Liebster Award - first ever blog award

Guess what, guys?! I've been nominated by the lovely Lacquered Stash for the Liebster Award! I have been seeing this go round and I'm so excited that someone likes my blog enough to nominate me! :D Thank you so much!

Okay so the rules are: when you are nominated you are meant to:
1. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions given by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 more bloggers with less than 200 followers
4. And then write them 11 questions to answer.

11 random facts about me:
You can check out random facts about me here and here.

Here are the questions asked:
1. What is your favorite polish?
I would have to say either China Glaze - Strawberry Fields or China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise.

2. What is your favorite technique to use?
Hmm, this is a tough one. I can't just go with one... I'm loving saran wrap nails and simple dots and these mermaid nails.

3. What mani are you planning for the next holiday?
Oh my god this is so exciting!!! I love Christmas nails!! I can't wait! I don't know what I'll be doing but Christmas nails are my top priority.

4. What is your favorite top coat?
I would have to say Seche Vite because it does the trick FAST and seals in the layers SO well but the fact that it's not 3-free is a problem though. I do like Sally Hansen's top coats.

5. What is your favorite tool to use when doing freehand nail design?

These two brushes for sure. I'm just sad that the second brush is beginning to go all soft and bristly. You can even see it in the picture above. Since I don't have a backup brush or a store where I can get a brush like this, I'm thinking that freehand designs have to be put on hold.

6. What time of day do you do your mani's?
Mmm, it depends but mostly in the afternoon or evening. When I surprised my sister with my Bioshock Infinite nails (so proud of them!), I did them in the morning before she came home from school.

7. What technique have you not tried yet that you would like to?
Water marbling, I think. I tried it once and failed horribly. I have been too scared to try ever since. Any tips?

8. What is the biggest challenge you've faced writing your blog?
I think getting readers. On this blog and my main blog, I think the biggest challenge is getting loyal readers. But now I try not to think too much of the numbers (stats and followers). I love writing and blogging is my outlet. Now I try to think that if in the process people happen to stumble on my blogs and like what I write about, then that's a bonus and welcome aboard!

9. What do you use for your base coat?
I alternate between Sally Hansen Complete Care 4-N-1 Extra Moisturizer Treatment. (that's a mouthful and I had to Google for the full name), Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat, and Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat (I do think that the Bonder makes my nails peel though).

10. What lotion or oil do you use for your cuticle care?
Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream (some of you might think that this is high overrated but it is amazing for your cuticles and I don't find the smell strong at all) and The Body Shop Body Oil, Pink Grapefruit, 3.3 Fluid Ounce which can be used on skin and hair to moisturize. The grapefruit oil smells amazing and doesn't stay slippery for too long.

11. How much planning goes into your mani and how much of it is spur of the moment?
Most of them are spur of the moment but for the more detailed nails like my Jane Porter and Parachute - Overnight nails, I did take some time to plan out what would go where.

12. What polish do you think everyone should have in their collection?
Hmm... either China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise (you're beginning to see how much I love this polish, aren't you?) or Essie - Play Date.

11 bloggers that I nominate:
To be honest, I think I'm the last one to receive this award. However, I am aware that every day there are new bloggers so here's what I'm going to do: If you're new to the blogging community and you happen to be here (at my humble blog), please feel free to accept this award and say that I nominated you. :) If you do accept this award, remember to leave a comment so that I can read your answers and check out your blog.

11 questions to ask:
Since I am horribly lazy and poor at thinking of questions on the fly, I'mma bring the questions from my Sunshine Award and use them here. Don't judge, lol.

1. How many languages do you speak? If you could learn one new language, which would it be?
2. What is your favorite book from your childhood?
3. Who would you say influenced you the most in your life?
4. What is the first concert you ever went to? If you have never been, whose concert would you attend?
5. What is your favorite kind of pie?
6. Tell me about something strange/funny/awkward that you have done or has happened to you before.
7. Do you paint your nails? If yes, how often? If no, why not? If you're a guy, have you ever painted your nails before?
8. What are some songs that you can’t get sick of?
9. What is something (can be anything) that you used to hate but grew to love?
10. What do you find overrated and why?
11. What is your favorite Disney movie?

Well, that was fun and easier than answering the Sunshine Award, haha. For getting to the end of my post without skipping any parts (but I wouldn't know now, would I? ;)), here's a sneak peek of a future nail post:

Looks like fun, right? :D

Thanks for reading! Love you guys!

*This post contains affiliate links. Any commissions made will go into my college fund. Thank you! :)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Espresso

Hey everyone! Today I bring you a toasty color that to me is perfect for any season but best for fall. Just the name of the polish itself should tell you to expect a dusty, cozy fall-like color. Were you expecting a brown polish or greyish one?

