76: NOTD

Hellooo :)

I just wanted to share a quick NOTD.

This is taken with flash. This is 2 coats of KO's Calamine (which is a matte polish) and 1 coat of a Japanese Glitter for some shiney-ness and sparkle.

Hope you guys have a great new years eve! I don't know if I'm going to have a new years mani but if I do I'll be sure to update :)

PS. I can't wait to see your new years manicures!

xx

Joyce

75: Comments

Hi Lovlies!

This is just to let you guys know that today I will be spending the whole day going over the comments that you've left on my posts. I know that I definitely missed replying to a few of them so replying to you guys will be my first priority :)

I did notice that some of them are really random so I won't be applying those. For example: "Check out my site for more nail art!" haha yeah I got a few of those from the same person.

Anyways I hope you've all had a great Christmas spending it with your closest loved ones <3

74: Random

Even Hello Kitty needs a manicure from time to time :)





This was at the opening of the Hello Kitty store in Ginza Japan. I wonder what colour Ms Kitty chose :p

73: Gel Nails

Hi Girls and Boys!

HAPPY BOXING DAY :D

I did my cousin Vicky's nails last night and the whole process took around 2.5 hours. By the end our backs were about to break in half! Here's what her nails look like now..










This is a basic gel overlay on her natural nails. I used the blurple gel glitter and added rhinestones but they fell off while she was sleeping last night. I really like using gel but sometimes it's a bit hard to control.


In one of my other posts I was complaining about the smell of acrylics and I got some great advice from Ms Jessie Burkhardt from NSI. She posted this link http://bit.ly/C6gHr which brings you to the NSI website and lists all the ways you can control the acrylic odours. There's good information there so if you're using acrylics you should check it out!


I'll try to update with some more swatches and pictures of the nails stickers that I got from Hong Kong. See you guys next time :)


xx
Joyce

72: NOTD

Hi Girls!

Sorry but this is just a quick NOTD update. :)







Taken with flash. This is just 3 coats of China Glaze's Lubu Heels with rhinestones placed randomly.

Have a happy holidays everyone!

xx
Joyce

71: Gel nails sample

Hi Everybody!


I'm so sorry but I think something is weird with my Blogger. I've been trying to reply to comments but when I click submit somehow just it logs me out of the site :( I'll keep trying though. Sorry girls I'm not ignoring you on purpose!


Anyways when I was in China my cousin and I went to a Beauty Wholesale building. Basically it had everything you needed from nail supplies to facial tables to hair dye. We went around to all the nail stores and bargained our butts off!


I'm going to be working more with gel nails now because the acrylic smell is really getting to me. I even bought myself a 9w UV light for $35RMB which equals to about $6AUD muahahah. I also bought Swarovski rhinestones (not the cheap acrylic ones) and glitter flaky coloured gels. The only reason I wanted to get Swarovski crystals is because it's reusable (most of them are anyways) and they look so much nicer. A lot of the times when I use the acrylic rhinestones the backing melts off when they come in contact with top coats or even the polishes themselves. This will be a good investment :)


I've been playing around with my new equipment tonight and I managed to come up with 2 different sets using the glitter coloured gels. What do you guys think?





This is taken with flash. This gel has a baby blue hint to it and contains blue-purple-pink hexagon glitters with silver microglitter. Maybe a second layer would've brought out more colour. I'll try it next time!






This is taken without flash.




This is taken with flash. I used a Copper glitter gel and a Silver glitter gel for this sample. The silver just blends into the copper and makes it look more on the golden side. This was fun to make because I got to try creating a smile line with gel.



This is taken without flash.



PS. I removed my gel nails and I'm back to natural short nails.. for now. Here's my NOTD. This is 3 coats of China Glaze's Blue Sparrow. This colour dries matte but I think it looks better with a top coat. More shiney :)





This is taken without the top coat.




This is taken with a coat of Seche Vite.

The next post will be just about a few of the nail art deco stickers I got from Hong Kong and a few more swatches of polishes I bought in Canada. See you guys then :D


xx
Joyce

70: UPDATE!

Hello Lovelies :)

I know I promised to update in China but to my surprise the Chinese goverenment had blocked all websites relating to BLOGS! I couldn't read your great blogs for 3 weeks but now I'm in Hong Kong for a couple of days and I'm taking this chance to catch up on my nail blogs. I haven't bought any special nail polishes in China because there are too many fakes out there. Buyers Beware! I did manage to pick up a UV light and a Gel Nails kit but I'm going shopping with my baby sister tomorrow here in HK so hopefully we'll find something good :)

In the meantime I just wanted to share this with you guys. Getting your nails done in China is uber cheap! My cousin and I got Gel Nail extentions for $180RMB which is about $30AUD. WOW! And it looked pretty decent too. What do you guys think?




