LastDay.

I know Halloween is long over, but I wanted to share it with you for those of you who aren’t friends with me on Facebook. Not only was it Halloween, but it was my last day working at Jasmine Nails after two years. I may have disliked my job at times [who hasn't], but I loved my work Family. :] Everyone was cool with each other. It’s hard to find a nail shop [Vietnamese owned] where everyone gets along. Everyone had each others’ back. If one person couldn’t do something like a design or whatever, someone else would do it. If someone was running late on an appointment, someone would start their client happily. We were a Team. :]
There were plenty of shops to work at [some busier, some slower], but if no one gets along, what’s the point in staying? My boss was very professional and at the same time, a loving person. I worked at a total of seven different nail salons. Seriously, this was the best shop I ever worked at.

Here are a few pictures of that day:

1 Comment / Dec 01.09 / Art & Design, Blog, Nails / by Vana

Update on the art.

Kandee Johnson The Make-up Artist
She’s so sweet.

1 Comment / Dec 01.09 / Art & Design, Blog / by Vana

MonkeyFeet

Saw a site with a guy wearing these crazy shoes. Vibram Five Fingers. The guy in the picture I saw with the crazy shoes was Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google. Lol. At first, I thought they were funky. Too funky for me to wear. But now that I visited the site and read what they’re all about, I want a few pairs!!!
See for yourself» VFF

Some pictures from their website. [Also the ones that I want] ^_^

Weird, but pretty cool.

No Comments / Nov 30.09 / Art & Design, Fashion, Shopping / by Vana

iKandee

My schedule is still wack. I woke up at 7pm last night. I was determined to break this schedule, so I stayed up all of last night, all of this morning, and now going into the evening..listening to music, watching the FoodNetwork Channel and working on a vexel of one of my favorite make-up artist, Kandee Johnson. I started reading her blogs and watching her YouTube videos in the last year. I love, love, LOVE her. Her makeup is great, and even more great is her personality. After watching so many of her videos, I would say that she’s a cute, bubbly, humble, sincere, fun, trendy, down-to-earth kind of girl. She’s an absolutely pleasure to watch. Check her out if you haven’t already!

So…my vexel of Kandee Johnson.

Here’s the original photo.

This would be the first person I did a vexel of in one sitting. Usually I take days, weeks, months to finish a vexel of a person. Why so long? I get distracted with other things and just get plain lazy to finish…or overwhelmed because I critique myself so harshly. I’m not the best at vexeling/vectoring, but I’m not bad either. I was looking at my old work on DeviartArt and said to myself, “and I thought doing THAT was hard?” Lol. It’s amazing how you see yourself improve over a few years. :]

So this vexel of Kandee took me about 8 hours to do! I know that’s pretty average. It took me longer because when I was drawing in the hair, I didn’t realize I was using a 1 pt brush until I was halfway through. Lol. Silly me. [Think the lack of sleep got to me]
I’m really proud of it. I’m starting to get the shading down a bit. I love vexeling, but I hate doing the skin. Tricky, tricky for me. I do love doing the eyes, lips, and hair [changed hers a bit]. I like how I made them turn out.
Don’t know what a vexel/vector is? Both are similar. You can google “vector vs. vexel”. In simple words, its like taking a picture of someone/something and turning it to a cartoon, almost. I’ve seen on DeviartArt where people are insanely good, that you couldn’t tell the different if it were a photograph of not. I almost feel like what’s the point if you make it so perfect? But it’s cool to see though.
Me…because I’m lazy and get frustrated with the shading of the skin, I keep a lot layers showing. :P You can’t really see here because the picture is on the small scale for a vexel. But I did it! ^_^

Here’s an animated gif of Kandee so you understand what I’m saying more.
Layers on top of layers. I grouped layers together so the gif wouldn’t take so long.

I believe this is my best work so far. :]

7 Comments / Nov 30.09 / Art & Design, Beauty | Health, Blog, Vectors/Vexels / by Vana

Finished.

Finished vexel of Natalie Portman.

No Comments / Nov 29.09 / Art & Design, Vectors/Vexels / by Vana

Insomnia.

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.

No Comments / Nov 28.09 / Art & Design, Beauty | Health, Blog, Food, Music / by Vana

Juicyyy.

