Navy and White Marbling plus Crushed Shells
This is my second attempt using the water marbling technique since September last year (See Water Swirl Nail Design). I really like using this technique as you can experiment with different colours and pattens.



 
First time using crushed shells. They give a very interesting textured look on the nails.


Marbling's only done on the thumb, index and ring finger. I did this set of nails on a boiling hot day. For some reason (maybe due to the heat), the nail polish refused to set! I nearly died from frustration as I had to redo a few of them several times.



  
I love crushed shells! The camera did not capture it's pearly shine.
  

  

On a totally different subject, I went shopping last week to get a dress for my friend's baby girl from this shop called gumboots. I saw this brooch and bought it for myself! Can't believe I actually bought a brooch from a kiddy clothes store! I've been wearinng it on my jacket lapel :) hehe


Oh I bought new nail art goodies again! This my new trial acrylic kit from this brand called Young Nails. I'm going to try using it for acrylic overlay over my natural nails. There's also another Young Nails product I bought called Protein Bond. I did't take a photo of it yet but I've heard many good reviews about this product. Protein Bond acts as a non acidic primer and leaves a slight sticky surface for the gel or acrylic to adhere to. It's also good as a base coat prior to nail polish application. You'll get longer wear form your nail polish especially for those people who experience chipping easily. I'm going to try this first to see if it actually works. Will let you guys know :)

I also got some coloured acrylic and a black gel.


I recently learned a new nail art technique using these tools (see below). I'll show you how it's done once I get some practice!
 

 

Sunday, March 07, 2010 | Category: , , , , , | 8 comments

3D Acrylic Flower Tutorial 1
This is my first attempt to create a tutorial, as requested by Danielle from The Diva's Polish. It's not easy trying to take photos and draw at the same time, however I hope you'll get some insight into how the 3D acrylic flowers are made. Please let me know if you've got any questions.

 
One of my new purchase. OPI - Royal Rajah Ruby.

Beautiful dark burgundy with tiny sparkles (2 coats).
1 coat Colour Club Vivid Colour Intensifying Top Coat.
 
Items used: Nfu.Oh Monomer, Nfu.Oh White Acrylic Powder, Size 4 Kolinsky Nail Art Brush, Dappen Dish

Pour some monomer into the Dappen Dish. Dip your brush into the monomer.
Note: Make sure your room is well ventilated because the Monomer smells really bad and inhaling in large quantities is really bad for your health.
Push your brush against the side of the dish to remove excess monomer.
 
Note: The brush used is flat with a pointed tip.
 
Dip your brush into the acrylic powder and pick up a tiny ball of acrylic. Depending on the size of the flower you're creating, the amount of acrylic picked up will differ. The longer your brush stay in the acrylic powder, the more it will pick up. The brush cannot be too wet or else you'll get a runny blob of acrylic. If it's too dry, the acrylic powder will fall all over the place and it'll be too hard to mould into shape. This comes with some practice, but you'll eventually get the hang of it.
 
Place the blob of acrylic ball onto the surface of the nail. It should be of a sticky consistancy. 
If it's a little bit too wet, you can allow it to sit for a while before moulding. Sometimes you may need to dry your brush a bit on a piece of tissue before proceeding to mould the acrylic into shape.

I'm creating a simple flower here. All you need to do is to push your brush at an angle (see above) against the acrylic ball. You may need to drag your brush slightly against the pointy part to create the desired effect.
 
Repeat the same process with the rest of the petals.

The flower will start to take shape.
 
Depending on how big your petals are and how far apart you place them, this will determine how many petals you'll get on your flower.

To complete the look, I'm going to add a tiny yellow acrylic ball in the centre of the flower. Using the same technique as above, wet your brush and pick up a tiny ball of yellow acrylic powder.
 
You have to be very quick when picking up a small amount of acrylic.

Flower Complete!
 
I have heaps of monomer left in the Dappen Dish, so I made another flower.

This is a slightly more complicated design. I'll create another tutorial for moulding the rose next time.
 
I hope this tutorial is beneficial in helping you with your 3D acrylic flower design.

Monday, March 01, 2010 | Category: , , , , , , , | 20 comments

My Nail Art Work Space and Hauls From Japan!
This is my current nail art work space. It's grown a lot in size since my previous Work Station post!


The original orange work station. I'm running out of space for my nail polish. Luckily I found these storage trays (see white try on the bottom right and next few photos). I'm going to use these trays to store my nail polish according to their colour and place them in proper shelves in the future.
 