If you were, you'll be pleased to know that Sally Hansen - Espresso is none of them above but so much more!

Isn't it gorgeous? It's like a dusty mauve that can look brown from some angles. I love this polish so much and I'm quite sad that it's only 9ml. I don't wear it often unless I'm sure I'll be wearing it for a few days so that I won't waste it. I'm like that. :D

I think the name Espresso describes this color nicely even if it isn't a creamy brown. I am not a coffee person so I had to go Google espresso, lol. Okay, so maybe this polish wasn't named after espresso espresso but who cares, right? As long as this color is awesome, nothing else matters, at least to me.

I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen - Espresso here and one coat of Love and Beauty's shimmery glass flecks. The pigmentation of Espresso is lovely - no streaks or patches, yay! - and it didn't flood my cuticles. I am definitely in love with this polish and I highly recommend it for the fall.

Do you like this color? Do you have this polish? How do you like it? Are you a fall polish kind of person or do you just wear any color during any season of the year?

Thanks for reading!

My third feature! Thank you so much everyone!

Hey y'all! So today's post isn't about nails but it's just as exciting!

I opened my inbox not two minutes ago , only to find that I've been featured a 3rd time! SO EXCITING, I know! When I started linking up to these link-ups, I did not expect to ever be featured. I joined the link parties, just thinking that it would be nice to share my love for nail art and hopefully find others who appreciate it as well.

So it definitely came as a pleasant surprise when Pam (who hosts the Dare to Share Saturday Link Party) featured my nails..
 

And then last week I was featured on Karla's blog. If you didn't know, Karla hosts the That's My Style Link Party. It's a link party that you can link all things stylish. I love her link party so of course I was ecstatic when she told me that I was featured.

And then just now I received an email from Rose of Fine Craft Guild saying that I'm featured on her blog this week. I could not believe my eyes. I thought I had received the email by accident because you know, I'm the kind of person who finds it unbelievable that someone would like what I do enough to feature me. I need to work on that self-esteem, lol. But then I went over to Rose's blog and saw my bat nails and kinda freaked out.. in a good way.

So I guess what I'm trying to say in post is Thank you so much for featuring me!! Thank you for liking my nails! You have no idea how happy it makes me to see people loving what I do!

It may seem like a small thing to some people but it really does make my day.

Also, I appreciate every comment that I get - it really means the world to me when you comment and tell me that you like my nail art. I know a lot of people say that but I really, really do mean it and I hope you know that.

Thanks so much for reading everyone!

P.S: If nail art isn't really your thing, you can always look me up at my blog that I share with my sister.

Pink bat french tip nail art

Hi guys! Today's post is going to be short and sweet.

I did these Halloween nails last year and I really loved them. I attempted to recreate them this week but I've been feeling pretty meh and didn't manage to do what I planned. In any case, these nails look good to me and hopefully to you too.

Halloween nail art is okay but I love Christmas more so... Haha, anyway, here you go:

Taken in indirect sunlight

Taken in indirect sunlight

I don't remember what the pink polish was but I remember using a nail art pen to draw the bats. Pretty neat, eh? It was easy enough to do and I was pleased with the results. I did get quite a few compliments from friends so if you're looking for Halloween nails that will garner some attention, this bat french tip will do the trick... or treat. See what I did there? :)

I also did candy corn nails last year. I will show you that in another post later on.

Anyway, that's it from me today. Sorry for the super short post. I've been working on quite a few things and I haven't exactly been inspired to do nails.

If you're thinking, aww I wish you posted more often, fear not. You can always hop over to my main site that I share with my sister and check it out.

What Halloween nail art are you attempting this year? Is Halloween nail art your thing or do you not care for seasonal nails? What do you think of my pink bat french tip nail art?

Thank you for reading!

Essie - The Girls Are Out

I have one of my all-time favorite nail polish to show you today. I am so obsessed with this color!!

Essie - The Girls Are Out (Taken with flash)

Essie - The Girls Are Out (taken with flash)

Essie - The Girls Are Out (indirect sunlight)

This is Essie - The Girls Are Out from the Summer 2013 Collection and it is STUNNING. It's not really as pink as shown in my pictures with flash. The third picture, however, is a more accurate depiction of the color.

I usually keep up with new collections through posts from nail bloggers but while I was in the US, I was too busy to check my feed so I completely missed out on any news about new collections. So when I went to Target (I could live in Target, no kidding) and headed over to the nail polish section and I saw this polish, I knew I had to have it.

