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! :)

NOTD: All Hallows Eve Ruffian.

Or in other words, HALLOWEEN!

To be honest I was so excited about my Halloween manicure. I mean, I live in a country where Halloween is just another day. Halloween costumes, as fun as they sound, are just unheard of. So where else to turn to but nail art!

I really wanted to practice my Ruffians again and test out my new Elianto #18 Orange Red polish so I combined all of it… and got something I didn’t really like :(

HALF-HEARTED ATTEMPTS ALWAYS END UP BEING FUGLY.

Even though I’d planned it for a long time, I did my nails after coming home from my Biology practical exam (more about those later) and I was tired and just wanted to get it over with. Sigh.

While I was thinking of a blog post title, I thought of Jack ‘O’ Ruffian. Then I thought WHY DIDN’T I DO THAT!?!? D: As in paint the typical black eyes and mouth of a Jack ‘O’ Lantern in my orange Ruffian :( Okay la whatever I’m giving you guys a bad impression of the mani before you’ve even seen it. Sorry!

Was too lazy to edit this batch of photos, so I just did what I could with my pretty awesome newfound camera settings (I’ll tell you about that after ‘O’ Levels) and tried out a few different white balances too (see freaky ghostly blue and Frankenstein green).

What was that nursery rhyme about the itsy bitsy spider?

Left hand: spider webs.

Right hand: spiders. Couldn't draw the webs for my right hand cause my left hand is so bad at handling the brush :( I botched up the spider on my 4th finger so badly cause it was my first try.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

RANDOM UPDATE:

‘O’ Level’s aren't as bad as I thought they’d be! It was a rocky start but things went more smoothly once I got used to it and stopped getting heart-pounding nerves every time I sat down in the Hall. There’s usually a few days break between each paper so it’s actually quite relaxed. Especially now that most of the more major fear-inducing papers are done and dusted! Proof: I’VE EVEN GOT TIME TO PAINT MY NAILS, GO OUT TO DINNER AND BLOG :D

I bet I’ll be taking all this back the day before the Add Maths paper though T_____T I think that’s the paper I dread the most, even more than Malay 1 and Chemistry 2, which is saying A LOT. But, I will comfort myself with the thought that both those papers weren’t that bad after all.

Dinner pics from a few nights ago! My sis is back right now with superbly chun timing. She arrived the day my exams started and is leaving on the last day of my exams -__- Her boyfriend’s also currently visiting and playing tourist!

Me and sis. I’m the one in purple in case you can’t tell us apart. Although I really think we look nothing alike side by side in this pic!!

Photo to show off my false eyelashes from Beauty Splash!!! (Please don’t judge unPhotoshopped pics D:) 

I love them so much, they’re so comfy and pretty natural looking while still being massive! They’re actually really wide, I cut off a lot from the edge with the longer lashes already for this pair. They’re the criss-cross type though you can’t really tell from this pic.

On a related note, I also REALLY love The Face Shop’s Perfect Stick Concealer. It’s the only other thing I’m wearing here besides my falsies and Nivea Lip Care.

If you’ve seen me in person right now, my skin does NOT look like this! Being the daunting stressful exam period, I’m having probably the worse acne of my entire life. Angry red spots all over my cheeks and chin and even some on my forehead and nose, PLUS purplish blue eyebags, really FML.

And the Face Shop concealer (I use Natural Beige, the darker of the 2 colours they have) manages to cover all of it considerably well, with a significant difference, and has totally no-fuss application! I love the soft creamy texture and it’s so easy to blend WITHOUT disappearing.

Okay it sounds like I’m writing an advertorial for Face Shop. I’m not!

To close, the lighting in the restaurant made my nails look tangerine. I should get a tangerine polish soon.

See you all November 20th and good luck for the rest of your papers if you’re weathering ‘O’ Level’s too! :)


P/S: Just read this graduation speech posted on a blog that I follow, and I urge everyone that's about to graduate to read it!! It's a bit long though, so only if you've got time to spare. http://willyyilly.blogspot.com/2010/10/lessons-of-life.html

When darkness turns to light, it ends tonight.

Tweets from last night:

Today was my last official day of school. I thought it was worth a blog post because it's something monumental that I’d wanna remember in the coming years.

After 12 years, from my very first day in 1999 as a boyish-looking kindergartener with a Winnie the Pooh bag who would not allow herself to cry, it’s over. That’s it. I’ll never sit in an SAS classroom again.

I stood up together with 40+ other people to greet teachers with the classic monotonic “Good morning xxx” for the last time. Complained about the heat and lack of aircon in classrooms for the last time. Waited for that 12.30 bell to ring, did PE, did duty, HAD LESSONS WITH TEACHERS, closed an exercise book saying “Stella Chai 5S1”, and zipped up my pink schoolbag for the very last time.

The same old routine school things I’ve been doing for the past 12 years that I've never even thought twice about, I’m now never going to do again. This has got to be the biggest personal change I’ve ever had to face (as opposed to big changes that affect me but which I’m not actually a part of).

It’s like a little part of me that’s been thriving for the past 12 years has just suddenly died.

And I haven’t even graduated yet! (Gonna bring a whole cardboard carton of tissues to graduation because I know without a doubt that I will be crying shamelessly like a baby.)

I’m going to miss my class A LOT. Even though we’ll still see each other almost every day during the exams, it’s not just a few people that I’ll miss, but the class as a whole. Every single person that makes (sorry can’t even come close to using the past tense here) 5S1 what it is! In a way, they’re like my school family ♥

I'm going to miss my class teacher a lot too. She's taught me for 5 years and I've always loved her English lessons so so much, I don't think I'll ever meet another teacher quite like her! It was sad writing in her old tattered black diary, the same book my sister once wrote in 7 years ago.

But I didn't cry today and that surprised me. Without realizing it, I was having so much fun cherishing those last moments as a class that I actually forgot to be sad. Or it's likely I'm just in denial huh?

I realized that while I might not miss the school itself that much, what I will miss is the circumstances, the situations, the conditions. You know, “being a student”. Being part of a class, wearing uniforms, sitting in a classroom, recess, the 7-12 routine. Probably won’t miss homework and assemblies (hehe), but you never know!

This is altogether bizarre and surreal. I can’t believe I’m in the final stages of wrapping up my secondary school education. One step closer to no longer being a schoolgirl. I just wish there was a giant PAUSE button somewhere I could press, or even… what’s the opposite of fast forward??? Slow backward? Lol!

It’s all happening so fast. Somehow naïve me thought these days would never come. Where'd the time go?

I wish I could travel back in time a few years and tell my younger self to STOP WISHING TO HURRY UP AND GRADUATE. Gosh, if there’s one useful piece of advice I could tell any schoolkid, that would be it!

The worst thing is that all this should be the last thing on my mind right now. My ‘O’ Level’s start in less than a week. So I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve gotten everything off my chest first.

Okay so this blog post isn’t completely wordy, here’s some camwhoring shots from a few weeks ago where I look unnecessarily happy:

And cute pink and purple toenails courtesy of two of my new Face Shop nail polishes!

Gonna turn to 90210 on PPS for a dose of crazy unreal drama, anything to suppress the pangs of sadness <=(

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! ;)