My cousin's nails look more natural than mine.



My nail tech gave me Swarovski crystals for free. Yay :)


PS. Please excuse my super dry and rough hands. China is cold and I haven't been moisturizing enough :(

xx
Joyce

69: Colour swatches

Hellooo

It's been a week since I arrived in Toronto and I'm loving every minute of it! I missed my friends so much :) Another thing I'm super excited about is to see all the up to date collections from OPI and China Glaze.. woohoo! I haven't had much time to swatch all the polishes but here are some pictures of the ones I have been wearing.




I found these KO polishes while I was shopping at Aritzia!



This is 3 coats of Calamine. This colour was a bit hard to work with because it was quite thick.



This is 3 coats of Liberty. This colour was more manageable because it wasn't as thick as Calamine.



This is 3 coats of OPI's Merry Midnight. I love the flakies! I got this one from Trade Secrets.

This is OPI's Merry Midnight with 1 coat of Essie's Matte About You. Soo cool :)

This is 2 coats of Orly's Dazzle. I love the foil look. It's so shiny!

I'll be sure to swatch the rest of the polishes when I arrive in China next week. Talk to you girls soon :D

xx

Joyce

68: Greetings from Toronto!

Hi Girls!

I just wanted to say a quick HI from Toronto :D I spent my first day shopping (duh :)) and I found Trade Secrets. They had a special on OPI nail polishes which was buy 1 and get the 2nd one for half the price. One of my girlfriends told me that there's a Sally Beauty Supply shop here in Toronto now so I think I'll go check that out too before I make any puchases :DDD

I hope you're all doing well. If any of you girls know where I can get China Glaze and OPI polishes for a good price here in Toronto or even Buffalo (US) please let me know!

xx
Joyce

67: Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everybody!

I just have a few things to share quickly with you guys. I have been working on a few nail art samples for Halloween and unfortunately my nails broke this week so I didn't get a chance to do a lot of swatching but I will post my NOTD for all to see :)




China Glaze's Watermelon Rind

I hope you guys all have a safe and fun filled Halloween!

xx
Joyce

66: NOTD and new nail art samples

Hi Girls!

I have a whole 5 days off from work so I'll be sure to update you guys with lots of nail related posts before I head off on my trip (yay) :)

I re-organized my nail space and had some time while Kadi played WOW so I decided to make a few nail art samples. The purple and gold one came out kinda weird (I was hoping the purple would be darker) but I'm feeling good about how the rest of them turned out. If you have a good memory you'll know that the first picture here is just the completed look of the design I started a few posts back. A while ago I was playing around with my L.A. Colors Art Deco nail polishes when I decided to do a white 'lace' design. This time I just took the original and added a flower and some embelishments. Hope you guys like it!









I thought the last one was so cute I had to take 2 pictures :D




And here is my NOTD. This is China Glaze's Strawberry Fields.



xx
Joyce

65: Your blog makes me smile :)

Hi Girls!

I woke up this morning to a lovely tag from Glittermillie (Sarah). She always has these great tags to play with :D So without further ado I'm going to try this and tag a few people too.

The rules from Millie's blog are that I have to post a song that makes me a smile and then award the blogs that make me smile and tell you why.

I think I'm a bit weird. I like very sarcastic and awkward things and one of my favourtie tv shows is 30 Rock. For their 3rd season finale Jack learns that his could-be-dad needs a kidney but he himself is not a match so instead he uses his power as CEO to call in various recording artists to come up with a benefit called Kidney Now! Near the end of the show all the singers get together and sing a tribute song to Milton Greene (Jack's dad). This song is so funny and it ALWAYS makes me smile. I hope you guys enjoy it too!

Sometimes life brings pain and strife
And all seems wrong
That is when you find a friend
And write a song

Give the gift of giving
Give it far and give it wide
Take the leap - reach down deep inside

And just give a kidney
To a father or a dad
Just give a kidney
We hear it doesn’t really hurt that bad

And we know you’ll want to give it
To a super human being
So get it done
We just need one
For Milton Greene

This country has six hundred million kidneys
And we really only need half
That leaves about three hundred million kidneys
Do the math

Milton Greene Milton Greene
Milton Greene Milton Greene
Milton Greene

He needs a kidney

Milton Greene
Don’t ask why - he could die
If you don’t call today

Listen, when someone starts talking in the middle of a song you know it’s serious. So give Milton a kidney. We all believe in this cause so much we’re doing it for free. Except for Sheryl. That’s right. I’m the only one getting paid. And only three of us are drunk. Milton Greene needs a kidney. Just like I need this beard. You don’t want to see what’s under here. And while you don’t have two beards you do have two kidneys. Think of it this way: if I had two dollars, I’d give you one, wouldn’t I? I’m one of the drunk ones!

