Gradient Tutorials..sort of.

Here are a couple of picture tutorials on how to do some gradient nails.


First up, sponging. I prefer to line up the colours that I plan on using on the sponge, dab off some excess polish to help prevent bubbling and then apply them to the nail. Two or three sponging layers will make the polish opaque and of course glitter at the end to help blur everything together or put a top coat on soon after the last layer to make it a smooth transition from light to dark.


Next up, a more time consuming method with a sheer polish. It doesn't have to be a single colour. You can start with a darker colour and then lead up to a lighter colour like this one. Just a bit of polish at a time and slowly going up. Finish off with some glitter or just top coat. I usually put glitter polish on just 'cause it helps to hide any imperfections sometimes.

Some Crafty Goodness

On Saturday I met up with my friend Selene for dinner and she gifted me a pack of loose papers from The Paper Place along with some blank cards as a belated birthday gift. There were lots of cool Japanese papers and different textured card stock paper. Inspiration hit and I did some simple crafts.


First up is a card featuring a Kokeshi type doll/figure made with some Japanese paper with fans printed on for the body, black felt for the hair and the face was a pinkish recycled paper. Drew the eyes with a black marker, the blush was a pink eyeshadow that I had close by and the lips were done with a franken polish. That same polish was used for the petals/hearts falling from the tree and nail polish was also used to paint the tree. Everything was done freehanded without much thought to it so it was done fairly quickly.

The bookmark was also made with Japanese paper. I just glued it to a green textured card stock, punched a flower shaped hole out and strung through some ribbon. I think I'll need to get a spray varnish to protect the bookmark in case it gets wet.

It took less than half an hour to do both projects, so super easy.



Change purse with keyring. Saw a tutorial on how to sew this little baggie here - Noodlehead: Zippy Wallet Tutorial. This is an improvement over my last cardholder/keyring thing I sewed two years ago. I'm missing the button right now, but will be added soon. Love it 'cause there's a card slot up front and zippered part for money or whatever to go in. Will definitely be getting a lot of use out of it.

FOPI minis + Etude House

Went out shopping last Monday at Pacific Mall/Market Village. Bought some cream puffs (ate them before I could take a photo of them) and these faux OPI minis.


They were just in large tubs with a bunch of other mini polishes with no names or labels. The bottles themselves have some scratches or improper printing on the bottle. The bottoms have labels with a number and some words in Korean. They also smelled pretty bad. Here's a glittery gradient I did with the polishes above.


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This is Etude House from I believe the Dear Darling line - WH020 Extreme Jewel.


I couldn't really capture it well on my nails, but it's mostly a silver glitter with purple, green, blue and red glitters thrown in too. This didn't stay on my nails too long. I think it peeled off the my index fingers the the second day of wear, which was the Monday that I went shopping. I walked around with polish on half my nails all day.