What Am I Doing?

I'm not sure what I was trying to accomplish with this. Originally it was supposed to be a black basecoat with my new polish on the tips, but I didn't like how it looked just on the tips so I ended up putting it all over. I guess it looks neater in person. I'm still not very satisfied with it.

Off-topic: I'm using a new fast dry topcoat by Sally Hansen. I loved the Seche Vite, until I read the label and saw it had a warning for a chemical that could cause birth defects and other reproductive harm.
Um, no.

It's times like this that make me realize I need to practice even more on my technique.

I want to someday have a giant bookcase. Maybe twelve feet tall or so and six feet wide. OR a room I can turn into a private library. I'll have a special key made for it and it will be my personal sanctuary that is mine and mine alone. 

Also I think I'm going to paint my bedroom pink.

The Unicorn & The Poad

This is a rather weird little story. I was browsing eBay a couple weeks ago and found this:

Now, I had had a couple of unicorn suncatchers when I was growing up in the late 80's-early 90's, so it made me feel nostalgic. I bought it, and a week or so later, got my package.

I was a bit confused when I saw the size of the box, which seemed much too big for a suncatcher that was at most, five inches tall.

Imagine my further surprise when I found this:

This odd little creature is called a Poad, a fantasy animal invented by the talented people at Windstone. Windstone sculptures are usually fantasy based. They have unicorns, dragons, kirin, winged cats....you get the idea. Sometimes, they will offer for sale special "artist paint" versions. These sculptures are hand-painted by artists and are usually one-of-a-kind. They are extremely collectible, easily going for several hundred dollars! This poad, despite his tiny size (I have small girly hands if that tells you anything) probably sold for around $200. Yikes!

He was very cute---odd, but cute--- and I wanted to keep him. I knew that I couldn't; someone had paid a lot for him. So I contacted the seller, she realized she had switched the shipping labels, and the poad-owner and I forwarded the packages to each other, while the seller reimbursed us for the shipping cost.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of him first before I carefully packed him up to go to his rightful home. Having been a fan of Windstone for several years, it was exciting for me to see and hold one in person!

The kicker was the fact that the buyer of the poad lives in a city only about 45 minutes away from me! XD Small world.

So I have my unicorn now....but man, if I ever have the funds, I think I might have to get a poad of my own.

Nail & Deco: Eriko's Gel Nail Book

I was incredibly excited when I looked at the title and realized this was another book by my idol, Eriko Kurosaki. She and her studios have done acrylic nails for a long time and I'm glad to see her put out a book for gel nails. The instructions are very clear, and at 126 pages, this book is quite a bit longer than her usual 80-90 page books.

I might be partial to this book in part because I had to go through several steps to get it. I was originally going to order it through YA, but it went out of stock before I could. Since it was published in 2010, I had hope it would become available again, but it seems books in Japan tend to go out of print quite suddenly, so time is of the essence.

I put in the serial number on a whim, and it was in stock on the Kinokuniya website! The price, with shipping, came out to only about fifty cents more than it would have been if I had gotten it from the original source I looked at. Plus, since it shipped from a US-based Kinokuniya store, it arrived by FedEx in only three days. I had the choice of requesting it to be shipped from a few Kinokuniyas here in the US, but chose the LA store simply because it's the one I've visited before and I was impressed with it a lot.  :)

If I was living in LA, I could have done one better and simply had them hold a copy for me and picked it up at the store myself. *sigh* One day, one day.

Anyway, the book is beautiful, which of course I expect of Eriko and her team. Her work is so perfect that I know I can buy her books blindly (no preview of the inside contents) and not be disappointed.

P.S. From now on I'm putting up small-sized thumbnails instead of medium, to cut back on the space these posts take up. Clicking on the thumbnail will still take you to the full-sized picture, of course.

e.l.f. Eyeliner

As a general rule, I don't wear that much makeup, if any at all. I feel cuter and (of course) more natural without. However, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy dabbling in it sometimes.
A girl I work with always has fabulous-looking eyeliner on her upper lid, which I have never been able to do well. When I asked her about it, she told me to try out liquid eyeliner. Of course I've heard of it, but since I don't wear much makeup I haven't actually purchased it before.

I found this tube of e.l.f. brand eyeliner for only a dollar. At that price, I figured why not; if I don't like it it's not as though I dropped $8 on a tube I'll just put in a drawer and never use again.

I did a sweep following the natural curve of my eye, with a small flip at the end, which I feel highlights the shape of my eye as well as the curve of my outer eyelashes. Because it's liquid, I had to wait a couple minutes for it to dry. I was pretty happy with how well I did on both eyes, considering it was my first try. Maybe it has to do with the fact I paint and am therefore used to brushes....

My waterline (AKA my lower eyelid) was done using a regular eyeliner pencil, because I'm not quite ready to try the liquid version there. My lower eyelids tend to be senstive.

All in all, I think it's a nice, fairly subtle enhancement to my eyes that looks a lot better than piling on gobs of eyeshadow. I will see how it lasts throughout the day. If it does well I might make this my go-to thing for when I'm going out and want a little extra pop.

Nail & Deco: Nail Max, Pt. 2

Today I thought I would share some more spring-y nails, this time from my older Feburary 2009 Nail Max.

Specifically, I'm going to show some nails done by the salons named Créateur Reveal. From what I have seen, they release new salon art samples for the Feburary or April issues of Nail Max. (I'm actually disappointed that they haven't done so for this year yet.)

Oh, and by the way, that happens to be the line of salons that Eriko Kurosaki founded....so I think my love for it is a bit understandable if you've read my previous posts. ;) Enjoy!

I love the floral print ones with the bow in the righthand corner! <3

Easter Sunday

Mom still insists on giving me an "Easter basket" every year, though I have grown up long ago, and no longer celebrate Easter.

How cute are those cookie cutters?! She has also gotten me several other kitchen items she says I should put in my hope chest for when I have my own place or get married...the funny thing is, she doesn't seem too thrilled that T and I want to get married. She's either being supportive in a roundabout way, or hoping I marry someone else at the last minute. XD

Actually, the funniest thing of all is the fact I don't even OWN a hope chest.

I also find it funny how she rolls her eyes when I come home with another cookbook, but proceeds to buy me MORE cookbooks. Those brightly-colored iced cookies look like the ideal thing to try my new cookie cutters on.

Ditto nail polish. She did a good job on this one because it's a color I've been eyeing for awhile, and she was lucky and got the last bottle of it.

We went over to my aunt's house today to see the cousins for a bit. I brought some colored bubbles and we had some fun in the yard/parking lot behind her house. By the time it was done, our hands were stained blue, pink, green, and orange; my younger cousin O got some on his face courtesy of his older brother. Hahahaha. We gave up on the colored ones and switched to the usual clear bubbles and ran around in circles. (Okay, the boys did a lot more running than my mom and I did)

It was a beautiful, sunny day. The temperature was cool enough that no one roasted in the sun, but the sun itself kept us warm enough to be comfortable wearing capris. A perfect Easter Sunday.

My cousin M in the middle of blowing bubbles and trying to catch them. I think his brother O was looking at a caterpillar. :)

I love this picture of mom and I! Look at the sun shining in our hair and our nice smiles! *SHING*