Since I’m not working nor am I in beauty school yet, my sleeping schedule has been wack. Until Dec 14th [school], I have all the time in the world to do whatever I’ve been wanting to do.

Playing video games even longer [hours & hours of Rockband 2, WET, CODMF2, AC2].
Playing with Adobe Illustrator [made a design I pushed to the BF for his work, kids are gonna love it].
Playing with nail designs more.
Preparing more semi-homemade goods [gnocchi with a marinara sauce topped w/ basil, turkey & artichoke stuffed jumbo pasta shells w/ arrabbiata sauce topped with Italian cheeses].
Definitely baking more [meringue cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate marshmallow cookies, blueberry crumble bars, my own yellow sheet cake recipe, which turned out more like a chiffon cake...I didn't have butter or shortening so I messed around].
I’m surprised I didn’t gain any weight.

Tonight…well, today [I woke up at 4:30pm yesterday, now it's close to 8am], I’ve been picking up my vexeling more. Remember that Natalie Portman vexel I was working on? I thought I start working on it again. I always do this, I’ll start a vexel, wait like half a year to come back to it. Lol. I’m so slow.

So here’s an update on it. [Click to enlarge]

And again…the original pick:

Gave her eye makeup a little more smokiness. :P And I gave it a watermark. Lol.
I don’t want to just leave it as is. I wanna turn it into something bigger. I’ll see. Gotta finish up the hair first. Kinda dreading it. Might even do something else with the hair.
I think my skills on vectoring/vexeling are improving a little bit.

Random »

Back in high school and when I would actually attend it, the subjects I loved were math, art, and writing. I’m not a great writer, but I’m not that bad either. I know in my blog, I have lots of punctuation errors, paragraphs errors, no indentations, and sentence fragments, but whatever. Currently, I like to use brackets as parentheses because I think they look cuter.
I didn’t make this blog to improve my writing skills. But even so, I can’t help but reread everything that I’ve typed to make sure it sounds good to me. Revising sucks. Hated that part of writing. Still though, can’t help it. I have to revise. Plus, I do want you guys to understand what I’m saying.
I feel like I’m just blabbing right now. [Editing right now.]

You want blabbing? I’ll give you blabbing.

Random thoughts in my head, due to lack of sleep »

I’m a Mac. I don’t think I’ll ever switch to a PC again.

I miss my long hair. I will never chop it off like that again. Only until I become a mom. Lol. Maybe not even then. My hair grows pretty fast, but not fast enough.

I’ve only worn makeup three times since I’ve moved down here to Florida. That was…Nov. 8th. My skin is getting a big break.

Did a little training with Cooper today. He has separation anxiety. He’s a lot better than a year ago. The BF went to pick up a vacuum cleaner and food. I took a break from vexeling. Grabbed my Nokia. Went in and outside the apartment three times. Each time increasing the amount of time I would stay out there. I googled alot about dogs with separation anxiety so I thought I try it.
First time, 30 seconds. No bark or whining.
Second time, one minute. Still no barking and whining.
Third time, I thought I’d be a bit more daring. Ten minutes! No barking or whining.
I think I could have stayed out longer, but I didn’t want to go that far. While I was waiting, I walked ninja-styled around to our patio area to peek through the window. Got him on camera for a few secs. of just laying in front of the door, waiting. Usually, he would be barking, whining, and scratching the door. So proud of him :]

I think Cooper needs a buddy.

I’m going to make biscuits and sausage gravy later. I love biscuits. Haven’t decided on making the biscuits homemade or not.

I enjoy waxing people’s eyebrows. I might have mentioned that before. I’m pretty damn good at it to. I have been told many times from men, women, and young girls, “You are so gentle.” Lol. Really? I do try to be.

I need to workout to get rid of my cellulite! Looks like I’m going to bust out with my Turbo Jam and Jackie Warner videos.

I wanna do yoga. I want to get my flexibility back. I can do the side splits right and left. Not so easily, but I can. I need to stretch more.

Geez…I’m going to be 25 in January. Weird…

I need more Havaiana flip-flops.

I haven’t sang in a long time. I mean, really sing. When I had a car, that’s where I sang the most. All out. Until I came to a red light and cars were around. I’d stop. Then I pick it back up when it’s green light. :P In community high school, the whole school [like 100ish ppl] went to the gym for a karaoke break. People would write in their requests and Mr. Rainwater would call ‘em up. We were all laughing and singing along. Then, to my surprise, he calls my name. What the heck? Who put my name in. My cousin, Sandi. I didn’t even know what song she picked out until it started playing. “I Turn To You,” by Christina Aguilera. I was gonna kill her. As I sang the song, I didn’t hear one word from the crowd. I stopped a little early, and the crowd roared. :] It was a great feeling. I never really talked in school, so it was a surprise to them. I would love to take voice lessons. I’m good, but I want to be great at singing.

blah. blah. blah…
Finally go to bed.