 Added a nail art table. The drawers on the right are filled with all my nail art stuff!
  
 I love these storage trays! I'm going to get more of them. The tray on the right contain all my un-tried nail polishes.
  
 My UV lamp.
  
 A peek inside some of the drawers. Coloured acrylic powders, glitter pots, coloured shells...etc...
  
 My out of control rhinestones and pearls collection.
  
 Other bits and pieces.
  
 Storage containers. I need to get more soon!

My sister-in-law just came back from Japan. Look what she got me!

  
Nail Art Magazines ... yay!
More Nail Art stuff...
 I love this set of Swarovski Crystals. They are super bling as compared to normal rhinestones.
HAPPY :)
Monday, March 01, 2010 | Category: , , | 5 comments

Jin Jin's Adventures is 1 year old!
Wow time really pass by so quickily! Jin Jin's Adventures has just turned 1 year old! A BIG Thank You to everyone who's been following and reading my blog. I can't express in words how much fun I had interacting with fellow bloggers who share the same passion in nail polish and nail art.

Looking back this past year, I've realised just how much nail art materials I've collected and purchased! Only last week, I was shocked to find out that my nail art station and table is running out of space to fit all my stuff! The year ahead, I'm hoping to experiment and to try more methods and techniques for creating nail art. I hope that you'll enjoy reading the post as much as I enjoy creating the nail art.

As for this week's nail art, I created a design to go with a purple dress I wore to a friend's engagement party. In my excitement to capture it before sun set, I've totally forgotten to clean the nail polish overflow around my nails! So please ignore the ugly bits hehehe

  I love the tiny sparkles in this Rimmel nail polish - 610 Pompous.
 

This is a nail polish I've picked up some time ago - Inglot 885. I love this white and have used it several times in different nail art designs.  The 3D flowers are created using acrylic powder. I had to dip the brush in the white powder first then the purple to create the 2 tone effect.

 
Sunday, February 21, 2010 | Category: , , , , , | 12 comments

Chinese New Year Nails - 年年有鱼
Happy Chinese New Year! It's the first day of the Lunar calander this coming Sunday. Traditionally, we'll have a reunion dinner on new year's eve followed by 15 days worth of celebrations!

During Chinese New Year, we often great each other with auspicious words such as 新年快乐 Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy New Year), 万事如意 Wan Shi Ru Yi (May things go as you wish), 恭喜发财 Gong Xi Fa Cai (Congratulations and be prosperous)。

For my Chinese New Year nail art, I've used 2 coats of  Colour Club - Jewel Tone Blue, topped up with lots of sliver flakes. Using three different colours of  3D Gel, I've created a gold fish on each of the ring finger. Some lighter coloured flakes were also used on the fish's body to represent fish scales.

You might be wondering why I'm drawing Fish for Chinese New Year when it's the year of the Tiger. Well, there is a popular auspicious saying during Chinese New Year called 年年有鱼 (Nian Nian You Yu). It literally means 'Every Year There's Fish'. The word 鱼 Yu (Fish) sounds phonetically similar to the word 余 Yu (Surplus and bountiful)!

 

 I've added silver flakes near to the cuiticle on the ring finger instead of at the nail edge. It makes the fish look as if it's blowing air bubbles!

  




By the way, I was getting tired of square nails and changed it to oval instead. It's so much harder to shape them, but oval nails seem to make some of my curled nails less obvious.
Friday, February 12, 2010 | Category: , , , , | 13 comments

MAC Light Affair with Konad Plate m71
I've not been a big fan of nude nail polish, however the recent buzz with mannequin nails made stop by the MAC counter again and bought this new nail polish from the Love Lace collection - Light Affair.

I'm very impressed with this nail polish's consistancy and how easily it applies with just 2 coates. Being rather busy lastely, I've not changed my nail polish for 2 whole weeks and I must say this nail polish wears extremely well! Ever since my parents went overseas, I've been cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry without any gloves on and it's hardly done any damage!

Going along with the Love Lace theme, I've added some black lace like konad print. Being very new to Konad, it took me ages to get it right. I've stuffed up several times and even smudged it towards the end while applying top coat ontop of the Konad print. I conclude that I'm a Konad retard hahaha....think I'll need some time to get the hang of it.

 
Added a black mixed with silver acrylic ribbon

 
Small black acrylic ribbons


Saturday, February 06, 2010 | Category: , , , | 8 comments