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! :)

Mermaid Tail Nail Art

This mermaid tail design has to be one of my favorite nail designs since I started doing my nails. I did this on a whim and ended up loving it so much that I wore it for days!

I love mermaids! To me, they're whimsical and beautiful creatures. I have always loved Ariel from The Little Mermaid - that amazing red hair and wide-eyed look. Envious of all her red hair though I can't imagine myself looking good with red hair. :S Then there was Splash with Daryl Hannah as Madison the mermaid (I've got to watch that show again!). Mermaids + my love for a good Tom Hanks rom-com = yes, please!

Image from Google

So anyway, here's what my nails looked like for days:

Taken in natural sunlight

The colors for the base, all of which I used 2 coats of:

• Thumb, pointer and little finger: China Glaze - First Mate
• Middle finger: China Glaze - Frostbite (3 coats)
• Ring finger: Orly - Snowcone

After the base colors, I painted one coat of The Face Shop - BL601 (a sheer teal glitter) on all my nails. It's the glitter you can see on my thumbnail. I wanted to give my mermaid tail a hint of glitter and since I only ever used that polish once, I decided that it would be a good time to finally bust it out.

The colors I used for the scales on the tail:

• China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sprint
• Love & Beauty - gold glass flecks
• The Face Shop - BL602 (a pearly purple)
• A random gold glitter polish

I sealed it all in with Seche Vite. I'm running low already and it's only been a month! I'm sad because they don't sell Seche Vite where I am. I suppose I'll have to go get local top coat and endure smearing and long drying time so as to not waste my Seche Vite. :/

Taken in natural sunlight

How I did these nails:

I started with base coat, painted 2 coats of blue polish, used a nail art pen to draw the scales (if you don't have a nail art pen, you can use acrylic paint and a brush or use nail polish and a toothpick/dotting tool) and filled in the scales with color and finished off with top coat.

Admittedly it is quite time-consuming to work with a toothpick/dotting tool and black polish to draw the scales but it's what I used to do before I got my hands on any kind of tools. So if I can do it, you can do it too! Just avoid painting your nails too close to bedtime or else you'll have to risk doing only half of what you planned on doing.

Taken indoors

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Taken under yellow lighting

Taken with flash (but half-ruined by the shadow of my hand)

And this is what my nails looked like on Day 4. Barely any tip wear! I should have wrapped my tips to make it last longer but I'm so bad at wrapping my tips. Any tips on wrapping tips? No pun intended.

I asked my sister which blue tail she liked best and she said she liked the China Glaze - Frostbite best. Hmm, at first I liked the China Glaze - First Mate better but now I like them all!

Mermaid tail nail art, who knew, huh? (read in Flynn Rider's voice when he discovered the frying pan's awesomeness)

What the heck, I love everything Disney (take me to Disneyland, please!!) so one day I might have to do Disney Princess themed nails.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I enjoyed writing it... and including The Little Mermaid pictures ;)

Image from Google

Galaxy Nail Art

Once upon a time, I attempted to do galaxy nails but they turned out to be a flop. O-kay, they weren't that bad but after seeing tons of amazing galaxy nail art on other people, mine looked like unrecognizable splatters.

And me being me, the failed mani put me off trying it for a second time even though I'm kinda obsessed with space-related stuff and I really wanted to try doing it again. Then recently, I watched this great tutorial and decided to give it another shot.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Here are some pictures before I cleaned up. Haha, the white splotches are a bit big but I like them that way.

Taken with flash

Taken with flash

Can you say obsessed?! I'm in love with how these turned out! All I had to use was a sponge and a dotting tool.

Taken indoors

Taken indoors

The colors I used for this mani (and I used so many that I had to take a picture of the colors I used):
Base color:

• Orly - Liquid Vinyl

Galaxy print:

• Orly - Snowcone
• Sally Hansen - Flashy Fuchsia
• China Glaze - Strawberry Fields
• China Glaze - First Mate
• China Glaze - Exotic Encounters
• China Glaze - Elephant Walk
• China Glaze - Fairy Dust
• China Glaze - Purr-fect Plum
• China Glaze - White on White
• Love & Beauty - gold glitter
• Random pink shimmery polish
• Random green glitter polish
• Random glitter polish (the bigger flecks of glitter you see on my nails)

Topcoat:

• Seche Vite

With Seche Vite, this mani lasted me 4.5 days straight with barely any chipping! I like playing around with colors so every nail had a different combination of colors sponged on.

Here's the awesome tutorial (in French - no, I wish I spoke it but I don't) that helped:



Thanks for reading and don't forget to follow me on Twitter.

Part 2 of my US haul

 And here's the continuation to part 1 of my haul.

I didn't realize how many base and top coats I bought until this post. I actually only meant to get the Seche Vite Fast Drying Top Coat but here's what I ended up with:

Sally Hansen Complete Care Extra Moisturizing 4-in-1 Treatment

Hmm, this is supposed to strengthen, moisturize and help nails grow faster. I have only used it twice so I can't say for sure whether it works as advertised.

Sally Hansen - Double Duty Strengthening Base & Top Coat

I went to Target, couldn't find any OPI base coats so I went with this. It is pretty decent and I love the brush!

Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri Anti-chip Top Coat

I like this top coat. I would use it for every day manicures. It dries a little slower than the Seche Vite but who cares?! A few more seconds of drying time don't matter to me.

Orly - Matte Top Coat

This is my first matte top coat ever. I used to look at matte nail art and think they were the coolest things ever but somehow once I applied this on my own nails, I didn't really like the look of it. I think I'm more of a super glossy top coat finish kind of girl. Maybe I'll give it a few more shots - see if I can appreciate the finish.

Orly - Bonder Rubberized Base Coat

I actually bought this as a nod to my mom's old Orly Bonder Base Coat which is what I first used when I was younger. Orly's bottles are way huge which is great because I won't have to run around looking for a new base coat once the others run out.

Seche Vite - Dry Fast Top Coat

Ahah! For all the hype that people make about Seche Vite's Top Coat, the print sure came off the bottle fast. I'm kidding. It's great and really works - seals everything in super quick! The smell is strong though and I don't think it's 3-free?? Still, I wish I'd gotten the huge refill bottle. I've been getting back into the swing of nail art and I've been using this Seche Vite as a top coat for the designs. This definitely beats the heck out of local top coat. ;)


Also, Happy 4th of July to those celebrating!

Random fact: I followed a link to Bonnie McKee's new video American Girl yesterday. The song is mehhh to me but I love a video with fun cameos.