Nailing It: ban.do-inspired Mani

There was a time when I'd paint my nails a different design every weekend especially when I was working on my nail art books a couple of years ago. On a whim, I brought out a couple of nail polish bottles and decided to do nail art inspired by my ban.do planner.

What I used:

Orly Top 2 Bottom as base coat

Glossier pink on all nails

Orly white tips for flower petals

Orly cupcake for petal shadows

Deborah Milano 03 gel effect for petal details

Deborah Lippman defying gravity (from Wicked trio) for leaves base

Deborah Lippman laughing to the bank for leaves details

Sally Hansen clear'd for takeoff as top coat

I started off by painting the base. Glossier's pink shade matched my planner best!

For the flowers, I decided to do just 3 nails on each hand, some with 2 flowers. They don't have to be perfect. I just added details with 2 different shades of mauve to form the flowers.

Did the same thing with the leaves. Used the lighter green to do the basic leaf shapes and added details with the darker shade.

Sealed everything with a clear top coat and voila my ban.do nails are done! Really love how they turned out and crossing my fingers they last at least a week without chipping!

Good-bye, 2012. Hello, 2013!

Happy New Year! I hope today is the start of an amazing year for you. (:

Passion Project: Polished

Right after we released The Friendship Bracelet Book, I was already drawing ideas for the second Berry Books release. This time, it was Mimi who would be the EIC and I would be the "creative editor," (Mimi coined this position, hehe) also known as the person in charge of thinking up nail art designs. I had a tiny notepad where I drew imaginary nails and penciled in patterns. I was to come up with at least 50 designs. I didn't think it was possible until we eventually had 52!

We shot everything in two days. This resulted in a mess of polish and polish remover and fumes-induced headaches.

My boss Mimichoo (making a face!), photographer Patrick Martires, and hand model + cover model Alecx.

Mim is putting on base coat on our other hand model, Trixie, our poor intern we forced to model for us. HAHAHA!

 Missing hand model: Miss Lazatin!

I wish The Face Shop would sell more of these pens in other colors. They only currently have white, black, and silver. If you don't have a nail art pen, though, you can totally still do the designs with a thin paintbrush or a toothpick.

Some of my favorite patterns that came out oh so nicely in the book.

Please grab a copy (if you haven't already!) for only P150. It comes with 4 free polish bottles in Blue Me Away, White A Minute, Orange You Glad, and Pink-A-Boo. It's a great stocking stuffer for kids and adults alike.

Nailing It: Ombre Stain

When I saw this tutorial on The Beauty Department, I knew I had to try it. Someone commented that it looked like I dipped my fingers in blood, haha! But in reality, they kind of reminded me of rose petals.

I'll try mixing up colors next time for a dip-dye effect.

How-To: Nail Line Art

This was originally a water marbling tutorial, but after 2 failed attempts, I gave up.

Both require the same first step, apply one coat of base coat. I use Sally Hansen's Double Duty Strengthening base & top coat. Doesn't make my nails yellow and it's value for money since you only need one bottle for your base and top coats!

For the marble nails, you'll need a cup of water, your choice of 2 to 3 colors of polish, some tape, and an orange stick (I used a barbecue stick). You can follow the tutorial for marble nails on Refinery29. Here's how mine turned out the first time:

I also tried a red, blue, and purple combination but the polish would dry up too quickly and end up clumpy on my nails. So out came the polish remover.

I finally settled for a solid purple base (I used Forever 21's Love and Beauty polish) and took out my The Face Shop nail art pen in black to do some line art. I pinned a similar design a few weeks ago. My hands aren't that steady, unfortunately so my line art kind of looks jagged, haha! Next time, I'll try using different base colors—and I'll probably pick up another nail art pen in a different color, too.

You only need these three things! It's that simple.

Et voila! Here are my finished nails in the afternoon sun (for dramatic effect, hahaha!).

And against a black purse.

What are you wearing on your nails now? (: