Liebster Award #2

Hi guys!

So I've just been nominated by Beauty by Shortylegs for the Liebster Award. Thank you so much, lovely!! <3 This will be my second time being nominated and I don't think the thrill of people thinking I'm cool enough for this award will ever go away. I am so flattered and at the same time it makes me feel bad for not updating here as often! Time to remedy that.

I promise that I'm still highly into nail art but it's just coming along slowly because 1) I moved to a new country and the move has messed things up. I didn't bring ALL my nail polish with me - super sad about that - and my tools are everywhere (!!) so I definitely need to organize them into one spot.

2) I've been busy with college and stuff, gah. You saw lots of posts from me last year because I was taking a break from college thus all the free time haha.

3) I've surprisingly been blogging more on my main blog. I've just been more inspired to write there. If you miss me on here, please drop by my main blog that I share with my sister. We kick ass there. Please do not be overwhelmed by our seemingly endless reviews of animes - really into that these days. OH, nail art idea - favorite anime characters. Haha, would anyone want to see that?

And reason 4) for not blogging regularly - I brought a smaller laptop so nothing really works as fast anymore. I can't run Photoshop, I can't run many programs in the background (damn you, small hard disk), the keyboard drives me up the wall half the time and I didn't import my bookmarks so I've pretty much got nothing on this PC.

I'll work on creating more nail art and I'm slowly trying to look for all the nail blogs I used to follow T_T

Anyway.. Not to get sidetracked, I'll get right down to the award and stuff. Here are the questions and answers:

THE RULES:
* Answer the 11 questions set by the person giving you the award
* Nominate 11 other bloggers with 200 or less subscribers
* Come up with 11 questions for them to answer 

1. What are your thoughts on Organic/Natural makeup? Have you used a lot of it? Own any products that are Organic/Natural?

A makeup question. This will be interesting. Haha. I am not a makeup kind of girl. I'm still a noob at it. I can barely tell the difference between foundation and primer. Actually, I can't. Please send me instructional videos on makeup for beginners, thank you.

I'm not sure if any of the few beauty products I'm using are organic/natural but I'm pretty sure my mom does use it..... Almay, I think? Haha, told you I'm a noob.

2. Who is your top 5 favorite authors?

Oh, good question!!

Carolyn Keene - she started it all. My mystery-genre-loving side was inspired by all the crapload of Nancy Drew that I read as a kid. I was OBSESSED with Nancy Drew... and later the Hardy Boys (Frank and Joe made my 10-year-old heart skip a beat because why not? They're cute).

Meg Cabot - then along came The Princess Diaries. I LOVE the way she writes. It's so casual and relatable and makes you feel like you are actually living the character's life. Isn't that the way to go?! The Princess Diaries started my romance phase of reading and writing. I was all about the romance genre when it came to books and writing my own fiction. FOR YEARS. My favorite though would have to be All American Girl (but not the 2nd book). P.S: I never finished reading TPD, haha.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - because Natural Born Charmer. Hands down my favorite 'adult' romance book ever. Dean and Blue forever. I don't even care that I sound like a teenybopper.

Barry Eisler - while I question John Rain's morals and principles, I don't question Barry Eisler's writing. He is a literary genius.

Robert Crais - because The Watchman. Because Joe Pike. Ever wished you wrote a particular book because of its astounding level of mind-blowing-ness (I made this word up)? Yeah, I totally wish I wrote The Watchman. Joe Pike is one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. He kicks ass and I only have Robert Crais to look up to for that. :d

You can actually never ask me to list only 5 but here are 5.

3. When you were a kid, who were your favorite artist(s)?

Artist as in bands/singers, right? Westlife. Backstreet Boys. Ronan Keating. The end. Okay, kidding. There were tons but these are coming up off the top of my head when I think of my childhood.

4. What is your favorite lipstick? If you do not wear lipstick what is your favorite lip balm or lip gloss?

Bath and Body Works's Liplicious - Black Cherry. I don't think they still carry it. If they do, PLEASE direct me to the exact store you saw it. I'm IN LOVE with it but I am so stingy with it because I don't want to finish it.

5. What is one of your biggest pet peeves? What annoys you to no end?

Just one? Okay. Rude AND unfriendly people. The ultimate combo. I have met so many in the past few weeks. I want to punch them in the face.

