sunlight

I've probably got you thinking, why is she holding two bottles of polish that aren't even the colors that she's wearing?! Sorry there, I was actually trying to swatch four colors at one go and I grabbed the nearest two bottles which happened to be the other two colors I was swatching.

Anyway, I'm wearing 2 coats each of China Glaze - Infra-Red and China Glaze - Elephant Walk. Unlike Impeccable Greys which is the other grey polish that I own, Elephant Walk is a much subtler grey and has just the finest shimmer in it. I love it. It does have this yellowish pigmentation if you leave the polish in the bottle for too long without shaking it so remember to give it a good shake before applying. Elephant Walk applies smoothly and reaches full opacity in just 2 coats. Great color for fall.

Infra-Red is not as holographic as I expected it to be so that was a bit of a let-down. It is a nice fuchsia though. I have tried layering it over black polish (not pictured here) and it definitely looked snazzy so you could try that with other holographic polishes.

I do wish I had picked another China Glaze holographic polish off the shelf... I was checking out at Sally Beauty in the US and the display of holographic polishes caught my eye. I think they were going at $5.95 and I couldn't resist. I'd already seen the swatches of the collection online and I don't know why I convinced myself that Infra-Red was one of the stronger holos of the collection. :S Blergh, oh well, I guess I have to wait till I get to travel again to get my hands on other CG holo polishes.

Do you own any holographic polishes? Which ones? What do you think of holos anyway? What is your go-to color for the fall or do you not have one?

Thank you for reading!

P.S: I am now on Polyvore! Thanks to Grace (love her blog!) who convinced me in a heartbeat that it's easy to use. Haha, my mom actually asked me to join it months ago but I was convinced that I wouldn't know how to use it.

I'm all for sites that I don't have to mess around with for hours before figuring out how to work it. Needless to say, once I get the hang of Polyvore there will be no stopping me from making sets all day long.

If you're into fashion, you can also check out my main site which now mainly consists of fashion posts though once in a while you will see posts on music and other stuff.

How I made my images Pinnable

Hey everyone.

I don't have a nail post today but I would like to share something awesome with you! If you have noticed I've been joining lots of link parties recently - I LOVE discovering inspirational and down-to-earth folks in the blogosphere and I have found a few :D - and I've been dropping by random blogs to check blogs out. I've lost count of how many posts about potatoes that I've commented on today :P

Anyway, I stumbled on this Pinterest link party (omg, I can't remember what the exact name is, sorry) and I thought, a Pinterest hop? Cool... so how does this work? And I didn't read the rules properly (it was early, I wasn't fully awake yet, lol) and submitted my link. After submitting my link I reread the post and was like, omg no way. You're supposed to submit the Pinterest link of whatever picture you have from your blog but I submitted my post link.

And I was like, where the heck can I find this photo link?? Then it clicked in my head. It's the big [P] button in the center or upper corner of pictures that I've seen on other people's blogs. I was just wondering a day or two ago how to get those buttons.

So I did the only logical thing right then: I asked my mom (she's also a blogger and I'm sure some of you have seen her in some of the mommy blog hops). Mom, how do I get that Pinterest button that will allow people to Pin my pictures from my blog?? My mom's not the biggest Pinterest user so she didn't know.

So I did the next logical thing to do: I Googled how to make my images 'pinnable'. The first few links were bleh but then I visited this site which led me to this site and found the perfect tutorial that showed me how to insert the code into my blog to get the button. I followed the instructions and voila, now you can Pin my pictures to your heart's content... only if you want to. For those of you who've been meaning to make your images Pinnable or didn't know that such a function existed, now's your chance to do so. :)

Okay that's the story of how I made my images Pinnable. Hope you found the tutorial as helpful as I found it.

If you like, here are a few of my favorite nail designs that you can Pin.

Moving on, I don't know about you but everyone I know seems to be on Instagram. I'm not the biggest fan of Facebook which owns Instagram so I've been putting off making an account. It does seem to be the 'it' place.

Do you think I should make an account? 
Will I have fun there? 
Is it anything like Tumblr (I love it more than Pinterest, I'm sorry haha)? 
Also, should I make a Facebook account for my nail blog? 
Would you follow me on Insta and/or Fb??

Thanks for reading and I appreciate everyone's comments so much! xx

P.S: I am on Twitter and I love Twitter so you can always follow me there.

Frosted tribal nail art

I actually did these nails quite some time ago (when I was a semi-newbie at nail stuff) which would explain the lack of clean up so please excuse that.

Taken with flash

I used all Love & Beauty polishes for this design except for the black polish which came from a black nail art pen.

Love & Beauty doesn't actually give their nail polish names - well, you can see names on the Forever21 site but these came in a set - so I'll just name them myself.

On my thumb is a Frosty Peach polish and the other polish on my other nails is a shade of Pearly Oyster. Both are very sheer and would probably require 4 or 5 coats (!!) to reach any kind of opacity so I layered them over white.

In the picture above, I'm wearing one coat of both polishes and you can tell that it's streaky.

Taken with flash

Now here I'm wearing 2 coats of both polishes. The pearly finish has obvious brushstrokes but I don't mind that so much.

I wasn't - and still am not - too crazy about either color since neither complements my skin color. It just makes my skin look washed-out or at some angles, darker. It wasn't working for me but I thought it would be a waste to remove after layering on the polish so carefully... So this is what I did:

Taken with flash

At first, I used Love & Beauty - Pale Blue, Pale Pink and Pale Orchid to do some random stripes. Suddenly the color didn't seem so bad and I found myself reaching for my nail art pen to fill in the blanks with dots and arrows.

Taken with flash

I took the pictures before I put on top coat so if you're wondering whether I was going for a textured look, I wasn't.

This might not be one of my best nail designs but it was spontaneous and I ended up figuring out a way to jazz up the poor base colors. So if you have a nail color that you don't like on you, you could probably try something like this.

I LOVE all things tribal print. Do you?

Thanks for reading!

I found my one true love - Tiger Cam

I don't have a good nail post today - I've been busy, busy with lots of packing and going out - so I'm just going to share a SUPER CUTE LIVE video that will have you going, AWWWW!! wherever you happen to be. I mean, look at those two adorable innocent little balls of fur and their momma.

I LOVE big cats - tigers, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars, panthers, you freaking name it and I love 'em. In fact, it's so weird because I love all kinds of feline creatures except domestic cats. Yeaaahhh... I'm a dog person, not so much a cat person though if you find me a cat like Garfield, I wouldn't mind keeping him. A fat orange spaghetti-loving cat is for me.

Anyway, The Pet Collective is this AWESOME Youtube channel that streams baby animal videos live. I especially LOVED the pitbull, eagle, mini horse and most recent Labrador cam (the one with Buddy!).  This channel has been taking up so much of my time and every minute is worth it!

Did you already know of the existence of The Pet Collective? First timer? Cute, right? Which is your favorite cam? Come on, you know you can't resist cute puppies/kittens/eagles.

Thanks for reading and commenting <3 and be sure to check back for more nail posts coming!

Mystical saran wrap nail art

Here's my first attempt at saran wrap nails. Yup, I've been attempting lots of different nail art so lots of firsts for me.

I actually saw this design months ago but forgot about it until recently when I came across this video and liked how doable it was. I also saw Jen from ThePolishaholic's submission for the Picture Polish contest after I did these nails and I really loved her saran wrap mani color combo. I might try it next time.

I was fascinated by the fact that there was something readily available in the kitchen that could be used for nail art. Needless to say, I got the cling wrap and tore off a huge piece and happily trotted to my desk where I began to work on this super easy and fun design.

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

This design is so easy to achieve - almost effortless and if you dab off too much polish, you can always go over with another coat. How to achieve this look: paint your base color, let it dry, paint over with another color, quickly scrunch up a ball of saran wrap and dab lightly over the wet polish. Or of course if you prefer to see how it's done, you can always watch the video.