This year’s Thanksgiving dinner was simplier, tastier, and juicier than last year. :] Thanks to a couple of different recipes I found on the Foodnetwork site [Ina Garten, I love her] and from random sites I searched on google. I studied the recipes and took things I liked and left out stuff I didn’t think was necessary.
Last year, the BF and I were accompanied by two dogs: Our yorkie/silky terrier, Cooper and my BF’s family vizsla/greyhound, Chloe. Since we moved to Florida, its just me, the BF, and Cooper [miss you Chloe xoxo]. Instead of roasting a whole turkey, I decided to just get a turkey breast with the bone in. I’m so glad that I did. It came out really juicy, cooked faster, and it was the perfect amount. Shoot…I would make this again on a non-holiday day!

Recipe»

turkey breast
fresh thyme leaves [about 3 tbsp]
butter [softened, about 4-6 tbsp]
all-purpose flour [2 tbsp]
dijon mustard [about 1 tbsp]
olive oil [about 1 tbsp]
salt & pepper [about 1/4 tsp each]
cayenne pepper [about 1/4 tsp]
garlic paste [chopped up 2  cloves garlic, sprinkled some salt over it, flattened it w/ the side of chef knife]
mrs. dash garlic and herb [a few dashes, I use this a lot in cooking. :P]
chicken stock [two cups]
onion [one medium size, yellow]

I got about a 4.5 pound frozen turkey breast with the bone-in. The night before…still in the package wrapping, I thawed it in a clean sink filled with cold water [you don't want to use hot/warm water, you would cook it a little]. I left it in there for 30 mins per pound. I played Assassin’s Creed 2 for two hours, then I popped it back in the refrigerator for tomorrow.

Next Day. Since I didn’t have a wire rack nor did I buy a bunch of vegetables to place the turkey on,  I grabbed some foil and made a coil out of it. I unrolled about 3 feet of foil. Rolled it up length-wise. Then rolled it in a loose spiral. Clever, clever. Got that from a random blog site.

Preheated the oven to 375°F. I removed my turkey from the frig and its packaging. I took a paper towel to dry the whole thing. Then I placed the turkey on the foil, breast side up. Then I used my fingers to separate the skin from the breast, but not completely off. Just enough to make pockets for some herbs.

For the rub, I mixed together chopped thyme leaves, garlic paste, cayenne pepper, mrs. dash, salt, pepper, 4 tbsp butter, and olive oil in a small bowl. Then I rubbed the herb mix underneath the skin, and over the entire breast. Then I cut an onion in half, then quartered the halves. Threw them in the pan surrounding the breast. Then I poured the chicken stock in.

I popped the pan in the oven. Set the timer to 90 mins. At 375°F, your bird needs to cook about 20 mins/lbs. 350°F, 30 mins/lbs. When the timer was up, I stuck my meat thermometer in the thicken part of the breast [don't touch the bone] to check internal temp. 165°F and up is good. Mine reached 180°F. Leave the thermometer in there! Don’t want the juices to run out! I transfer the bird in a huge bowl, and placed foil over it to keep it warm.

I removed the onions and poured the chicken stock with dripping in a medium sauce pan. Brought it to a bubble at medium-high, then reduced the heat to medium-low to simmer. In a small bowl, I mixed 2 tbsp of butter and flour together with a fork. I poured a little [1/4 cup] of the drippings-stock in the small bowl. Mixed very well. Then whisked [used a plastic whisk 'cause I was using a nonstick pan] in the flour mixture into the rest of the dripping-stock. Seasoned with salt and pepper. Poof…yummy gravy.

Look how juicy! I believe this is the best turkey I ever had.

I didn’t bother making fancy sides. It’s just the two of us and Cooper only get turkey. We just got scalloped potatoes and Stove Top chicken stuffing. To the stuffing, I did mix in saute some leeks and onions. I love stuffing.

Man, this year is going by so fast! I’m going to be in beauty school soon. Can’t wait to start!
Next blogs to come…
Holiday nails, my favorite products, and of course…my dream wishlist [for fun].

4 Comments / Nov 27.09 / Cooking & Baking, Food / by Vana