Jin Jin's Adventures

I love nautical nail designs! For some reason, I'm very drawn to this nail design and have since created 2 similar versions. The first time I created this set of nails was back in December 2010. I like it so much, I've made a similar set last week, with some slight variations. This is the first time I've worn the same design twice is such a short span of time!

It takes me approximately 4 hours to create this design. This includes removal of the previous design, reshaping and prepping the nail. The first design was created with Colour Club - Soft Chiffon  and OPI - Yoga-Ta Get This Blue!


To create this design, I coloured my nails with 3 coats of Soft Chiffon. Using a small brush, I draw 2 to 3 blue horizontal stripes, depending on nail size. Then line the stripes with gold glitter. Using white and dark pink acrylic powder, draw the 3D flowers only on the thumb, middle and ring fingers. Stick on some craft chains and rhinestones and you're done!



I used a much smaller gold chains for this nautical nail art. Not only do they look nice, they are a lot easier to wear. The bigger chains I've used previously were always getting in the way when I style my hair or wear my clothes!





This is the second set I've created last week. My nails are a bit longer which means I have slightly more room to draw on. I've also changed my nail shape and used different brands of nail polish.

2 Coats OPI - Alpine White
2 Coats CND - Studio White
The Face Shop -  BL604




There are a few things to take note of when applying these craft gold chains. After you've cut the chain length to fit the nails, make sure you close off the ends properly. If not, they can feel very sharp and will cause damage to your clothes, especially if you're wearing slik or knits.

I used to apply nail glue to my nails first before placing the chain ontop. I've since reversed this application process. Firstly, the glue will cause the gold chain to harden. If you place the chains on top of the glue, it's harder to move them around if you're not happy with the placement. Also, you want to place the chains flat, this will make them much easier to wear.

I wanted to stay away from the usual pink and red for Valentines day. But I also wanted it to be a bit glam. Nothing more appropriate than glitter and hearts for Valentines day!

For this mani, I bring together OPI's 'Glitzerland' and OPI burlesque collection's 'Glow Up Already!'. The glitter in 'Glow Up Already!' has a bit of gold and green in it. It matches quite nicely with the pale gold 'Glitzerland'.

A small heart on the middle finger made with light green bullions

I added this light gold flake inside all the hearts

 Happy Valentines!

I've recently created a set of wedding nails that took me ages to complete. For some reason, I had a design mental block and threw away several nail designs before I came up with the final set.

My friend's wedding dress was cream and gold and her evening gown was a beautiful emerald. I wanted to create a set of nails that's suitable for a Spring/Summer wedding that incorporate all the above colours.

I had to discard these nails because they didn't pass my strictest critique (my dad)!




The big green glitter was making it look really busy and the dried flowers were not bright and glam enough for a wedding, said my critique :) These were the final set created after some additional input from my critique (thanks dad!).

Under Natural Light

Under Fuorescent Lights

The rest of the nails. Only the thumbs and ring finger's got 3D acrylic flowers.

Ever since I bought my first jar of silver acrylic powder, I've been looking around for more metallic acrylics. This Gold and Bronze metallic box set by Nfu.Oh was my most recent purchase. The colour didn't look very interesting when you look at the acrylic powders, but when I tried applying it on a piece of paper, I was pleasantly surprised by it!





There are some very nice gold and bronze as well as some metallic shades in green, blue and dark purple.



I decided the try some of the gold and bronze colours first. They are so vibrant after application! The bronze colour will be especially great for making autumn leaves!

Under fluorescent light

Under fluorescent light

Under filtered sunlight

Just a quick update today. I did this set of nails a few weeks ago. Due to the clunky gold chains, it really attracted as lot of attention. For this design, it's either you love it or you hate it.

I LOVE OPI - Glitzerland. It's got a super smooth application and lasted me nearly 2 weeks with no chips!

I also did this set of nails for a friend a few weeks ago.

The past few weeks have been so crazy. I've started my next round of fertility treatment where I have to self inject needles into my stomach daily. I've not been scared of needles but injecting it yourself is totally different! The nurses were very helpful at the clinic. They allowed me to practise injecting into a fake belly and then teach me how to do it on the real belly hahaha. I'm now an expert in self injection! Only problem every morning is to find a spot on my tummy that haven't been pricked!

2nd crazy thing is that my home phone have gone all weird. I can only make local land line calls. If I try to call a mobile phone, or to other states within the country, it doesn't work at all! I've been complaining to my provider Eftel for 3 weeks and there have been nothing done! I'm really annoyed with them.

I'm building a new house at the moment and it's really frustrating dealing with them. There's been a lot of hidden items we were not aware of. Everyone I speak to gives me a different story.

Luckily I can always 'escape' into my nail room for a few hours and just concentrate on nail art. It serves as a getaway where I can forget all my worries and just focus on something I like.

This week's nail art consists of a lot of glitter, a revisit to my 3D gel collection and a new but easy to create nail art technique.

Nail Polish Used:
1.  Butter London - Chancer
2. Shiseido Maquillage - 56

I applied Butter London Chancer on all my finger nails except on the ring finger where I used Maquillage 56.


These are the other materials required. I used some yellow and silver rhinestones, red heart shape flakes and 3D Gel to mould the roses.


First I'll show you how to make this really simple flower using the heart shape flakes. I am using 3D gel over here but you can also use acrylic. Both the 3D gel or acrylic act as a paste to hold this flower design together.

Take a blob of 3D gel and place it on your finger nails. Using a pair of pincers, arrange the hearts around the 3D gel such that I forms a 5 petal flower. Cure this under the UV lamp and repeat the same process ontop of the original flower. This time, place only 4 hearts into the 3D gel. Press some gold bullions into the centre of the gel and cure under UV lamp again. You can seal it with some gel top coat and cure it again.