They say that two is better than one
But sometimes one is better than two
If you had two heads you’d wish you had one
How is this different?
If you had two dogs attacking you
You’d want just one
There I proved my point!

Milton Greene Milton Greene
Milton Greene Milton Greene
Milton Greene

He needs a kidney

Milton Greene
Don’t ask why - he could die
If you don’t call today

He needs a kidney
No he doesn’t need a hand
He just needs a kidney

A hand would be an even harder thing to give

When you give a kidney
And we really think you should
We pass the cup
They stitch it up
You do some good

We pass the cup
They stitch it up
You do some good

We pass the cup
They stitch it up
You do some good

Sorry for being so weird lol. Now I would like to re-tag Millie from http://glittermillie.blogspot.com/if she's interested in doing it again because I want her to know that her blog makes me smile! I love reading about her polishes and kitties :)

I would like to tag Wan from http://ilovenailpolish.blogspot.com/ because she has the coolest polishes and makes great and easy to follow tutorials. And of course she's a CANADIAN sista xx

I also want to tag KAE KAE from http://thehungryasian.blogspot.com/ because I love the names she creates for her frankens! and also she's a fellow HK maniac!

And last but not least I would like to tag LUCY! Happy Birthday Lucy.. Hope you have a great one :D

xx
Joyce

64: NOTD

Hi Girls!

I'm so happy I finally got a new power adapter for my laptop woohoo! I had the day off work today so I decided to play around with my OPI Greenwich Villiage mani from last night by adding some random stripes with my L.A Colours nail art polishes. This was so easy to do you guys should give it a try!

I'll be going on a vacation in about 2 weeks time so until then I will try to post as many blog posts as I can. I'll try to update overseas too but it might be a bit hard. What are you guys doing for Halloween? Are you dressing up? :)

xx

Joyce

63: Costume dilemma

Hi Girls!

Sorry for not posting anything nail polish related today but I just wanted to get some advice on good halloween costumes! The last time I dressed up for halloween was probably more than 10 years ago so I haven't had too much experience. This year before I head back to Toronto and China my friends and I in Sydney are planning a farewell/halloween party and EVERYONE has to be dressed up in a costume. Now I was thinking about going as a giant OPI Nail Polish. Do you guys think that's a good idea? If you have any creative suggestions can you please let me know. Thanks guys.. :)

xx
Joyce

62: New nail colour swatches

Hi Girls!

I went to my nail supply shop a week ago with one of the girls from my workplace who also happens to be a nail polish fanatic. She was like a kid in a candy store when we arrived. I picked up a few more colours and most of the polishes I bought this time are very colourful, playful, and summer-y. My good camera ran out of batteries so I couldn't take any pictures of new swatches but hopefully I'll have my room cleaned and I'll find my battery charger soon!

OPI's Hey! Get In Lime!

OPI's Fair Dinkum Pinkum

OPI's Blushingham Palace

OPI's Brand New Skates

OPI's Rent (a VERY sheer glitter-green-tinted polish)

OPI's Dazzle Me (a sheer light blue-green glitter)

Essie's St. Martin Mint in a weird bottle (there's no Essie logo)

Essie's St. Barths Blue

Essie's St. Martin Mint are on the ring and index fingers. Essie's St. Barths Blue are on the middle and pinky fingers.

Orly's Spark

China Glaze's OMG

This is the China Glaze OMG Text In Colour 2BKEWL set

China Glaze's DV8, BFF, IDK, LOL.

China Glaze's 2NITE

Multicoloured :)

OPI's Blue My Mind with a coat of a Japanese brand glitter polish.

China Glaze's Grape Juice

China Glaze's Grape Juice with Mattified index and ring fingers.

OPI's DS Diamond

My new colour swatch stand.

This was something I made by accident. I wanted to create something abstract but the colours started to mix. Opi's Black Onyx with the colours from Essie's Neon Collection

My Konad challange. Eww look at how stained my nails are :(

In my last post I was very excited about a new purchase from eBay and I just wanted to show you guys what it is!

My Fujifilm Instax Mini 25: Hello Kitty Edition :D

This is the type of film/picture the camera produces. It's very good quality!

Unfortunately the instructions came in Japanese! The whole time I was thinking !KAE I NEED YOU! I struggled with it for a while and then I just follwed the pictures and tried to use my common sense and it worked!

Until next time :)

xx
Joyce