I used The Face Shop - GR501 (light blue) as the base for my thumb, index, middle and little finger and The Face Shop - PP402 (pink) as the base for my ring finger. Then I used the pink on top of the four fingers and blue for the middle finger.

I did use Essie - The Girls Are Out to layer over my thumb. I really liked the shimmer!! But I thought it was too dark and I didn't want to waste the polish by dabbing most of it away so I switched and used the other pink.

Taken in natural sunlight

Here I used Essie - Play Date as the base and The Face Shop - PP402 (pink) as the base for the ring finger. Then I used Orly - Charged Up to layer over Play Date and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint over the pink polish.

I'm not too sure I liked the accent nail since it was a lot darker than I expected and didn't quite complement the purple nails.

I asked my sister whether I should layer glitter over my nails and her reply was: I will always choose glitter over non-glitter. That was that. I layered China Glaze - Fairy Dust over my nails.

Do you like these saran wrap nails with glitter or without? Would you try saran wrap nails?

Thanks for reading!

Under The Sea nail art

Summer is almost over for you guys who actually have summer. I'm no fan of the heat but I'll take the sea breeze, salt water and breathtaking ocean view. It would be nice if I were at a beach right now... I'll just continue dreaming until I get there. :D

Here's a summery nail design that I enjoyed doing:

Taken with flash

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I started off with 2 & 1/2 coats of Love & Beauty - baby blue because it's a really sheer polish. I used The Face Shop polishes for the drawings of the shells, fish and starfish. I would name them all but I'd have to go peer at what the code for each polish is and I'm lazy to do that. Maybe I'll name them later on.

I used a black nail art pen to outline my little fishies and stars. See that odd blue line on my middle finger? You're probably wondering why there's a blue line in the middle of nowhere. I intended to make a border around the shell but... obviously the design was too big so I just left the line there.

And if you look closely (or maybe not), you can see an odd patch of polish under the fish's gill. Haha, yeah I made a booboo and decided to patch it up. I patched it with white polish before going over with the blue polish. It's not very obvious from afar and I'm rather known for trying to salvage designs that don't turn out right.

Taken under yellow lighting

I didn't expect the fish drawing to be my favorite but it is! It's so pretty with the shimmery peach polish.

If you had to choose one design you like most, which would it be and why? Ever done seashell nails before? I'd love to see them.

Thanks for reading.

Red and blue triangle nail art

Today's nail art is simple and what I like to call: what would have been my 4th of July nails. I must have seen this design on Pinterest - can't really remember where the inspiration came from - but I started out wearing the nails plain.

Taken under yellow lighting

I started out with China Glaze - White on White as my base - I'm really starting to embrace white nails because they're so summery and gorgeous - and then as the tips wore off, I decided that I would sponge on some color so that I could wear the white polish for a little longer.

I got some of my handy tape, cut out two pieces, joined them to form a V shape, stuck it carefully on my nail and sponged on China Glaze - Salsa. I used a makeup sponge and lightly dabbed it on, leaving some white polish visible. Then I sponged on China Glaze - First Mate, again making sure that I did it lightly so that I didn't cover the red and white polish.

Then I peeled off the tape, sealed the design with Seche Vite and admired my nails for a good five minutes.

Taken in sunight

Taken in sunlight

Taken with flash

I really like how these nails turned out. It was fairly simple to do except for the taping part which I am usually quite clumsy with. I like how the red and blue polish blended a little to create some purple-ness.

What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

Parachute - Overnight nail art

I am SO excited to show you these nails today! If you've been following my Twitter account, you'll know that I've been anticipating Parachute's new album Overnight. Well, today's the day! Overnight released at midnight today so go get it, guys!!

First off, I HEART Parachute. What more can I say?! Secondly, I'm loving most of the songs off Overnight. I'm not crazy about the four songs they released yesterday but the rest are AMAZING. Will's voice just blows me away. I love all their acoustic versions - it's all so raw and stripped down which is just the way music should be appreciated.

