Cherry Blossoms

1. Prep your nails. Then paint on at least two coats of a base colour (I used Revlon Pink Lingerie).

2. Next, paint on the tree branches. ** I sponged on and faded out some white on top of the pink. This is optional. You don't have to do this.

3. Paint in the blossoms in a darker pink colour.

4. Finally, shade and highlight the blossoms and add in the centers with black. Clear coat.

Girl On Fire

I'm so excited that The Hunger Games is out! I plan on going this coming week. And so, in honour of my [hopeful] viewing of The Hunger Games, I had to paint my nails again. So, this theme is Girl On Fire. And lucky you, it comes with a tutorial. :p

alt="Girl on Fire nails" title="Girl on Fire nails">

1. Prep your nails as usual (make sure you use a base coat). Then, polish your nails with gold polish. (i used Loreal Paris Amazon's Flash and Sinful Colours All About You.)

2. Next, apply a clear nail polish where you want gold glitter. Then apply the gold glitter. *This step is optional. It does give a really cool affect though, and makes the flames a little more realistic.

3. Here's the fun part. Take (are you ready for this?) magic markers (like the Crayola ones for example) and start drawing flames in different colours over the glitter. Choose whatever flame colours you like. I went for the traditional red and orange over the gold sparkles. Then, whether with acrylic paints or black nail polish, outline the shape of your flames and fill in it.

4. Finally, clear coat your flaming nails. For your ring finger, you can add a symbol of The Hunger Games. I chose the Mockingjay and "Girl On Fire". But you could try using the Capitol seal, an arrow, the District 12 seal, etc., etc.

And here's a close up of the Mockingjay.

Have you seen the movie yet? What'd you think? Have you painted Hunger Games nails? If so, post a link to the photo in the comment section. I'd love to see them!

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favour...

I figured that with a Hunger Games collection colour on my nails, I had to "dress it up" Hunger Games style. So I decided to start by painting the capitol seal on my pinkie. On my ring finger of course, is the famous Mockingjay pin. The middle finger shows the designs from the Hunger Games book covers and the pointer finger is the district 12 seal with a flower. The designs were done using acrylic paints.

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flash

sunlight

Let the Hunger Games Begin...

So, I have finally gotten my hands onto a Hunger Games polish. I read the books a while ago, and LOVE them. They are extremely well written. When I heard China Glaze was doing a collection for the books and movie, I was ecstatic! So far, I've only bought Stone Cold, which is from District 2; the masonry district. It's a really gorgeous matte glitter (I swear it's the matte colour version of my mom's car colour!).

Here is Stone Cold after two coats. After applying it, I added a clear coat to really bring out the glitter.

Shade

Sunlight

Flash

And here is a photo of Stone Cold in the bottle.

You know I love the colour (and the rest of the collection!), but what do YOU think of the Hunger Games collection?

DIY: Spoon Ring

So, I've been wanting to make a spoon ring for a while, and I finally got to make one this past weekend! My dad and I worked on it for about an hour and I must say, it looks awesome!

 So, here is a photo of the ring on. It looks pretty cute, huh?

And here is a close up of the ring.

Check out the tutorial at http://kirstenerickson.blogspot.com/2011/12/spoon-ring-tutorial.html

**So a lot of the tutorials I have found suggest using nickel/silver spoons or sterling silver spoons. I started using a sterling silver one, and it broke several times. It hadn't been overheated or forcefully bent, but it still broke. Mine ended up being a silver plated, stainless steel spoon. So, try out both and see which works for you.

Nail Art Tutorial: Rainbow Stripes/Triangles

This has to be the easiest nail art ever. It requires absolutely no skill, so those of you who say you'll never be able to do nail art, here you go.

Row One (left to right): Pink Lingerie (Revlon Top Speed), Presto Pink (Sally Hansen Insta-Dri), Hot Pink Migi Nail Art Pen (neon set). Row Two: Magenta Migi Nail Art Pen (neon set), Midnight Plum (Avon), Deep Purple Migi Nail Art Pen (neon set), Secret Peri-Wink-Le (China Glaze), Ogre the Top Blue (OPI), Blue Away (Sally Hansen Insta Dri). Row Three: Chillax (Sally Girl).

Start by taking a small plastic bag (sandwich or freezer bag) and painting nail polish on to it. Let this dry for a couple of minutes and apply another coat (keep adding coats until the polish is opaque). Do this first so that it will have time to dry. I recommend about an hour drying time on this.

While the polish is drying on the bag, prep your nails. Start with a good base coat (I like China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat), then follow with at least two coats of your base colour (I used the famous, "For Audrey" from China Glaze).

Once your polish on the bag is dry enough to peel off, either gently cut (with an exacto-knife) triangle shapes into the polish or peel it off and use scissors to cut it.

Then, press the triangles onto your nail in a cool design, like below. Finish with a top-coat, and you're done.

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These Are a Few of My Favourite Things [Photographs]

So, I would have to say, out of all the gazillions of photos I've taken, these are my absolute favourites.

I took this one in my backyard. The rose was floating on my pool.

This one was taken at a campfire. It's light painting with sparklers. Light painting is sooooo much fun, and you don't need a DSLR or SLR to do it (I have a Nikon D3100). For this photo though, I used my compact digital camera (a Canon Elph) on a slow shutter speed. I'll post a light painting tutorial soon, so you can try it yourself.

This one is just of some wild grapes. Nothing exciting, I just really liked the small depth of field and bokeh I ended up getting.

I took this picture in my backyard. We have a blackberry bush, and of course, it being winter in Canada when I took this meant that the blackberries had dried up. Once again, I just really love the short depth of field in it.

Once again, this one is taken in my backyard. It's the blackberry bush again. I just couldn't believe the colour of the leaves! 

I would have to say that this final picture is my absolute favourite of all the pictures I have ever taken. I took it over the Christmas break at the aviary. I thought it was the cutest thing the way the iguana was sleeping with his tongue hanging out. :)