Ho ho ho, Christmas nail art!

(Soli soli verrrrry late nail art post!)

I know everybody expects the typical red, green and white nails for Xmas but mine were ROYAL PURPLE on Christmas day!

It was my first time trying sponge nail art, a technique I discovered last year cause it was on pretty much every nail art blog I read. They use what's called the Sponge Nail Art Set by Konad. They're the same company that makes the Stamping Nail Art I adore!

But because I'm oh-so-kiamsiap, instead of forking out money for an actual Konad sponging kit (which I feel is not worth it cause it's... just ordinary sponge what -_-). I went to buy DISHWASHING SPONGES!! LOL a bit fml. So many huge pieces for only a few RM and they work great, un-fml.

Konad sponge. Grey in uniform circles.

MY sponge wahaha! :D Yellow and looks like it's ready to tackle some plates nails.

This is my new dark purple Face Shop Lovely Me:ex nail polish, one of the 5 that Shar and her mama gifted me. Xie xie x1000!

Quite disappointed that Malaysia's Face Shop doesn't sell the Lovely Me:ex polishes, only Singapore where I picked up this baby pink one at Jurong Point which wasn't available in Brunei.

Anyway, the reason I chose purple is to match the purple dress (and silver shoes) I wore to celebrate Christmas at my brother-in-law's family's house! This is my second year with an emotionally exhausting eventful Christmas thanks to my brother-in-law's family.

My inspiration! Love her starry night theme, but I focused more on just snowflakes.

Ok here's my typical red, white and green Christmas nails :D

Oh I wish! That's just one of my inspirations for my nail art. Here's the other one:

And here's the final product!

Rest of the photo quality isn't that great cause I was in a rush and just took them under fluorescent light.

The 5 elements I incorporated were a Christmas tree (left thumb), a Christmas stocking (left ring finger), Christmas lights (right thumb), a snowman (right ring finger) and Christmas-coloured candy canes on the rest of the nails. Sorry about the wiggly stripes, especially on my right hand, Miss Steady Hands I am not :(

Check out the broken thumbnail I've been hanging on to for the past month. Refuse to cut it cause I'll be so simtiah!

Really, REALLY want to buy this book!! I LOVED The Secret Shopper's Revenge! But I've already blown my Christmas money on new "college" clothes from Padini and pink swimming nonsense gear D:

Talking about college, I feel like I am skipping school cause I didn't go "back to school" today. Or having an extended December holiday. I still don't feel like a high school graduate!

Most of my 'A' Level friends in Brunei are starting school tomorrow so I guess I'm considered a "late-starter" in the month of January. My first day of college will be next Monday but Orientation is this Wednesday! Will get to see who all my future coursemates are. *nervous* Um... what shall I wear!! I think casual clothes to school is going to be a headache for me! I imagine myself standing in front of my closet suitcase for half an hour every morning just trying to decide *long face*

Hope all of you had a nice Christmas and New Year's! :)

KOTD: Summer Splash Ruffian.

Wait, is it even still summer?! I don’t think so…

Well it doesn't matter anyway, because Brunei has summery weather all year round! (Sudden spark of inspiration – I could do seasonal nails! Winter snow and autumn leaves and spring florals with butterflies :O)

I was SO reluctant to remove my previous Konadicure which I was just hopelessly in love with T_T But each time I tell myself, I might love the next one even more. That’s what keeps me going. (I have terrible separation issues btw.)

Instead of the typical girly-girly, sweet and chio type of Konadicure, I decided I’d like to try something a bit different. I wanted a huge splash of bright, cheerful, in-your-face colour!

AND I wanted to take another stab at the Ruffian-style manicure (sort of a reverse French manicure) because my first attempt in March was a total trainwreck – cute premise, bad execution. Hopefully with practice, I’ll even be using French tip Konad designs on my Ruffian moons in the near future! Now there’s an idea…

Anyway! Brace yourselves!!!

I actually ended up loving this Konadicure a lot!!! Which surprised me because it’s so not me! I felt like happiness was literally bursting from my sunny fingertips!

Okay moar piktures!

I used The Face Shop YL702 and BK902, Elianto #19 Hot Pink, Silkygirl Snow White, Konad Special Polish White and Konad image plate M60.

Every time I do my nails I wish and hope and pray to have magically gained ambidexterity between then and the previous time. But I’m always disappointed :( Normal nail painting with my left hand is okay nowadays, if I focus I can get it as perfect as if done by my right hand. My problem is DRAWING! I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME keep my hand steady when I’m holding my nail art brush and it frustrates me so much! T_T

Nevertheless, keeping in tone with my previous post, I won’t give up or be complacent and I’m on a mission to train myself to become ambidextrous! ^^ Shall do all my exam corrections with left hand lolwtf. Then teachers will all minus marks for bad handwriting?! D:

Okay! I don’t know how qualified I am to dish out nail art tips, but it’s up to you to judge and decide if you wanna follow my advice!

One tip I would give is that before considering nail art or Konad etc, make sure you perfect basic nail painting first. Both your right and left hands have to be really good.

This is because your nail polish has to look immaculate before your nail art can have that "professional touch". Otherwise it's gonna look like what it is: a shoddy home job. And I don’t know about you, but when I put in the effort to do my nails, I want them to look as professional as possible!

What I do is while I’m painting my nails, I’ll load an episode of a TV show on PPS, then when I’m done with each step and waiting for the polish to dry, I watch my show! This stops me from moving my hands too much and reduces the risk of messing up freshly painted nails. Also, it makes time fly so you don’t feel like you’re waiting AAAAAGESSS for your nail polish to dry!

Here’s an easy, straightforward nail painting tutorial video to start with. Time to go back to basics! It’s made by one of my favourite beauty bloggers, the very gorgeous Jen of From Head To Toe.

Start by growing your nail polish collection; invest in lotsa good quality polishes (which don't have to be expensive). Elianto (RM5/bottle), Face Shop (most B$3.90 or RM5.90/bottle) and Skin Food (most B$3.70/bottle) are awesome for kiamsiap gals like me! :D More value for money what?

Get a variety of colours, preferably every colour of the rainbow and 2 shades of each colour to start with, a light and a dark. E.g. baby pink and bright pink or cherry red and dark red, or light blue and dark blue, etc. And make sure your polishes are in good working condition!!!

I definitely made the mistake of buying lots of similar colours (mostly pinks) cause I thought they were pretty. Only lately have I been scrambling to buy rainbow colours!

This is the most simple and basic Konad-ing video made by the Konad company themselves! Actually if you bother to take the time and search for Konad of YouTube, lots of nail artists post up video tutorials and solutions to almost every Konad problem known to man!

ESSENTIALS (besides, of course, nail polish!):

1.) A good dotting tool, e.g. bent paper clips. (Toothpicks aren’t as good cause they don't make uniform circles),

2.) A good nail art brush, or unused thin eyeliner brush/paint brush if you can't find any to buy,

3.) A good 3-step nail buffer (I love my Yokoso! one cause it can really get right up to the very base of the nail),

4.) A good top coat, that’s liquidy and makes your nails shine like hard candy!

Honestly, I think anybody can do great DIY nail art, as long as you really really WANT to (refer previous post). It's not as hard as you think. You just have to be very patient and not give up.

And practice till all your nails rot off!! I mean, around this time last year, I didn't know batshit about nail art and had never even heard of Konad before!

I love reading nail art blogs and watching nail art tutorial videos to find inspiration and ways to improve. I even have a list of my fave amazing nail art bloggers ♥

OR! if you can't be bothered with all that, I can open up a nail parlour and you can, you know, come gimme money to do your nails ;) LOL!

It breaks my heart to say that this is the last Konadicure I’ll be doing until… November! *gasps in horror* Right at this very moment, I’ve about *counts* TWELVE new nail art ideas that I CAN’T WAIT to try out in 2 months time!

Which is actually good cause starting November, I get to have manicured nails 24/7!!! Every single day of every week of every month… *swoons in delight* (How will I keep coming up with ideas man, have to change nails 4 times a month, that’s 48 different designs a year *sobs*)

But one thing’s for sure, I’m going to LOVE having nails as long as I want, ALL THE TIME! If you’re a girl and have short nails for any reason besides musical instrument/baking/school/sports, I’ll think you’re a bit weird? We’re girls and we have the chance to indulge in something only girls can – pretty nails!

Talking about pretty nails, me and my sister will be starting a shared dedicated nail art blog soon! What that means is it's gonna be a blog featuring all OUR nail art, ALL the time! And you can feast till your eyes pop right out :D So yeah, hope you’re looking forward to it as much as we are! I is very da eggcitedz!!!1

But in the meantime, I’ll have to start focusing my concentration elsewhere for real now…

KOTD: Pinkalilly Swirlus.

Three words. LOVE THIS KONADICURE!!! It's so sweet and kua zhang dainty and girly, just the way I like it!

My hand and Mischa Barton's face hahaha. This was when she was still gorgeous and the 'it' girl, on a 2004 issue of Seventeen magazine.