It's a beautiful shade of soft fuchsia with a touch of silver sparkle. The formula is wonderful, the polish just glides on easily and dries glossy. I used 2 coats in the pictures above for full opacity. The dry time is also faster than other polishes I own. Removal wasn't too bad - some silver shimmer on the skin.

Overall, it's shimmery and whimsical and feminine - I LOVE it!

Do you have The Girls Are Out in your collection or are you going straight out to the store to get this right now? You can only pick one, heehee! 

Thanks for reading!

Party glitter all over Essie - Play Date

Hey everyone, today I have some really cute glitter toppers to show you. Sadly I do not own any of them but I got to try them on my nails and that was good enough for me.

I don't have the names of any of these glitters :( I walked into a store randomly and they had a nail polish testing section (awesome!) so I layered them over my nails that were painted with Essie - Play Date and they turned out brilliant.

Taken in sunlight

Taken with flash

• Little finger: a black and white glitter mix (bar, square, circle and hexagonal glitter)
• Ring finger: red and purple bar glitter
• Middle finger: a mix of glitter in multiple shapes and colors (red, blue, purple, silver, turquoise, white in squares, circles, bars and hexagons)
• Index finger: a mix of red, dark and light blue, purple bar glitter and a rare gold hexagon.

I love them all; I can't seem to pick just one! Also, isn't Essie - Play Date the best color to layer glitter over?

Which is your favorite glitter mix?

Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Bloglovin!

Hotdog condiments nail art

Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been blogging on my main blog for the past few days and I'm not used to juggling blogs yet but I'll get the hang of it. :)

So today I bring you nails that you might not want to wear to a baseball game for fear that you might mistake your nails for the hotdog that you're sinking your teeth into. ;)

This design was completely random. I didn't even know they were going to turn out looking like mustard, ketchup and relish. When I was done, I kind of looked down and went, what did I just do with these three colors?!

Taken with flash (I clearly need a lightbox or a better camera but until then, these pictures will have to suffice)

I started out with 2 thick coats of The Face Shop - Papaya. Since I don't own any striping tape, I had to cut tiny strips of Scotch tape. It is no joke, I tell you, to cut strips of tape while making sure that it's as straight as it can be.

I stuck them randomly onto my nail after the base color dried and painted the un-taped parts with China Glaze - Salsa and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint. The trick here is to not wait for the polish to dry before peeling the tape off. Peel it off about three seconds after you've painted over it. Once, I left the tape on thinking that it was the clever thing to do and the tape ended up breaking and I had to use tweezers to pinch them off the wet polish. -_-

You can tell from my index and middle finger that I messed up and some polish got smeared. I tried to fix that by covering up the smears and you can judge for yourself how well I did that:

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken in natural sunlight

At first I didn't like the vertical lines so I decided to do horizontal lines for my ring and little finger instead. In the end I didn't quite mind the vertical lines...

What do you think? Vertical or horizontal? Do these nails remind you of hotdog condiments or something else or nothing at all??
If you would like to see a tutorial, feel free to ask.

Thank you for reading!

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter (for my random ramblings) or Tumblr (where you can find me liking all things pretty) or Pinterest (where I do the same) or Bloglovin (which is becoming one of my favorite ways to catch up on blogs that I love)!

P.S: Should I make an Instagram account?

Jane Porter from Tarzan nail art (with tutorial, sort of)

After my mermaid nails, I didn't think I could ever do nails that I love more. I was wrong, at least partially. Today I delved fearlessly into the messy world of painting to draw Jane Porter from Tarzan on my nail.

Jane is a total sweetheart. Who could hate her? She's a little bit careless, adventurous, compassionate and she likes to read. Oh, and she's got gorgeous hair! A Disney girl after my own heart.

Image from Google

I totally meant to do Lego nails and I already knew what I was going to paint but at the last minute I changed my mind and did this instead. I have always loved Tarzan and I feel that nobody ever gets too old for Disney. Here's a little tidbit about me: there are usually always scenes in Disney movies that make me bawl like a baby and Tarzan is no exception haha!

Anyway on to the nails (this is a picture heavy post but that depends on what you call picture heavy). To make it easier to understand, this is how it's going to be - I'm going to show you the first design then tell you how I did it then move on to the other nails and talk about how I did them.

Taken indoors (Brush 1)

Taken indoors (Brush 2)

These are the two brushes that I used for all the designs. I didn't use any other brushes. Let's name them Brush 1 and Brush 2 accordingly.

