Snapshots: February 2012.

I know I haven’t been churning out posts as often as I should or rather, as often as I would like. The truth is, I’m too busy with exams seeing that my finals is less than 3 weeks away. Prior to that, I have all the tests and revision classes to attend. Exams suck out of the life from me, but then I’m pretty sure it happened to everyone else. So, you can imagine how stressful I am; heck, the sudden outbreak on my face is sheer proof of that. Haha. And since I haven’t been able to blog that often, I decided to commit to posting pictures of how my month was. In other words, random pictures from each month. Enjoy!

IMG_1956Banana leaf rice! Haven’t had these since forever. Cravings for it satisfied! Heh.

IMG_1996Happy family! Meet the classmates.

IMG_2082Trying to get the brother to smile. :D

IMG_2302The girls dressed up on February 14! <3

IMG_2373Only my second time eating mille crepe. This came all the way from Malacca from Jason!

IMG_2417

Saw Avril Lavigne LIVE IN MALAYSIA! Dream came true, man. She was too awesome, sounded amazing live. But didn’t manage to see her up close, since VIP was freaking miles away and also, the sound system and camera on that day were terrible. 

Nail Art: Cosmic Inspired

IMG_2386

Just the other day, I stumbled upon a video on a super easy technique to create galaxy look-a-like nails. It’s called the sponging technique for nails, I have actually heard about it for some time, but didn’t give it a try until today. To my surprise, it really is easy and super fun to see the effects as you dab the sponge over the nails. In fact, that is when I got carried away and ended up dabbing more polish than I should. Which explains why there is too much purple glitter. Heh.

IMG_2402

Do you think it looks like galaxy inspired? Or cosmic? I asked around, some couldn’t figure out what it looks like, some thought it was precious stones; like opal and crystal and a few thought it was galaxy-ish. I even had a friend who said graphite. Haha.

IMG_2395

It actually looks different under direct sunlight, and here you can see it. I’m not sure if you can tell which colours I used, can you hints of gold as well? :) And then there is also this blue-ish purple tint, and that polish is just amazing! And I realised I haven’t done a swatch for it, I ought to do it soon.

IMG_2398

IMG_2403

IMG_2404

Ah, I’m so in love with this nail art! Aren’t you?

Nail Art: Converse Shoes Inspired

IMG_2208edit copy

Once, when I was browsing nail arts online, I came across a shoe laced nail art which resembles the Converse shoes. I kept that in mind, hoping I’ll have the mood to attempt that nail art. I finally came about to doing it when my friend, Crys showed me an simpler version of a Converse shoes inspired nail art!

IMG_2126

IMG_2104

Ta-da! Here is what I managed to come up with. :) It’s not the my best one and the lines were somewhat crooked. That is because it is my first time working on nail arts using nail brushes! So, please excuse my noob-ness and shaky hands. Heh.

IMG_2103

It’s a bit more obvious from here, the crooked lines I mean. Haha, but the shoe laces turned out better than what I thought it would be. So, do you love this nail art? If you do and have tried it before, you can take a picture and show it to me. :)

IMG_2111

IMG_2123

Rant: Hopelessness.

IMG_1299Picture was taken during the late afternoon during one of my favourite walks to the park. See other pictures here.

The morning after. One thing I loathe about going to sleep, was waking up the next morning. Especially on days where my classes begin at 8am, I’m sure this resonates with my classmates and really, about thousands other students. To make matters worse, you’ve got an exam the next day. So, really what is the point of waking up? And today, I woke up feeling hopeless. It wasn’t just a feeling that would fade away. In fact, it pretty much stayed on and lingered till I finished my exam. Hell, it doubled tripled during my exam, so much that I have felt the urge to just walk out of the hall, leaving my paper incomplete. I stayed on, but that didn’t make much difference. All it did was help me feel less guilty, seeing that I ‘utilised’ the allocated time to complete the paper, right? So, yes. Sighs. I don’t want to go bed and wake up feeling hopeless.

Food: Cupcakes from Bisou!

IMG_2047cappuccino. 

IMG_2052cookies & cream. 

IMG_2057cookies & cream. 

IMG_2069raspberry cheesecake.

IMG_2066raspberry cheesecake.

IMG_2026red velvet.

IMG_2023red velvet.

IMG_2027red velvet.

Actually, I didn’t want to write for this post. But I thought that would be rather funny to have pictures of cupcakes without the description. So I’ll talk about it. These deliciously looking cupcakes are from Bisou Online; I got them ordered and delivered. (By the way, this post is not in any way an advertorial.) The moment I saw the cupcakes, I knew I should try to shoot them. After all, I have never been good in food photography and this is like practice for me. I’ll really appreciate if you have any feedback for me. :)

Nail Art: Hearts for Valentine’s Day

IMG_2268

First of all, I would like to wish you a very Happy Valentine’s Day! For those who are single, well, it’s still a Valentine’s day to celebrate it with your friends and family. :) Doesn’t necessary have to be with your significant other. Heh.

IMG_2259

I did this manicure in a rush simply because I was suddenly inspired to do a Valentine themed nail. Hence, I had to get it done and up on the blog before February 14 ends! Haha. As you can see, the nail on my index finger is the most perfect one, the rest is just sort of “ugh-ley”. Somehow, after doing the first nail, I kinda screwed up my coordination. Haha.

IMG_2290

One thing I realised while doing these nail arts, are that you really have to be consistent. It’ll definitely help if you have steady hands, if not, you’ll get jagged lines. To be honest, my hands still tremble and shake when I’m doing these nail arts, I obviously am too nervous about screwing the nail art. Haha.

