An Owl

I was working on a different owl design, but it wasn't working out so I did a simple owl in a tree.  The owl was suppose to be smaller, but the acrylic paint kept spreading into the branches so it gradually got bigger.

Three coats of Cosline 303 and black acrylic paint.

Fairly short post today, but the next post will be bigger.  I recently purchased some new nail plates from Shany and Red Angel, they arrived yesterday so I'll show some images from those plates.

Dress Inspired

This manicure was inspired by a dress that I picked up from the Indian Bazaar/Little India after dinner one night.

My interpretation of the dress on my nails.

I really like the nails with the flowers.  I think I’m going to do my nails with just the flowers sometime.  The flowers were done with acrylic paint.  I basically just blobbed on the pink with the toothpick that I used to mix white and red acrylic paint, then lined the flower with red, made some dots with blue acrylic paint and leaves with green acrylic paint.

Here are the polishes that I used.

Both hands - KleanColor Black and White, Cosline 004 White Sparkle (not pictured)
Right hand - Dabo RD440, Etude House WH709, Hello Kitty PK04
Left hand - American Apparel Cameo Blue and Palm Springs, Innisfree GR06

Roses

Have had this on for the past few days, been practicing doing roses.  Unknown red Color Club, Cosline - 702, Kleancolor - Military Green and black acrylic paint.  I bought a nail painting pen kit, which looks just like a fountain pen without an inkwell.  I used that to paint on the black outlines.  It was much easier to use the pen then to use a paint brush, especially when painting on my right hand.

Nerdy Kitty

Did something new instead of keeping the dented mani. Plus I had to file down my right thumb nail after bowling on Friday night. The nail had split at the sides from bowling.

Nerdy Hello Kitty.  Inspiration from a candy tin.  Base colour is Cosline - 607.  Acrylic paint plus some additional polishes for the bow (joe - Powder Blue), nose (L.A. Girls - Pineapple) and the nose/bridge of the glasses (American Apparel - Factory Grey). Was gonna use a stamping plate for it, but I couldn't get it to stamp properly so I used some acrylic paint it on.

Color Club Scented Neons

Wicked Sweet

This is Wicked Sweet from the Wicked Sweet collection.  I did 4 coats, but I think 3 is okay too.  I just quickly did this before heading out to watch a movie and had some bald spots that needed extra coverage.  My pictures are sooooo inaccurate.  My camera just couldn’t pick up on the tealnees of shimmer and made the polish just blue.  Not great with colour correcting in editing programs so I just leave ‘em as is.  It’s a really great colour and so yum smelling.  This one smells like blueberry candies.  Also reminds of Tval’s Skin Smoothie in Blueberry Vanilla Parfait, but much sweeter.  After I removed the polish the scent lingered for a bit on my nails.

Yum Gum

This is Yum Gum.  Absolutely love this colour, three coats and again photos aren’t quite accurate.  Photos in natural light because the light box pictures were completely washed out that it made the polish look pale.  The colour is much brighter than what my pictures show.  This one smells like Juicy Fruit.  Haven’t chewed sweet gums in a while, but that’s what I’m reminded of when I get a whiff of the polish.

The heart on the ring finger was done using Cosline in 002 White.  I painted a strip of polish on a piece of scotch tape, left it to dry, peeled the polish from the tape, used a heart punch to punch out a heart, placed the heart on my nail and then topped it with top coat.  I could have painted it on free hand, but this way the heart is much more symmetrical.

Cannot wait to try out the other polishes.

Nails for Cherry Blossom Viewing

These are the nails that I had when I went cherry blossom viewing at High Park.  Three coats of a blue Mood Struck nail polish.  When warm it's greenish and when cold it's blue.  Was three coats, but still kind of streaky.  Used Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Black Satin for the branches and Cosline - 002 White and 117 Champagne Pink for the flowers. 

This was kind of messy and rushed since I did it late at night.  I only really like the thumb.  The other fingers aren't as pretty.

S'more BundleMonster + Sliders

Here's some more images from the new BundleMonster plates. I didn't go in order. The images from plate BM-202 weren't really that exciting to me so I decided to try some images that I liked from other plates.


Sort of a floral tapestry design from plate BM-225. Quite liked this. Two coats of Cosline - 608, stamped with pastel purple Konad special polish.


This one didn't turn out like how I imagined it to be, but still nice. Image from plate BM-214. Two coats Etude House BL501, stamped with black Konad special polish.



Really loved the shoes when I saw them from the previews. Thought it would be too busy on all nails so I just stamped it as an accent on my ring finger. Image from plate BM-213, two coats Etude House PK006, one coat Etude House LUCIDarling something 01 something and stamped with ENAS black stamping polish.

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Next up, MINI BURGERS!