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

The finished product:

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

 How I drew Jane:

1. I painted one coat of Love & Beauty - pale blue (it is a one-coater and I didn't want the base to be too thick) and waited for it to dry.
2. I used Brush 1 and Love & Beauty - milky white to do a basic outline of Jane's face. You can see that it was a patchy shape and I didn't bother to cover up the holes. That's because...
3. I mixed China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss and Love & Beauty - milky white to get a close-enough skin tone for Jane. After mixing, I used Brush 1 again to go over the face shape, this time making sure to cover any blank patches.
4. Next, I used Brush 2 to create the outline of Jane's hair and filled it in with The Face Shop - BR802.
5. Using Brush 2, I used The Face Shop - BR802 to draw the eyebrows.
6. Then I used Orly - Liquid Vinyl, China Glaze - White on White, and a mixture of The Face Shop - BL602 and China Glaze - First Mate to draw the eyes. I used a random pale pink polish for her eyeshadow.
7. As you can see in the picture above, Jane's mouth turned out okay but I messed up her nose a little. It wasn't as near left as it should have been and it was too dark. What I did to correct this was cover it up with the skin tone color.
8. After I covered the mistake, I used China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss to draw the nose again. It still wasn't quite right but I couldn't afford to redo it because my eyes were getting tired.
9. I used The Face Shop - (I'll fill this in when I have time to check the polish's code) to outline the lips and China Glaze - White on White to draw the teeth (well, if you can see them).
10. I totally forgot about the neck (the blank blue space in the picture above) so I had to remix the colors to paint the neck and used Love & Beauty - milky white to draw the collar of her dress.
11. Sealed the design with Seche Vite and I was good to go... Yeaaah, the process took an hour... ~_~

I hope you got all that. I'm still trying to perfect the art of writing nail tutorials but I hope the pictures help. :S If you didn't get any part, you can always ask me to rephrase my explanation. And if you have any tips on how to improve my tutorial, please tell me. I don't want you to read this and be like, pshhh that was rubbish and never come back because you think I'm rubbish. :(

Taken indoors (index finger)

Taken indoors (middle finger)

Taken indoors (ring finger)

Taken with flash

From left to right: The top half of Jane's dress, bamboo shoots, the bouquet of flowers Tarzan handed to Jane, and the hem of her dress.

How I did the rest of my nails:

• Index finger:

1. I used The Face Shop - YL702 to draw the V-shape starting 1/4 inch from the top of my nail.
2. I used a white nail art pen to draw the collar.
3. Using Brush 1 and Orly - Charged Up, I drew the little tie.

• Middle finger:

1. I used Sally Hansen - Lickety Split Lime as my base.
2. Using Brush 2 and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint, I drew the lines of the bamboo shoots.

• Ring finger:

1.  2 coats of China Glaze - White on White as the base.
2. Using Brush 2 and Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint, I drew the stems of the flowers.
3. I used Orly - Charged Up, The Face Shop - PP401 and The Face Shop - YL702 to draw the flowers.

• Little finger: 

1. I used 2 coats of The Face Shop - YL702 as the base.
2. Then I used a white nail art pen to draw on the hem.

Sealed everything off with Sally Hansen - Insta Dri Top Coat (surprisingly there wasn't any bubbling!)

Taken with flash

Taken indoors under yellow lighting

Taken in natural sunlight

Taken in natural sunlight

Collage

Image from disneyyandmore.tumblr.com

This is the picture that I used as reference. Hmm, my Jane looks a little sadder (the eyebrows I think) and the hair is a bit messier but other than that I think my one hour of work was worth it!

Sorry for the super lengthy post. Shortening sentences is not my forte. ~_~

What do you think? Do you like these nails? Do you think I'm nuts for spending so much time doing just one nail? Have you ever tried doing nails like this before? I'd love to see them. I also look forward to any constructive criticism that you might have for me.

If you made it to the end of the post without skipping any paragraphs, THANK YOU for reading! Love you guys!

Image from Tumblr

P.S: Should I make an Instagram account??

Orly - Charged Up

Who loves jelly polish? I do! Isn't jelly polish the best?! I wish I had more.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

This is Orly - Charged Up. It's a purple jelly polish that is so stunning and lovely. This would also be my first real jelly polish so I was pleasantly surprised when I put this on and realized that it was jelly. Mmm, squishable-looking polish. Here I'm wearing 2 coats of Orly - Charged Up - first coat was streaky, the second cleared that right up.

The photos were taken with flash and somehow the bottom two came out brighter than expected. The more accurate color for Orly - Charged Up would be in the first and second picture. It's not too dark even though I saw other people's swatches of this and the color seemed darker.

Love Orly's rubberized grip bottle cap - makes the painting process so much steadier. Not too sure I like the brush though.

I'm officially a fan of purple jellies. Are you? Here are some nail designs that I did with Orly - Charged Up: saran wrap nails, rainbow drip nails and my beloved Parachute nail art. 

Thanks for reading! :)