I digress! I knew I had to do Parachute nails right after I listened to The Other Side for the first time. It is by far my FAVORITE track off the album and I don't know who could NOT like it. I actually did these nails twice because I didn't like the way the design on my middle, ring and little finger turned out. Double effort for you guys ;)

So here it is:

Taken with flash

Let me explain what each nail design is about:

• Thumb: Overnight album cover.
• Index: A hurricane to symbolize their song Hurricane which is really good.
• Middle: I got this logo off their site. It's their Parachute Flight Crew logo which is their fanclub.
• Ring: It's a parachute... though I think it doesn't really look like one.
• Little: White, red and blue symbolize Will's love for 4th of July which I believe he proclaimed is his favorite holiday of the year. Also, I didn't do 4th of July nails this year so I thought what the heck, let's kill two birds with one stone even though I'm, hmm, more than a month late.

Taken under yellow lighting

How I did these nails:

• Thumb: I used Orly - Charged Up as the base and sponged on some pink and orange polish then I used a black nail art pen to draw their silhouettes, painted the tip of my nail purple (not the same purple as their cover ~_~) and used white polish to create the light effect. Then I dabbed on China Glaze - Fairy Dust to mimic the twinkling lights in the distance.
• Index: I used Orly - Snowcone as a base, sponged on China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss to create the ground and used a black nail art pen to scribble the hurricane.
• Middle: I started off with China Glaze - White on White, used a nail art brush to paint the blue curve at the base of my nail, the red stripes and finally painted the rest of my nail blue.
• Ring: I used Love & Beauty - pale blue as the base, used a black nail art pen to draw the outline of the hurricane then filled in the parachute with pink, purple and orange polish.
• Little: Started with China Glaze - White on White as a base, sponged on the red and blue, voila!

Sealed my design off with Seche Vite.

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Like the BioShock nails that I did, I hope I did the album cover justice. I feel like I could have done more to make them look more realistic but at the same time I just wanted it to be simple.. Tell me what you think.

Other images from Google and weareparachute.com

Oh, I used an app to create this collage so that y'all can see what my inspiration was behind each nail except for the hurricane and pinky design.

Thanks so much for reading! Hope you love Parachute as much as I do.

P.S (haha, if for whatever reason any of you find my blog - I'm hopeful): Will, Nate, Kit, Alex and Johnny, my sister and I love you guys! When are you guys going on a world tour? We would LOVE to see you in concert!

P.S.S: You can listen to all the songs off Overnight on their soundcloud here!  You can thank me later.

China Glaze - Strawberry Fields

I feel like a broken tape recorder every time I post and go 'this is my favorite nail polish' but it's all true and today I have another favorite to show you.

Taken with flash

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

This beauty is China Glaze - Strawberry Fields. It's on their permanent line so never fear, go grab it; I got mine at Sally Beauty.

Strawberry Fields is a pink jelly-like polish with beautiful gold shimmer. The gold shimmer is what makes this polish so amazing. I have never seen anything like this before. The formula was lovely and the application was smooth but the coverage was slightly sheer on the first coat. I used 2 coats here to make sure there was no visible nail line.

I would be lying if I said that this wasn't my favorite pink polish with gold shimmer. It's so beautiful, I could stare at it for hours.

I have to say, I was also attracted by the name. Like, Strawberry Fields. Could a name get more visually pleasing to the mind?

Thanks for reading!

BioShock Infinite Nail Art

I did it again! I did another nail design especially for my sister.

For months, my sister has been talking about BioShock Infinite which is apparently the best game she has ever played in her life. Weeks before the release of the game, she made me watch the trailer of the game and I did. To be honest (okay, please, BioShock fans don't throw potatoes at me for this), it didn't strike any chords in me. I found it okay, nothing too exciting. But you could tell by the expression on my sister's face that she was thrilled and anxious for the release of the game.

Haha, I think - okay, I know she was disappointed that I didn't share her enthusiasm. Anyhow, the game was released eventually (I'm sure I was reminded of the release date multiple times) and she bought the game and played it and loved it even more.

