Jin Jin's Adventures

Oh my goodness. I've been working every single night the last 3 days till about 4a.m.! I was so busy I didn't manage to maintain my previous nail art at all. However, the water swirl nail polish wears really well even after 1 week. It can safely be worn for another 5 days with some additional top coat. Usually, to extend the length of your nail polish, especially on natural nails, remember to add a clear top coat once every 2 - 3 days. Also, always remember to wear gloves when washing dishes and preparing food. I always keep a big box of disposable powder free gloves in the kitchen. It's a MUST if you've got nail art on and don't want to ruin it.

Back to this design, I was inspired by all those pretty yellow wild flowers all over the side walk in spring. They always look so pretty especially when it's sunny like today. I've never used Yellow nail polish before and was a little worried how it may look against my skin tone. OPI's Need Sunglasses is quite a nice yellow but it can look a little bit too mustard at times. I may want to try a brighter yellow next time. Does anyone have any recommendations?

After much hair pulling, I've finally managed to upload and modify a new blog template. It still needs a little more final adjustments but I do like the end result. Hope you'll like it too.

As previously mentioned I was meant to continue with my wedding theme, however I was so tired of light pastel colours, therefore I've decided to try a new technique.

I don't know what's the official name of this technique but I'll call it the Water Swirl Technique for now. I've seen this done several times before but have not try it personally. You'll have to use 2 different nail colours and drop them in one after another into a container of water. Wait for each colour to spread out before dropping the next colour. Use an orange stick to swirl the colour into your desired pattern and dip your finger nails flat down onto the surface of the water. Do this slowly or else you'll end up with bubbles. With your finger still submerged in the water, use the orange stick and remove any remaining nail polish floating on the surface of the water. Slowly lift your finger out of the water and allow to dry slightly. Use a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover to clean up nail colours around your finger. Viola, you'll end up with some very interesting swirly patterens! I was up till 4 am doing this. It's fun but very messy at the same time. Not to mention the amount of nail polish wasted. However, I do like the look of it.

This week I'm continuing with the wedding theme. Decided to go with a very simple design which will suit most wedding dresses. Unfortunately I was unable to take these pictures in natural light like I always do. These pictures do not show the beautiful pearly nature of OPI - At First Sight. I personally like this colour a lot but prefer to have a more complicated design :)

I'll try to use the same colour again with a different design this weekend.

As I've mentioned before, I've always only done my own nails and that of my mom's. I've also created nail art for 3 other friends before, but they were all done on natural nails. Last Friday, a friend of mine was going to attend a wedding and wanted her nails done. I thought I'll try painting on some artificial nails. The end result was pretty good!

It's finally springtime! I love all the beautiful colours appearing all over the place. For these couple of months, I'm thinking of focusing on spring flowers design and wedding themes. I'll be helping a friend and her sister with their nails for an upcoming wedding. It'll be so much fun!

A few weeks back I had multiple nail breaks on my left hand. That's why you're only seeing my right hand all these while. It's amazing how fast nails grow back and at different speed too. I've noticed that on fingers where we use more often, nails tend to grow a lot slower. My middle finger and ring finger grows the fastest. At the moment, I'm trying to grow my toe nails for the summer months. They get a nail polish break in winter because they are always in the covered shoes (they are terribly afraid of the cold). I noticed that toe nails grow at snail speed! Also, I can't seem to grow my last toe nail at all!!! I wonder why?

Why is it still so cold? I am really looking forward to summer and sunshine!

Created this marine theme using the emboss method. I used blue and red acrylic to paint on my nails for a 3D effect, then using clear nail polish, I sprinkled on some glitter. It's a really messy process, especially when I'm still coughing hahaha. Ended up with glitter all over the place! Using the same red acrylic I also created some flowers and red dots to complete the whole sunny marine look. Oh finally on the pinky, I also tried drawing some seagulls. I'm not sure if they look like seagulls but I tried :)

I've been down with the winter bug since Wednesday 2 weeks ago! Never been so sick for a long while. I nearly took a whole week off from work to recover but I'm still feeling very sick. The doctor said it's not H1N1 but I think it maybe a variation, cos no matter what medication I take my flu refused to go away! I may have to revisit my doctor again to have a second check. I'm so over being sick...hope this flu goes away soon!

Last Monday, after being cooped up at home for 5 days, I ventured out for the first time to get some sunshine and fresh air. However, spending 1 hour outside took so much energy out of me that I was totally exhausted. Nevertheless, it was a rewarding outing because I got myself some new coloured acrylic powders, heaps of glitters, a cute nail art display stand and many more bits and pieces. I'll do more 3D nail art once I get rid of this yucky cold.

Here are some old nail art I did some time back. Sorry about the picture quality. They were taken from my handphone.

Have been feeling very stress lately due to work as well as other issues! There's so much to do and not enough hours in a day to accomplish them. sigh...

On Friday I had lots of work to complete and requested to work from home. The laptop we were given at work had it's wireless capability disabled due to security reasons. The only way to get access to the Internet is via the blue network cable. However, the one given to us at work was really short and I'm limited to work in the back room, which is the coldest in winter. Luckily I found this super long cable!

Nail design this week is really simple because 2 of my nails broke on my right hand. I originally had a 3D acrylic lace design planned, but because it is quite a bulky design it'll look a lot better on long nails. Well I'll have to wait for 3 to 4 weeks to get my broken nails long enough again. Hope I don't break any more in the meantime!

When I saw this piece of furniture, I knew immediately that it would be perfect for storing all my nail art equipments. Previous to this, whenever I need to work on my nails, I need to carry 3 boxes worth of stuff to the living room. Now, I just roll this work station to whichever location in my house.

On one side is the display unit where I store all my nail polish according to their colour, on the second side are the shelves and drawers where I keep all my nail polish removers, foils, cotton, blings, pearls, stickers...etc...on the third side I store all my magazines and the fourth side is a handle to push the work station around.

This is the best set up for me at the moment. I am thinking of getting some Gels and a UV lamp very soon. I'll need to think of a way to store them once they arrive!