Tinkerbell-inspired Mani aka Nail Art Fail

   The other day I was more stressed than ever (I'm not exaggerating. I've been so stressed I broke out in hives, which made me stress out more. I'm on steroids as I write this. And on top of that, I'm not allowed to eat processed food, chocolate, cured meat, which are basically what I live on, so I'm even more stressed now.), and as you can all guess, Keep Calm and Paint Your Nails is the motto I live by.

   So I did. And as I was feeling more stressed than normal, I dared to do nail art. Initially I wanted to do a Christmas mani even though these past few years Christmas just always succeeds in stressing me out (there's the S word again.). Anyway, I didn't have the right colors - I don't have the right shade of Christmas green although I did buy recently Winter Sky by 24K, a sheer white frost with gold shimmer.

   And then I saw this gold Konad polish (I'll post about "my" Konads soon) and this olive green frost with gold shimmer by Kelly, and I got an idea.

   I came up with this.

   I know, I'm sorry. I hope your eyes are insured. I didn't take it off right away because I was still trying to decide whether I liked it or not, but my mom decided for me. "It's ugly! Ugly! Take it off! Your nails look dirty!" she insisted.

   I wanted to make it look all wood nymph-y or Tinkerbell-y but my nails ended up looking like a fairy climbed out of a moss-covered well with her nails. Moss would've been good actually, but this looks like pus. Like fairy nails but with some sort of an infection. I should've stopped with the gold polish, I think.

Pink Wednesday - Stamp Succes!

It's still Wednesday in other parts of the worlds so this still counts, right?

No, you're not dreaming, those are really MY nails and yes, I used stamp art on them, and yes, I did it MYSELF. I just have to emphasize that because it's a fact that I suck at art. I am conquering my art-idiot self!

It's still far from perfect, but they do look pretty decent for a stamping newbie. And I'm so proud of it I think I'll wear it for a week!

I was hoping to use as base a pink polish that looks more pink than the one I have on - San San Tea Rose. But it was the only pink I have that's light enough to make the black (Calar) stand out. For the stamp I used Konad stamping plate S9.

I wasn't really planning to do a Pink Wednesday mani since I've been so busy these days, but the mani I had on chipped so I was forced to change it, so I thought, I might as well do a Pink Wed.

This was what I was wearing:

This is obviously the practice mani.

And I was so nervous at first. I was planning to stamp just the nails on my left hand but after seeing and liking the result, I got the courage to do my right hand as well. And it looked even better, I think.

Left hand

Right hand

I'm right-handed so it's really surprising that my left hand exceeded expectations. Maybe I'm like Rafael Nadal when it comes to nails - writes with right hand, kicks ass with left hand. Or maybe I was just lucky. I think it's the latter. :)

 

Trick or Treat!

   Happy Halloween! My niece went trick-or-treating for the first time yesterday. It's only the 22nd, I know, but the homeowners association of my grandma's village scheduled it yesterday.  Maybe because Filipinos go back to their hometowns and thus are away on Halloween? Or maybe so that the children can go trick-or-treating in other villages on Halloween itself?

greedy brats

   Whatever. This just means I can celebrate Halloween twice. And by celebrate I mean wear two different Halloween manis!

Spot the awesome Halloween mani!

   For my first Halloween mani, I used the black Calar polish I bought in Bangkok last week as the base for all of my nails except for the ring fingernail. And I must say I am impressed. When I go back to Bangkok I'll definitely buy more Calar polishes.

So how do you pronounce "Calar"?

    And for my ring fingernail I used Elianto Orange Red. I think it's misnamed though. I don't see any red. Do you?

   And then I topped it with my new discovery: 24k nail polish.

I'm in love

   I've never tried this brand before, but when I saw these two polishes, I grabbed them right away. They reminded me of Nfu-Oh polishes, which, unfortunately, I have none of. So I bought them, hoping they wouldn't disappoint.

   I used the orange one (they were nameless). It did not disappoint.

no flash

   It was light years away from disappointing.

with flash

   The flakes flash green and orange at the same time, my camera just can't capture it. Believe me, I tried.


   Each 24K bottle costs only 38php, making it even more awesome for a teacher  cheapskate like me.

   Oh and my niece won the Scariest Costume award. :) She wasn't scary at all, but other kids were dressed up in non-scary costumes like princess, fairy, pumpkin, etc.

   So, any ideas for my next Halloween mani?

My First Pink Wednesday

   The Game 2/Final Game of UAAP Season 74 was postponed due to typhoon Pedring. You know what this means? I can remove my blue nail polish and finally participate in Pink Wednesday!

   So for my first ever Pink Wednesday, I thought of braving the unknown - nail art.

   Background: as early as preschool I already knew that Art is my Waterloo. While my classmates got  VG's (very good) or 10+star on their works of art, which were really just goddam splotches of color on Oslo paper, I received around freaking 8/10. Yes, as early as preschool I was getting B's on my artwork. For a 4-year-old, that was kinda traumatizing. Imagine the shame of getting 8 in Art. ART!

   Fine, I got it. I suck at Art. That's why my whole life I shied away from everything that involves creating things with my hands. It was only very recently that I discovered I can make some kick-ass jewelry, and even so I was  am insecure of my creations.

   But I digress.(I just really want to say I make jewelry, too.)

  The whole point of that preschool anecdote is simply to warn you that I was, am and probably will always be mediocre with anything that involves painting. Also so that you'll feel sorry for me and not bash my miserable attempt at nail art. 

   Here are the photos:

Photo taken in poor lighting (or maybe I did that on purpose to conceal the amateurish quality of my nail art)

It's totally the lighting that's bad.

   I used Tony Moly MK01 as my base and The Face Shop PP 406 as the tip.

   One last photo of the experiment and the horror is over.

   While doing my first ever Pink Wednesday manicure, I realized one thing: I have only TWO bottles of pink nail polish.

"No way."

   Yes way. Tony Moly MK01 and Etude House Matte 10, which I don't even like that much anymore.

 
   Believe it or not. And I bought both of them only about two weeks ago. Imagine, had I not thought of buying nail polish that day, I would have nothing to wear for Pink Wednesday. And what makes this lack of pink nail polish even more shocking is the fact that pink is my favorite color.

 

   Yes, pink wallet, pink notebooks, pink shirt, pink ring holder, pink envelope (containing letters from my students from Summer 2010, the envelope was from them, too), heck, I even have a pink stapler and pink staples!

   And yet only two pink nail polishes. :(

   Now I know what color to get the next time I buy polish.

PS: It's only Tuesday but I'm posting this already because I might not be able to do it tomorrow, what with the typhoon and the power interruptions.