I cut my nails short ’cause the long was getting annoying. Specially since I’ve been cooking and baking alot. Recipes later. =P So here’s a tutorial on this look. The colors of this look kind of reminds me of a gypsy. Anywho…enjoy! =)

Cleaned my nails with alcohol. One coat of Base Coat. Two coats of a bluish seagreen polish. I used Essie in Greenport.

I painted two thin coats of an iridescent-ish purple diagonally in the center. Then a shimmery sheer teal overlapping half the purple, then bringing the it down to the rest of that side. If you click on the picture to enlarge, you’ll see what I mean. On my other hand, I did the same but mirrored it. I used Sally Hansen HD Nail Color in Cyber & China Glaze in Beauty and the Beach (LOVE this color, goes great on top of other colors).

Then I painted a dark, shimmery navy-blue curve on the side of my nails. Don’t worry about it being perfect. Just focus on getting a nice curve when you polish. I started at the middle of my nails, at my cuticles, and swerved it down the side. I used Essie in Midnight Cami.

With a brush (french brush/an old eyeshadow brush with a sharp edge), clean the sides with polish remover. Pure Acetone works faster and better. With striping paint in a similar color, I touched up the curve, making the lines cleaner and sharper.

With black striping paint, I made four diagonal lines on the corner, opposite of the blue curve. Make sure you make your lines spaced out a bit. How many lines to paint depends on how long your nails are.

Paint the equal amount of lines diagonally towards the opposite direction, overlapping the ones you just made. Like cross-hatching.

This isn’t really necessary, but I like adding depth. I like sneaking in colors, even if you can’t see it much in the end. So I painted three more lines following the black with a dark lavender purple striping paint.

With a shimmery gold/silver/white, I placed dots on where the black intersected. So where you see a square shape, you would dot the corners. I also much blue glitter over the blue curve to give it more life. Top with topcoat. I don’t have any rhinestones or pearls, but I think this look would look even better with tiny pearls instead of the dotted paint.

Hope you like it! ^_^

Was online “window” shopping. Thought I’d share what I desireee. =)
Bright navy is my current favorite color.
Along with gray (always), teal (love it), turquoise, black, red, plum (yesss), magenta, dark yellow, creme, and brown.

Four days ago I went to Cozmo, The School to sign up for beauty school. I plan on getting my cosmetology license. Yeah, I already know how to do nails (7 years of work), but I want to learn more. A cosmetology license is like having three beauty license in one: hair, nails, and skin. That’s my goal! =) I got approved for financial aid, so I’ll be starting school in December.
While I was signing papers that day, I was rocking these nails…

I love this look…and it’s very, very easy to do! I got so many compliments on these ones.
^_^

How to do:

01. File nails to desired shape. I prefer square for this look. Buff nails smooth.

02. Clean nails off with alcohol soaked cotton ball/pad. Make sure there aren’t any fuzzies from the cotton on your nails.

03. Polish on a layer of base coat. From my experience, a base coat helps protect nails from nail color stains and helps your nail color last longer. Also, if you forgot any fuzzies…you’ll catch ‘em here.

04. Polish a matte color on your nails. Two coats. For the second coat, I always paint the tips of my nails.

05. Polish a slighty wide stripe down the side of your nails, but leave a little of your bottom color showing on the side. Since I used a dark color for my base, I chose a lighter, shimmery color of the same family color (blue) for this step.

06. Within the wide stripe you just made, draw a line a shimmery gold or silver line with a nail striper down the side (nail art striping paints…you can find them at beauty supply stores, drugstores, I think Walmarts, and Meijers). Make it how ever long you want.

07. Next to the line you just made, make a longer line with a black nail striper.

08. Apply a top coat. Don’t forget to get the tips. A few days later, you can apply another layer of topcoat to boast the dullness/make your polish last longer.

Tip: The key for having your nail color last longer is to have your nails really clean before polishing. No lotions. No oils. The dryer your nails, the better. To be absolutely sure, you can apply OPI Bond-Aid or a brush of pure acetone to your nails before you apply your base coat. Make sure it’s a pure acetone. You don’t want anything that will moisturize your cuticles/nails in any way. You can moisturize after your nails & hands after your nails are dry.
Another tip for lasting nails is the application of your topcoat. I’ve seen so many people breeze through this step…even nail techs/manicurists. Make sure you paint your entire nails and nail tips.

Products I used:

Base coat: Seche Vite Crystal Clear Base Coat. (I love this brand.)
Base color: China Glaze in Bermuda Breakaway
Wide stripe color: China Glaze in Beauty and the Beach
Striping paints: In Black and Shimmery Gold
Top coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (the best!)

Note: This looks better when your nails are on the longer side.
And whenever I do nail art, I mirror the design on my other hand. So if my design is on the left side of my right hand, I’ll apply the design on the right side of my left hand.

^_^

A few nail designs I did last week. The first two are clients and the third one are my nails. =) Again, my cuticles are hit up, so excuse them. Lol. Oh yeah..and the last one are my girlfriend’s nails I did a few week ago.