Some Fun with my Nails

I love color! When I plan my outfits, I try to add some color because neutral colors seems boring to me. Sometimes I wear too many colors, which can be a problem! Haha! Besides my clothes, I love adding color through my accessories (handbags, shoes, scarves, hair accessories, etc...) and my new side hobby is nail art!

Growing up, my mom, my sister, and I would always keep our toenails painted. It was a fun girly thing to do in the family. To this day, I cannot stand it when my toenails are bare. I need some color to keep them from looking for naked.

I love buying nail polish! Although I love the expensive bottles ($4+), I tend to buy the cheap ones so I can have more colors for more variety. Plus, nail polish dries out really quick so there is no need to buy expensive brands.

I am warning you that I have ugly feet so shield your eyes if necessary.

(Watermelon-inspired toes for my SF trip)

(Black with white polka-dots to match my bikini. First time attempting dots.)

I am not a fan of getting a manicure or pedicure. I have received manicures less than five times in my life and a pedicure just once. Never had acrylics before either because my nails are pretty strong and don't break/split. Sure the massage part is nice, but I hate the feeling of my nails being files and my cuticles are under control so I can never justify paying someone to do it. Doing it myself is just so much cheaper! Don't get me started on pedicures... those are way too easy to do!

(Friend's birthday manicure date. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the way my nails look after a professional manicure. They look so classy and polish. Sadly, my nails grow really fast and since they are my natural nails, the oils make them prone to chipping.)

With the rise of YouTube and my cousin Nancy, I found that simple nail details can be done at home with tools such as band-aid, tape, toothpicks, and dull wooden pencils. I decided to attempt some simple designs just to see if I can do it. You see, my hands are not very steady and I was never careful with details. Heck, even painting my right hand is a difficult task! So right now, I'll just stick to simple dots and lines.

(Purple and gold! For Masters graduation and Lakers Championship 2010)

(Red with glitter and white stripes for Christmas)

(Minnie Mouse-inspired nails)

*I never planned on blogging about my nails so I don't have many pictures. Bet you noticed a lot of red... I like how red shows up in pictures and since it's my favorite color, I always choose red when I'm bored. I'll update with more colors later!

One day, I noticed my friend Katie, who always wears nail polish too, with the coolest nail designs! When I askd her about them, she told me they were these special nail polish stickers that are available at Sephora, but they are quite pricey. A few days later, while shopping with some friends at the Louis Vuitton Store inside Bloomingdale's at South Coast Plaza, my friend Amy and I notice our salesgirl's super cute nails cheetah print nails. Turns out they were also the special nail polish stickers, but she bought some at CVS for a much lower cost! Super excitied, Amy and I ventured to many drugstores in search for these Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish stickers and found some at a local Walgreens, where we received a demonstration, samples, coupons, and a buy one, get one half off deal.

(So many cute designs to choose from! I settled for the lace although I might go back for zebra or cheetah designs.)

(Super easy to use and they last for about a week before chipping. They took about an hour to apply, but I'm sure with practice I can get them on quicker. I love them!)

Apparently these "nail designs" or "nail fashion" are the latest trend when it comes to nail art. (That and something called nail gels, but that's more along the lines of acrylics so I don't know much about it.) The first company to introduce this is Minx Nails and the designs offered through them are AMAZING!

Let me know what you think of the latest nail trends!

Simple Christmas Wreath

I never planned on making a Christmas wreath. It all started like this:

One day, I wondered into my local Michaels in search for some supplies (I think I was looking for brads, glue gun sticks, etc...) and I noticed this LONG line for the register! I have never seen a line wrapped around a Michaels store before! That's when I realized Michaels was having a huge sale on all their Christmas decor and supplies. Curious, I wandered into the holiday section and saw the most beautiful ready-made Christmas wreaths hanging on the walls! They were all 50% off and I knew I wanted to get some for my house (since every year I'm in charge of decorating the entire place).

After looking at the different ones available, I couldn't find the *perfect* wreath-- I wanted something traditional, medium size, and has a nice big bow. I figured that I can buy a plain wreath and individual decoration pieces and create my personalized wreath! I spent nearly an hour searching through Michaels' crazy bins for matching leaves, color schemes, and ornaments. Once I decided my color scheme and my "look", I bought everything (half off!) and was so excited to go home and start.