6. Let´s say that you have your entire day free of anything in particular that you have to do. What do you do when you just want to relax?

Surf the internet. Play. Write. Watch shows. Eat.

7. What is your favorite makeup brand?

I........ will just randomly say The Body Shop. Don't hate on me.

8. What is your favorite type of food?

Potatoes. Spuds, duh. ;) I like them any way.

9. Why did you start blogging and was it hard to decide what you wanted to blog about?

Excellent question. My mom thought it would be a good idea if my sister and I started one so she bought us our own dot.com. How awesome of her, right? This was 5 years ago. At first we blogged about a LOT of random stuff. Then last year after I created this nail blog, I was suddenly inspired to start blogging back on that blog. I wouldn't call our blog a lifestyle blog but I guess it is? So suddenly I find myself juggling 2 blogs.

10. When it comes to eye shadows, do you prefer loose eye shadows or pressed ones?

Loose, I guess. I've seen pressed eye shadows fall to the floor and crack. Not pretty.

11. Name your top 3 favorite nail polishes

Right now I am loving China Glaze - First Mate, China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise and Essie - Naughty Nautical. Yes, they are shades of green and blue.

x

Whew! that was pretty long. And now I have to think of questions and nominees? This is not my favorite part today haha.

I nominate YOU. If you're reading this, pick this award up because I just nominated you! Have fun with it.

My questions:

1) Your favorite song at the moment is...?
2) What is your favorite season and why?
3) If you were a super hero what powers would you have?
4) What is your favorite holiday destination?
5) What shows are you currently watching or looking forward to watching? Bonus question: Who is excited for Game of Thrones season 4?!
6) What do you typically have for breakfast?
7) Where do you find yourself singing most often - in the shower/when you're doing dishes/while walking home/other? If other, where?
8) What was your favorite subject in school/college and why?
9) What is your fashion sense like? Practical/retro/preppy/etc?
10) What are some of your favorite quotes?
11) Do you have a driver's license? If yes, when did you get your license? If no, why not? (I'm throwing this question in because I don't have my license haha!)

There you have it. Random questions off the top of my head. I hope you answer them. If you don't want to answer them as an award (why would you not accept this award from me? T_T), you can always answer them in a regular post. Comment with your link, I'd love to read your answers!

That's it from me! Let me know what you think of my answers or if we share any of the same answers. That's always interesting.

Thanks for reading! x

Valentine's Day nail art - it's raining hearts

Hey everyone!

I'm back with Valentine's Day nail art! I think this calls for a round of celebrations. I managed to edit my pictures (tedious work on PicMonkey since I don't have Photoshop installed on this PC), I'm actually posting BEFORE Valentine's Day and this is a fresh design aka I'm still wearing it, haha.

I'm not big on Valentine's Day and wasn't actually going to do any specific design but I've been seeing some V-day nail art contests (?) and decided, what the heck I'll just try to come up with something and if I think it's worthy and if I don't miss the contest entry date, I'll submit my entry.

Okay, anyway, here's what I did:

This is the finished look! I love it! It's so me in the sense that it's so pretty yet imperfect. I don't think I could ever claim to be a perfect nail artist since my lines are usually always slightly off and sometimes I make a smudge or two. And that's fine because I've embraced my imperfections to be kind of like my style.

Here is what I started with:

Thumb: China Glaze - White on White

Index: China Glaze - Strawberry Fields

Middle: Essie - The Girls Are Out

Ring: Orly - Hot Shot (holla, new purchase!)

Little: Love & Beauty - pink

I used two coats of each polish as the base.

Next, I was inspired by a picture of a tree with hearts hanging off it and decided to draw one on my thumb nail. I have no idea why I left my brown nail polish back home and I was bummed when I realized that. I made do with my black nail art pen as the tree trunk and branches.

I used Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint (love this color!) and China Glaze - Salsa and a nail art brush to paint the leaves and hearts respectively. I didn't spend too long on drawing them on. It was more like dab and go. :D

My idea for the other nails was to do rows of hearts and one accent nail with XOXOs on it. I used the black nail art pen to draw the XOs. By now you can already tell that the white hearts on my middle finger are much more prominent. 

That's because I used my white nail art pen to draw them on. I only wanted the white polish as a base for the colors I was going to paint over it so the pen wasn't such a good idea. The polish flowed out and was rather thick and hard to control so I switched over to China Glaze - White on White and a nail art brush.