Usually I watch her play games (Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Metro 2033, etc.) and give comments on what I think about the game and my final verdict on whether I would play it or not. But with BioShock Infinite, I didn't watch it at all. It might or might not have to do with the fact that my sister was so engrossed in the game that she finished it in like a day. I only caught the ending aka the credits rolling, ahaha! I watched that clip of Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper (voice actors of Booker and Elizabeth) singing and that's about it.

Sooo... I missed out on the best-est game of all time. And I suppose I feel kind of bad that I didn't share my sister's enthusiasm.

This nail design was spontaneous. I didn't think much before diving into it. I was fresh out of ideas for my next mani - just kidding, I couldn't decide what to paint next. As I was sitting and thinking, the image of BioShock Infinite floated into my mind. My sister was at school so what better surprise than to do nails based on her favorite game?!

I did spend quite some time Googling for pictures I could use as reference/inspiration and finally, I got it. So here they are, this is what I did:

Taken in indirect sunlight

This is before I used top coat so it's a bit gritty and uneven. The thumb is the BioShock Infinite title, the index, middle and ring depict Booker and Elizabeth, and the little finger is the front view of the blouse Elizabeth wears in most of the game.

Let me break it down for you. Here are the colors I used:

• Base color for thumb: China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss
• Base color for my index, middle and ring finger: Love & Beauty - baby blue
• Base color for little finger: China Glaze - White on White

Colors for the design:

• BioShock Infinite title: China Glaze - First Mate, China Glaze - White on White, China Glaze - Salsa
• Booker and Elizabeth's skin: China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss
• Booker's gun, shirt and pants: Orly - Liquid Vinyl
• Booker and Elizabeth's hair, his jacket and belt: The Face Shop - a dark brown (I also mixed white with the brown to get different shades)
• Booker's scarf: China Glaze - Salsa
• Elizabeth's dress and the scarf against her white blouse: China Glaze - First Mate
• Booker and Elizabeth's shirts: China Glaze - White on White

Taken in shade

Taken under white lighting

I wore this design for a full five days with barely any tip wear. Oh, here's the picture I used for reference:

Image from Google

Hmm, okay, my Booker is thinner than the picture above and Elizabeth's shoulder should have been higher but apart from that, I think I did pretty good with what I had.

Was my sister delighted and surprised? Indeed. Who would ever guess that I would do BioShock Infinite nails? Certainly not myself so in a way, I surprised myself.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading this lengthy post!

If you're a BioShock fan or just a fellow gamer and would like to tell my sister how much you also enjoyed the game, feel free to comment or @ me on Twitter. I'll be happy to pass the message along.

P.S: As of a couple of hours ago, I can now officially say that I've watched 10% of the gameplay. Yes, my sister made me watch her play it and I agreed. :) Okay, dammit, I like Troy Baker as Booker DeWitt. My sister is going to be ROTFLHAO at this but what the heck, right?

P.S.S: I finally get the 'Do you take your coffee black?' reference.

Striped ruffian nail art

This was one of my older designs and my first attempt at ruffian nail art. I really liked the concept of having this slight curve of color peeking out from a coat of color above it. Also, once upon a time, I attempt to do a half-moon mani but that turned out horribly.

I used Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep as my silver, a red-orange polish for my accent nail and a black nail art pen to do the stripes. I'm not sure why I did the stripes but I'm glad I did because they turned out cuter than expected and it gives my ruffian nails a bit of an oomph.

On my right hand, I used Nicole by OPI - Light a Candle (a silver-lavender polish) and a pink polish.

This was the first coat of alternating color above the base color. I thought the red polish would be opaque over the silver but it didn't quite turn out that way.

So I tried two coats - still not much better but not too bad either. Initially I wasn't a big fan but the more I looked at it, the more I liked them.

Hah! Here's my right hand after trying to paint the curve of the second color neatly. My pointer finger didn't quite turn out as nicely as I wanted it to be but the rest were okay. I also used 2 coats of the alternating polish.

How do you find ruffian nails? Or do you like the half-moon design better?

Thanks for reading!