Made these for my older brother's birthday yesterday. Baked the buns, ground the meat and pickled the cucumbers myself. Burgers were topped with swiss and cheddar cheeses and thousand island dressing.

BundleMonster Plate BM-201

Played around with the BundleMonster plates yesternight. Quick pics of what the full size images look like on my nails. Love the bigger size, but too bad my thumb is a bit too wide for the width of the images just like the Konad plates.


This is plate BM-201. Plate was kinda dirty when I took the pic so I super brightened the picture and added in some vignetting.



Mini Kleancolor polishes from the Wicked Witch set, in 101 Concrete Grey and 4 White. Never used Kleancolor polishes before and they were great. Went on smoothly and only needed one coat. When I saw that they were pretty pigmented I thought I would try stamping with them. The white wasn't that great, but the grey seems like it would be good for going on light coloured polishes.


Tried stamping with colours used as base colour again, this time with joe Sun Kissed and Gunmetal. I really like this swirly pattern. Sun Kissed as a stamping polish kind of resembles the Konad gold special polish.


I believe in the older set of plates there's an image with just a single flower that's similar to the flowers in this full nail design. I think I might have used a similar colour combo with that image. The picture isn't on this blog, but it is on my tumblr. Base colour = Cosline 709, stamped with yellow Konad special polish.


Lastly, my favourite of the lot. Did a sponged gradient with four colours from another set of mini Kleancolors - Candy Cast, 153 Neon Amethyst, 20 Neon Pink, 19 Neon Orange and 18 Neon Yellow. Loved the polishes, dabbed the sponge on my nails once and they were completely covered. The wavy lines, stamped with black Konad special polish, helped to enhance the gradient-ness. Too bad while putting on a top coat it got streaky, but still very nice.

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That is all, I didn't stamp with the small images from the plate. I dunno if I'll do this with every single plate, it was rather time consuming.

Flowers

Here's a couple of floral designs that I did.


This one I didn't really like and and took it off pretty much after taking the pictures. The green and yellow was just not for me. Sponged on Cosline - 203 Pure Yellow and 702 Spring Green. Then I used a dotting tool with a couple of Mood Struck polishes that I recently purchased from Winners. They came in a package of three with no names. The top left corner is what the flowers look like when cold and the bottom right is when the flowers are warm/hot.


This one I really like and currently have on my nails. I've seen this design plenty of times in Japanese nail magazines. It seems to be a popular design since it is in pretty much every magazine every month though usually in pinks/reds. The blue is an Ardene polish in Deep Sky Blue. They seem to have changed their bottle design once again. Third bottle design within a year. Used some Sally Hansen nail guides to tape off areas then used white acrylic paint. Instead of painting on roses I decided to stamp them on since I wanted them to be more uniform, especially on my right hand. Red and green Konad special polishes for the stamping colours using fauxnad plate F01. Glitter stripes were done using L.A. Colors Art Deco polish in silver glitter.

Nails from the Past Week

Lack of posting due to laziness in transferring photos to my computer. But here are some nails from the past week.


Leopard pattern nails with a heart thrown in. Got the idea from the newest Nail Up! magazine.
Colours used were all frankens.


First time doing swirly flowers. Turned out alright. Base colour is American Apparel - Office, flowers were frankens used in the leopard mani, the leaves were American Apparel - Malibu Green.


More swirly flowers with dots. Base colour = Cosline 304 - Skin Brown, flowers were also Cosline polishes, 403 - Light Red, 102 - Pair Pink and 002 - White. The green is also American Apparel - Malibu Green.

Feb/March Gmarket Haul

My Gmarket order finally arrived yesterday. It used to take a bit longer to arrive when the packages would go through Vancouver first, but now they go through PIA. So tons closer and it doesn't sit in customs as long. Originally it was two different orders (the bags and the cosmetics), but I combined the orders together to have them shipped all at once.


I didn't do a big haul. The medium size Korea Post box and it's contents displayed after I took everything out of their individual boxes.



This bag was kinda smelly when I got it out of its packaging. Actually both bags kinda smelled. The construction is ok, no loose threads or exposed seams, but the fabric is meh. There's also a slight metallic sheen to it, but you can't see it in the pictures. The bag can be worn two ways. Top left with the strap or hand held like the picture in the top right. Overall the bag is alright, I didn't pay a lot for it, but it did look nicer on the site. (Item: 204162755)



This bag I was lemming after I saw it on colorlover's blog and video. She's got a ton more pics of the bag. It's really sturdy and boxy. That's what I liked about it. And it can also be worn two ways, short strap or long strap. Two compartments with two pockets. I like this bag a lot more than the other one. (172603594)



Holika Holika haul:

1) The things I purchased (middle right pic)
2) Everything else (bottom left pic) are the freebies that came with it.

