Beneath A Blossoming Tree

Happy Saturday, everyone! This post was suppose to be posted a month ago. Somehow I managed to stall such a long time and finally complete typing this post out. Hahaha! Well, I was putting off posting until I have caught up with most blog reading. Anyway, I have a few more nail art to show in days to come -- which I'm pretty excited about, haha. So yeah, anticipate those ;)

So ahem, I'll be showing you this nail art first. Which is about a month old (sorry!). These were inspired by a pattern on my Grandmother's clothes. It has been on my inspiration list for sometime now. So I'm glad to finally get them out. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the real outfit to show you. It has a lot more details. I was a little lazy so I took out some details. Hehe :P

In regards to the irregular pink patterns over the zebra patterns, I'm not too sure what it is. The cloth on my Grandmother's clothes really do have them. But they do resemble petals falling down from trees and so I imagined a scene where a zebra is seen in an open area underneath a forest of Cherry Blossoms Trees. Winds are blowing and petals were raining over the pavement and over the zebra.

Zebra patterns are not hard. I'd briefly walk you through the process. First I prep my nails with two coats of Essence Flying Higher. Using my thin brush and Sally Hansen Black Out, I drew the zebra lines in diagonal manner. Then I used my dotting tool to create the irregular petal shapes also in diagonal manner to give a breezy look. I used Etude House Blueberry as a base colour for the petals and overlay it with BYS Glitter Purple (cause this polish is sheer, but the colour was perfect). After that, I added the black rhinestones placing them with top coat, and sealed everything with Seche Vite. 

All in all, I am very happy with the results. As I don't usually fancy having animal prints on me, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I love this look on my nails. I guess the off-white shade and the pink petals added such a nice soft touch to this nail art, yet still maintaining a stylish look. At least in my opinion. :) Have you done any nail art that caught you by surprise too? 

Oh, lookie! Here's a little haul at the beginning of April. I went into this store called Mr.DIY with zero expectation. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. Just a look-see-look-see trip. But lo and behold! I found some pretty interesting stuff at such attractive pricing.

This is where I got my black rhinestones from. Haha! And yes, it originates from Cellphone sticker! I must say, among the good points of having stiletto nails is the ability to pry the rhinestones apart from the sticker sheet. It wasn't hard though. I'd imagine a light nudge from tweezers or similar tools would have done the job too. This and the pearly ones priced at MYR 3.30 each (about 558 rhinestones/half pearls). The other black sheet that I have were faceted squares (love this one very much!). That priced at MYR 2.50 per sheet, only contains about 390 pieces. Looks pretty cool. I look forward to utilize them. :)

These are the only two that are officially labeled for nails. Hahaha!! The one on the left is known as crystal beads (MYR 1.30) contains about 29 beads. But perhaps it was meant to be 30 in each pack? Anyway, the other (MYR 1.20) contains about 390 beads per pack. My Mum complained about how fake they looked. Having seen the real swarovski crystals (those AB grades) I know how far these are comparatively. However, I reason that from a far.. people hardly noticed. Unless those who specializes in crystals, they wouldn't be able to tell the real or fakes (I assume..). Besides, bead decorations like these are temporary on nails. I find it rather wasteful/pitiful to be using real swarovskis. I wouldn't mind using the real swarovskis for important occasions or really special occasions though. 

Ah! This is actually the main highlight of this haul! (Psst! I'm actually a paper maniac XD). I simply love beautiful printed papers. I used to buy so many of them that my house hardly run out of papers. I was so well stocked that no one else needed to buy papers and I'd have some to spare for projects or during those 'last minute gift wrappings'. (I'm a paper hoarder -_-lll). Not too uncontrollable considering I only hoard papers I think will be useful or really pretty or unique in my taste. I say that, but the house was clearly overloaded with papers -_-ll Because of that, I went on strictly no buy mode. And I'm happy to report I can live without hoarding more papers unnecessarily. Hahaha!!

Back on these papers, I don't wrap large gifts these days so A4 sizes are ideal. Each paper in this book is actually an A3 size. Since I'm one who's against creases in papers, I'm treating them all as A4. A book of this cost MYR8.90. Which is very worth it, in my opinion. There are a total of 24 A3 sheets and 12 variety of patterns. All florals though. Haha, I'm not complaining. :D

Since they are mostly so pretty :) 

and they'd make pretty gifts packaging :P

^_^