SGSwatchFest: World Autism Awareness Day

April is Autism Awareness Month and 2 April is World Autism Awareness Day. It’s one of those causes I feel more for, hence I suggested it as an SGSwatchFest theme.

As enlightened by one of my Flakie Friday partners-in-crime, Kimberly of Kimber’s Lacquer Korner (her daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome), the basic colour for autism awareness is blue, along with a jigsaw puzzle in red, yellow, and blue. I’ve also seen the puzzle symbol in rainbow colours, and that was basically what I did. If you’ll like to join in, you may choose to do a blue mani or puzzle nail art. The main thing is the message and thought.

For my Singapore friends, you can visit the Autism Resource Centre for more information about the Autism Spectrum Disorder.

And on to my mani. I used the same Illamasqua creme shades (Cameo, Collide, Insanity, Jo’mina, Noble, Nomad, Wayward) as I did for my Easter mani because I really like how they look together. I used Cameo (blue) Collide (pink), Insanity (yellow), and Nomad (green) for the puzzle. I added the other ‘rainbow’ colours on the other nails: Jo’mina on the index, Wayward on the pinkie, and Noble on the thumb. The formula was easy to work with, and I used two coats of each shade.

I used a black nail art striper for the lines but I was struggling to get them right. It was only after I did this that I saw a tutorial that suggested a seemingly easier way. Instead of trying to outline the circular bits with a striper, I could have placed black dots on with a dotter, and then place a smaller coloured dot over the black, leaving the black outline. Well, at least I know what didn’t work well for me. I didn’t add a top coat for the photos for that always drags my nail art.

World Autism Awareness Day 2013 (flash)

SGSwatchFest: Easter

Happy Easter, everyone! I’m not Christian so, to me, Easter is about happy Spring colours and yummy Easter chocolate!

Although Easter is a religious holiday, there are so many cute (albeit commercial) icons associated with it, that we’ve of course included it as a SGSwatchFest theme.

I tried two new things for this Easter skittles – my first bunny and Easter egg designs. I based the Easter egg design on @lusterlacquer’s design. I realised I must have looked at her mani so many times that I unknowingly did a combo three-quarters like hers! Of course, my nail art skills are nowhere near hers, but at least I tried!

I used mainly Illamasqua creme shades (Cameo, Collide, Insanity, Jo’mina, Noble, Nomad, Wayward) for this mani, with Cult Nails Tempest for the white. I actually had difficulty finding a suitable pink among my stash for the bunny ears. What a shocker! I used OPI Heart Throb in the end.

Easter 2013. Pardon the trippy eyes of the bunny!

SGSwatchFest: St Patrick’s Day

It’s time for another SGSwatchFest, and the theme is St Patrick’s Day! Although we don’t exactly celebrate that here (except at some Irish pubs), I think it’s a perfect time to wear all the pretty green polish we have!

I have a soft spot for Ireland as the Emerald Isle is truly beautiful. I really hope to visit again someday. For now, I shall be contented with a mani featuring pretty green polish and a shamrock that I’ve in love with!

These are the shades that I used:

• Thumb: Pretty & Polished May Flowers (I love their colour changing creamy glitters!)
• Index: piCture pOlish Majesty with Kryptonite for the shamrock
• Middle: Wing Dust Crocodile Farm
• Ring: KBShimmer Get Clover It
• Pinkie: Pretty & Polished Irish Brawn (I won this in P&P’s giveaway!)

I added Nubar Diamont top coat over the mani. I’ll give more details on each polish before their respective macro shot. This first photo of the mani was taken in the sun.

St Patrick’s Day mani (sunlight)

Dotty Ladybirds

I was googling for something entirely unrelated when I chanced upon a photo of a ladybird mani. I keep wanting to do one but kept forgetting. This time, since I’d just removed my previous mani, I thought it was serendipity and got to work on it right away!

I didn’t want to do a full ladybird mani, so I decided to match it with some flowers and dots. After all, ladybirds are usually found on flowers, no?

Challenge Day 30: Inspired by a Tutorial

Today’s the last day of the 30-Day Challenge! Oh.My.Goodness! I made it to the end!

Now, when I started on the Challenge, I thought I might do the 31st day as well, which is to re-create one of the looks. I’ll not be doing that as I’ll be moving on to do a Holothon in October with Inky Polisholicious. As such, this is the last post for the 30-Day Challenge.

Today’s theme is Inspired by a Tutorial. It wasn’t too easy deciding on a tutorial to base today’s look on. I don’t usually look too closely at tutorials unless I intend to try for myself. As such, I’ve already tried many of the techniques and looks I’ve seen in tutorials.

In fact, I was looking out for tutorials I could use. I thought I would try out PishPosh and Polish’s tutorial on needle marble. And, out of the blue, I realised I’d forgotten I’d been wanting to try a ruffles mani since I saw the Ruffle Manicure Tutorial by Chalkboard Nails!

Challenge Day 29: Inspired by the Supernatural – Do you believe in fairies?

Time for a spot of colour after the relatively monochrome look of the last few days!

The theme for Challenge Day 29 is ‘Inspired by the Supernatural’. I took a long time to decide what to do for this challenge, for what would be considered the supernatural? Finally, I decided on something beautiful rather than something frightful, so fairies it is!

Now, I’m not going to make a fool of myself by attempting to _draw_ fairies. Instead, I opted for something representative – dreamlike fairy wings. As you can see, it’s basically the butterfly wing mani, but with a different touch.