Then it became a bit of a mess around this part. I envisioned the different shades of red/pink to stand out but they... didn't. Haha. Well, I guess sometimes things don't turn out the way you picture them. I wanted to just leave them be and call it a day but stubborn me wanted to make this design work... So I...

... grabbed the black pen again and outlined all the hearts. Granted the outline wasn't as smooth as it should have been but I'm glad I outlined them. Don't they just pop against the base colors? Yup, then I sealed the designs in with top coat and called it a day.

Here's a close-up of my heart tree. :)

And here is my biggest accomplishment yet, haha. I labeled the polishes in the picture. It took me sooo long to squeeze everything in and align the arrows and stuff but I really wanted to point out the nail polish bottles behind.

I only labeled the red and pink polishes, all of which I used to color the rows of hearts. The rest are my base coat, top coat, Orly - Liquid Vinyl and China Glaze - White on White. Oh, and those are the two brushes I used for the entire design.

Here's a better picture of Essie - The Girls Are Out and Love & Beauty - pink. I had no idea I had so many red/pink polishes. I initially started out with ONE red polish, thinking I wouldn't buy any other reds... Who was I kidding?

And here's a shot of blurry heart-shaped goodness.

This design actually reminds me of a notebook I used to have when I was younger. It was by Happy House and just the cutest notebook with rows of multi-colored hearts.

So what do you think of my Valentine's Day nail art? Good? Meh? Messy? Boring? So spuddylicious? Do you want to try this out? Let me know in the comments! :)

If you have a V-day nail art post, definitely include the link in the comments, I'd love to check it out! If you want to send me a V-day gift, let me know as well, haha. ;)

How will you be celebrating Valentine's Day? Is it a big deal for you or do you just let it slide by? 

Thanks for reading! <3

P.S: All pictures taken with my phone and inside the house.

Pineapple leopard print nail art

Hey everyone! All hope for this blog is not lost yet. I'm still here... just slow at updating and still trying to get back into doing more than one nail art per week.

ANYHOW, Who's up for a tropical nail design today? First, what is your favorite tropical fruit? Not sure what falls under the tropical fruit category? Here's a list:

Mango, papaya, kiwi, mangosteen, banana, guava and here are some not-so-common ones. Have you heard of any on that list? I know at least half. ;)

I'm not a fan of pineapples unless they're in pizza and even then I don't like too many pineapple chunks. However, I've always been fascinated by the fruit. It just looks freaking cool and smells amazing. You can't deny the uniqueness of the pineapple. Come to think of it, tropical fruits are all super cool.

Let's get on with the design:

Taken indoors

As you can see, I started off with V-shaped designs which are easy to achieve with tape. Just make sure you 'dab' the tape a few times so that it's less sticky. I painted the green V tips OVER the yellow as opposed to painting the yellow over the green.

I honestly did not intend to do a pineapple design and I wore my nails like this for a day or two.

taken with flash

taken with flash

And then I got bored and wanted to remove this design... but then I had a brilliant idea. I'll mess with the design BEFORE I remove it. I already thought the color combo was like a pineapple's so I just went with it.

taken with flash

You can't really see the criss-cross pattern in this picture with flash but in the photo below it's more obvious.

I LOVE that the accent nail was a leopard print because it just looks so cute tied together and the colors are amazing.

I don't know what made me brush on green polish onto the V tips but that wasn't very smart. I should have just left it at the V tips. Still, it was NOT obvious at all under normal light and sunlight. The flash is just to give you a clear picture of what I did.

taken in indirect sunlight

I cannot for the lunch in me think remember the exact polishes I used because I did this last year but I do remember using Revlon Top Speed Yellow as the yellow base.

I LOVED doing this design. It was very tedious to do mix the polishes to get the exact shade of browns that I wanted and to draw the criss-cross 'boxes' (my fruit vocab rocks) but it was worth it. I wore this design for a couple more days and was sad to remove it at the end of the week.

Definitely would do this again. I just don't think I brought that blue-green polish with me. Blegh.

Anyway, tell me what you think! Are you a tropical fruits kind of person? What tropical fruits would you include in a nail design? Oh, and how was your weekend? :)

OH, an idea: what about a Valentine's Day themed tropical fruit nail art?! A pink pineapple and red leopard print accent nail? How cool would that be?!!

Thanks for reading and being patient with me!