My wreaths includes a bunch of "Hidden Mickeys" and are traditional in their red, green, and gold colors. I wanted simple, yet Christmas-y!

I love my wreath! I think the entire thing cost a little less than $10... neat, huh?

(plain fake wreath with a wired plaid bow)

(golden and red leaves and acorns with green, red, and gold mini ornaments for decor)

Materials: plain wreath (real or fake), wired ribbon for the bow, mini ornaments, glittered leaves and branches, metal wires (for tying everything onto the wreath)

Mickey Mouse Ornaments

First off, I want to give thanks to the *super* talented Desperate Mousewife of MouseWait. She is always posting incredibly cute ideas (most Disney-related) and I've been itching to try to mimic some of her crafts.

If you have recently walked through any Disney Stores at your local mall or World of Disney at Downtown Disney, you might noticed the beautiful Mickey ornaments on sale for the holidays. After admiring them, you will notice that these babies are not cheap. You can't get away with buying just one because who wants to put only one Mickey ornament on a tree?

DesperateMousewife (DMW) was kind enough to posted these pictures and instructions on the MouseWait lounge:

Directions (from DWM on MouseWait):

How to make a Mickey ornament. Buy plastic ornaments, one large and two smaller. Instructions top to bottom:

1) Measure and mark on each side the same distance that looks good for ear placement. I marked at 1" down. Remove the hook caps from the two smaller ornaments.

2) Use a high temp glue gun tip to press into the ornament to form a hole big enough for the top of the smaller balls.

3) Add some hot glue to the top of the smaller ball and then press inside the hole. Hold until secure. Repeat on other side.

4) Done! You can glue other embellishments on it as well.

This is the story of my attempts to try to recreate these Mickey Mouse Christmas ornaments:

The instructions given by DMW seemed so simple that I ran out to the nearest Dollar Tree and bought some beautiful matching small and medium size red ornaments. They didn't have much of a selection there and I settled for simple red ones.

I was so excited I came home, pulled out my ruler, sharper, mini glue gun, and ornaments to start working. After about 10 minutes of trying to burn a hole with the glue gun into the ornament, I realized I made a mistake-- I was using a low-temperature glue gun! Frustrated, I drove out to Michaels to pick up a high-temperature glue gun since I didn't own one. Luckily, I found a mini one for pretty cheap. (Mistake #1)

Drove home, got with my high-temp glue gun in hand, I was ready for some ornament creation time, but after about 15 minutes to began to realized that even my high-temp glue gun was not going to burn a hole through this shiny, stubborn ornament. Thinking I was just a complete failure (just kidding, but I was bummed and confused), I went back to DMW's post on the MouseWait Lounge and reread the instruction, I realized another mistake-- I had bought shiny, beautiful GLASS ornaments! I was supposed to pick up some plastic ones. Lesson learned: never to skim over instructions, no matter how simple things may look. (Mistake #2)

Because my Dollar Tree doesn't carry uniformed colored plastic ornaments, I had to search far and wide and finally stumbled upon some blue ones at the local dollar store (Viva Bargain is the name). I bought a set of blue (plain and glittered mixed) medium size ornaments and small ornaments, which came out to be only $2.00. Score!

After all that work and purchasing, I finally had some time in my busy Christmas schedule today to attempt to make these cute little guys (while watching old X-Men: Volume 1 episodes).

What do you think?

The first one I made was okay, but the ears were too low on each side.

(Too lazy to rotate picture: top is the initial Mickey ornament-- noticed that the ears are too low on each side; bottom ornament was on the second try)

After that initial try, the rest of the ornaments came out perfect, both the solid blues and the glittery ones!

Success!! Now what to do with them.... currently, they are all hanging out in the pretty Victoria's Secret bag, waiting. My tree is fully decorated and I already handed out gifts... Any suggestions?

Materials: medium plastic ornaments, small plastic ornaments, high-temperature glue gun, additional glue gun (with glue stick) in case you need extra adhesive for the ears, and puffy paint/stickers to decorate the ornament (optional)