IMG_2279

Here is closer look at the best two nails. The heart shapes are actually pretty simple to do, I only used dotting tool. You just need to 'stroke’ a fat line using the tool, and the doing the same on the opposite side of the nail. The polish I used this time are Nature's Republic RD501 (red) and The Face Shop's BR801 (nude).

IMG_2294

IMG_2266

Worlds apart, strangers again.

IMG_1961

What is love? Is it love, when you stare into the eyes of the man you’ve been for the past year and realised how much he changed, or rather he have grown into a man you came to despise but despite all that, you still longed for him. Or is it love, when you are willing to accept the flaws he have came to be, to say, yes, I can live with that. Yes, I can put up with that. Or, is that, in actual fact, just the biggest mistake you’ll ever make unknowingly. By digging the sinkhole deeper, making it even harder just to get out. One day, you’ll ask yourself why didn’t you just stop when you had the chance. Is it because of love, that is why you held on? Or is it really your poor judgement?

20120210’s skies.

These days I have a habit of looking up to the skies whenever I walked out of my house. Once, I saw the round silver moon, larger than I have ever seen but I didn’t have my camera with me and so, I missed a shot of it. Ever since, I try to bring my camera out.

IMG_1988Taken around 8am.

IMG_2090Almost 12 hours later, 7pm. :)

Nail Art: Golden Butterfly [Stamping]

IMG_1819-2

Do you still remember the Golden Black Half Moon nail art that I did recently? (Which explains why my nails have already grown. Heh.) I wanted to try stamping over the black nail, especially with golden polish because I wasn’t sure whether the gold colour would turn up nicely. I am surprised it looks not half bad.

IMG_1841

I wanted to show as though the butterflies are in a motion, hence the dotted lines. Do it look like it? :) I used the Konad’s M36 stamping plate for this with the polish from Nature’s Republic YL503 (Gold). Also, to be frank I didn’t really liked the pictures for this nail art because I chose to shoot it outside under harsh sunlight. Hence, most were slightly exposed and the colours were adjusted. And, I realised that the sun caused my nails to be reflective which makes it harder to see the patterns on my nails. So, please bear with me this time, I’m damn sure I won’t make the same mistakes twice. Heh.

IMG_1834-2

IMG_1849-2

IMG_1832

Fashion: 20120204’s look.

IMG_1885
IMG_1867
I have a massive thing for lace and I can never can get enough of them. And, oh lately, I’m into detachable collar. Looking for a lace one. Heh.

Review: Sally Hansen’s Manicure Clean-Up Pen

No matter how many times I paint my nails, somehow I would still manage to get some polish on my fingers. I could use a cotton bud or a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover to remove them, but somehow I am just too lazy. Haha, What I would do is leave them to dry, soak my fingers in the water and then, I’ll peel them off. Yeap, they actually come off quite easily, but I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone because it is not the right way to do it!

IMG_1784

Seeing that dipping cotton buds/Q-tips in remover is too troublesome for a lazy bum like me, a manicure clean up pen by Sally Hansen provide a better alternative for me. Heh. It looks pretty much like a marker pen and works like an eraser for pencil, except this was to remove nail polishes.

page

This how it looks like and it came with two replacement tips, so that you can replace them when it wears out. I am sure you would like to know how the product is, so here is what I thought about this product;

Personally, I was quite excited with the prospect of an easier alternative to removing the excess polish. The pen, itself was easier to handle and the method of application was pretty much idiot prove. If you know how to write, I’m sure you know how to use this. All you need to do was glide it over the excess polish and it will basically, remove it.

However, when I did just that, it didn’t really remove the polish at all. I tried gliding it a bit more and leaving the tip a bit longer over my fingers. That seemed to work better, but it still did not remove my nail polish as completely and neatly as I would like it to be. So, you could say that I was disappointed with this clean-up pen.

I did, however, found out that if you dipped the tip of the pen in nail remover, it could remove the polishes faster. But then, it brings me back to dipping Q-tips in remover as well. So, I’m basically back to where I started. Meh.

So, to be frank, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Use Q-tips dipped in remover, or be more careful when you apply the polishes. (That applies to me).”

IMG_1781

This is how the tip of the pen looks like after a few times of usage. It turned pink because I was trying to remove my red polishes. Now, you know why they came with two extra replacement tips. Apparently, you’re supposed to wipe the tip after using it, something like cleaning the tip up. But, I found that to be mostly redundant because the polishes basically stained the tip already. Uh-huh.

Nail Art: Half Moon, Golden Black

IMG_1802

Actually the half moon manicure was a nail trend several years ago, 2009 to be exact. But at that time, I was still in high school, a place where anything fancy was basically disallowed. Years later, I have came to discover this half moon manicure and I know I had to at least try it! Again, it is one of the simple nail art which anyone could attempt.

IMG_1797

To get the half moon shape, I used reinforcement stickers! That is one of nail art tools that I swear by. Actually it isn’t even a nail art tool, it is stationaries! But it’s so cheap and versatile, and you can get it anywhere.

IMG_1790

IMG_1791

IMG_1811This golden black nail art reminds me of Johnie Walker, seeing those two colours are the brand’s signature colour.

IMG_1803

On my thumb, however, I did only painted the tip of my nail with the black nail polish from Etude House; WH706. My friend, Crys said she preferred the black tip over the half moon. Which one do you like better? :)

 

PS: You can check out my other nail arts and swatches at my Facebook album, as well. :)