I wanted to try out their BB creams, so I got two of them, the rolling one (195150896) and the aqua jelly one (191189904). The pore cover (202748721) was to bump up my order for free domestic shipping. I've only tried out the rolling one and I like it. I've only used it once so I can't say much about it. But it is hard to wash off. The rolley sponge can be cleaned, but it stays stained.

The large freebie bottle is a Pudding Bubble - Bubble Peeling Facial Cleanser. When I tried it on my dry dry hand my dead skin cells gathered up and was indeed gross. But when I tried it on my face last night nothing happened. Maybe I'll try it on it's own tonight. I had already washed my face and thought maybe the Pudding Bubble was an exfoliator, but it didn't do anything.


Finally more Cosline polishes (128281127) , same seller as last time, along with another VOV It Girls polish. And the VOV CastleDew foundation (134288297) that really held up my order because it was not sent along with the polishes. Just a backup for one that's almost finished, polishes was just cause. Why not.

Magic Clay Bow

I bought this magic clay stuff from the dollar store. I think it's similar to Japanese paper clay. Not too sure, but it can be used to make little sweets like cakes and candies for decoration. I bought it to make bows. It's very lightweight and much easier to work with than acrylic. When the clay is dry it feels like foam. It also loses shape when it gets wet so it needs to be coated with something to prevent water from getting in contact. Below is the pic of the mani with the magic clay bow.



Magic clay bow, a few rhinestones and some stickers. Polish is Cosline - 104 Nude Pink Pearl (I found a seller on Gmarket that had English names for the polishes so now I can name the polishes).

Bow was made by rolling flat a small piece of the clay cutting out two diamond shapes and a rectangle. Make diamonds into triangles and then attach them to each other. Lastly wrap the rectangle in the centre to hide where the two triangles meet. Once dry I used a Nailene Acrylic Strong top coat to cover the entire thing. It makes it shiny and helps to keep the water out.

The foam also worked with my acrylic molds. Only the tiniest amount is needed and you can easily trim off the excess with scissors.

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Will be posting about another Gmarket haul in the future once it gets here. It's taking awhile since I had a problem with a seller forgetting to send me a foundation along with the polishes I bought. Everything has finally arrived and it has been shipped. Hopefully I'll get it by the end of the week or early next week. Most looking forward to the bags I bought. All will be featured since I wanna win a Gmarket top blogger award and it seems the more pictures you have the better.

ENAS Nail Stylists Stamps

First up, here's a picture of the process of how the stamp works.


1. Put some polish on the stamp. The kits I bought came with three colours each, but you can use pretty much any polish.
2. You don't actually need to put that much polish on, just enough to cover lightly will do.
3. To get rid of excess polish stamp it on some paper.
4. Once the excess is gone you're ready to stamp or do some clean up/remove some details you don't want to stamp with an orange stick/tooth pick.
5. Voila, stamped.


Here's the first manicure I did late Monday night. Messy and bubbly. Sponged on Cosline 207 (dark coral), 212 (peachy orange) and 211 (pastel yellow). Then I used American Apparel - Poppy for the butterflies and the flowers. The stems of the flowers is a green from NeedMe, no number on it. Rubber stamp A23 was used.

Next up, current nails.


Paw prints and bear face. Cosline 705 as the base colour stamped with two NeedMe polishes, one dark brown and one beige brown. Rubber stamp A15. This was a little difficult to do 'cause I had a hard time with the placement of the individual small paws. I also had a problem with using the right pressure to stamp, so it'd get all smudged and I had to start all over or parts of the stamp didn't transfer. Still learning.

Cosline polishes - Three coaters, but they dry rather quickly.
ENAS Nail Stylist stamps - Okay, but I think I prefer using plates more. Storage is easier for plates too. I'll continue using them, not sure if I would buy more, but who knows.

Korean Polish Haul

Recently made an order on Gmarket and picked up me some new nail stamping things and quite a bit of polish. Ordered at the end of January, but because of the Lunar New Year I didn't get my packages until today.



I saw these ENAS rubber nail stamps and thought they were quite interesting and decided to try them out. I bought two kits from the only seller that I could find, (주)오케이아하. There are individual stamps that you can buy too, but I wanted to try out the kits before deciding to buy more. Price wise they're the same as Konad plates. I haven't played with them much yet, but so far it's pretty hit or miss for me. Need more practice.



A box full of Cosline polishes. I thought these were mini polishes when I bought them, but they're actually about 14mL or 15mL full size polishes. I haven't done much with them other than swatch them on a nail wheel, but they seem pretty ok. They were really cheap too about 9$ for 10 polishes (not including shipping).



Finally the last of my Korean polish haul - these little Hello Kitty polishes. I'm not exactly sure how much polish is inside the bottles, but they're smaller than the Cosline polishes. Also only swatched them on a nail wheel. Polishes are ok, but the brushes kind of suck.

Lots of new polishes to play with and will need to find some way to store them.