The background for these photos was actually my laptop monitor on screensaver! Had to balance my camera on a cotton bud container on my touch pad. Innovativeness ftw :P

Used The Face Shop PP407, Elianto #40 Twilight Zone and Konad Special Polish White, and Konad image plates M57 and M63. I absolutely adore this shimmery pink polish and the designs are from 2 of my favourite plates. A guaranteed recipe for success!

The Konadicure Of The Day name is such a boliao play on Piccadilly Circus. I tried to find the photos of me and my parents at Piccadilly Circus when I was 6, but I've no idea where my dad put the family albums box!!! D: (No it's not an actual circus, I still have no idea why it’s even called that! :S)

Bought 3 new nail polishes from Face Shop and 3 new Konad plates from **** the other day!!! Love all of 'em so much especially WH003 (the pearlescent shimmer)!!! The yellow and purple were much more vivid on nails then I expected which is good!

And I've really gotta stop recommending **** to people, the 4th Konad image plate I wanted (M59) was sold out AGAIN (I went looking for it twice before)!!! The shopkeeper said they sold the last one yesterday T_T Who the heck is that annoying person who bought it now I have to go search elsewhere!!! Gah-reat.

WH003, YL702 and PP408. This brings me to a total of 13 bottles of Face Shop nail polish :O

M40, M62 and M71. I've now 9 image plates, yay!!! Will continue hunting for my 10th.

Anyway, this time the shopkeeper was a Chinese lady and she was really nice and friendly! We chatted about nail art and she complimented my Konadicure hehe.

I really enjoy it when shop people (or even strangers) compliment my nails (yeah I'm conceited in saying it happens quite frequently, but at least I earned it), gives me such a kick and makes me feel like my hard work is appreciated ^^

I AM A SUCKER FOR GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE MAN. I have quite a good gauge of which shops will make me feel like a million bucks when I go in and love going to those, and which shops treat patrons like crap *cough SaSa cough*

Gah, sorry I got nothing against SaSa’s products but their salesgirls are JUST. SO. RUDE. They follow you around the entire store at a distance of 1 foot and yabber some crap about promotions in Mandarin every 5 seconds. And cannot speak English! *throws miscommunication tantrum* (HEY, do NOT say this is my fault for not knowing Chinese! They are a reputable beauty store in a MULTILINGUAL country, but they only want Mandarin-speakers' business?!?!)

NEVER before have I been to a store where all the salesgirls are monolingual. I’m not the only person you will find who dislikes SaSa’s salesgirls and has written about it. I hope they work on changing that soon, they'll definitely get loads more customers.

Anyway, enough digressing! I decided to answer a reader question in this post! This should be interesting…

Firstly, thanks for the compliment! I owe it mostly to Leelou Blogs who makes gorgeous free layouts ♥

To answer your question, by “French tip Konad” do you mean the Konad plate for plain French tips? E.g.:

Cause if that’s the case, I really don't know cause I don't use that. It looks too hard, instead I recommend using DIY French tip stickers! The stick, paint and peel method is still the fastest and easiest way for perfect French tips I think. Explanation here. I did ‘em free-hand for the first time in my previous Konadicure though!

But if you’re talking about patterned French tip Konad, e.g. my previous Konadicure, I use French tip stickers to help me with that too. The problem with French tip Konad is it's hard to stamp it straight, but you don't have to worry about that if you use stickers.

And I’ve prepared a short photo tutorial for everyone!

For my French tip stickers, I use reinforcement rings cut in half cause I think actual French tip stickers are so overpriced!!! These rings are like $3 for 500 at anywhere that sells stationery. That’s 1000 french tips we’re talking about!

Whether you’re using a full nail design (like I am) or a French tip design, the method for this step is the same.

Super duper easy! Hope it helps :)

I don’t mind answering questions about how I do my nails, so ask away! (As long as you’re serious about it and not trying to waste my time alrighty.)

Buuuut, it's aggravating when people ask me irl, then don't bother to listen to the explanation because it sounds too difficult. HELLO, YOU ASKED!?!? At least TRY to look semi-interested, don't just gimme a blank look then say "Oooookay" and turn away -_-"

Next time – nail art tips!

Okay, QUESTION. What do you guys think about me painting fake nails for sale? Would any of you be even remotely interested in wearing my designs? Lol if I ever do, I'll probably price ‘em really cheap cause I doubt people would wanna pay much anyway.

Then if I'm a total failure and nobody buys, I can just were them myself! :D No losses.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing such a long nail post, as much as I enjoyed watching the MTV VMAs last night (2 nominations and a win for Mars, woohoo! But ugh, Chelsea Handler stunk. ELLEN G NEXT YEAR KTHX :D).

So you’d better have enjoyed reading it! ;)