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!

I Try DIY Craft Huddle: Paper Folding

I always hover around the origami paper section in Saizen,but never really buy because my origami skills are very basic. I used to be so jealous of my classmates in grade school who could turn paper bills into polo shirts or hearts (like magic!). I could make a paper boat, if I remembered the right order of folding. Haha!

So when one of Mikko's Craft Huddles—the paper folding one!—fell on a holiday, I took it as a sign. I headed over to Harvest in The Fort that afternoon, excited over the thought that I'd be coming home with some paper folding skillz.

First up: choose your paper. Mix had a ton of pretty paper! I couldn't decide which ones to get. Look at all those pretty patterns!

Our first project was the paper wallet. She actually did a tutorial for this on candymag.com. You can totally make this and stuff with a few 20-peso bills for your godkids!

Tried making one on my own (had to ask for help, though!) the second time around. Not too shabby, right?

Next: a box! We had to choose paper with matching prints. I got cupcake-themed ones. So cute!

 We made the base first.

And then the lid. I didn't put enough allowance in my folds so the lid was kind of too small for my base. Whoops!

Paper bags that don't need glue or tape! All they're missing are handles and your gift bag is ready.

This box was my favorite. A bit hard to make (I'm not entirely sure I can recreate it on my own without troubleshooting from Mikko) but it looks so nice! It's like a box within a box. Very fancy, haha.

Pillow boxes for tiny trinkets like earrings or bracelets. Here's a link to the tutorial in case you want to try making them on your own.

My happy family of paper products. I have yet to sit down and attempt to make another batch without help, but this will make gift wrapping for Christmas fun!

Want to learn more holiday crafts? Head on over to I Try DIY for the November schedule of Craft Huddles (I'm personally eying the Craft of the Card next!).

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? (: