Apologise for the long hiatus. My grandma got admitted to the hospital and I've been busy shuffling back and forth. She's been discharged and transferred to another place for rehab and physio. She requested for me to trim her nails for her this afternoon. This is the very first time I quietly sat with her and trimmed her nails. It definitely stirred much of my emotional feelings.

This was done on my Mum quite some time back. She requested for flowers to match her dress for a wedding dinner. This was what I came up with.

She requested for her usual "big petal flowers". I definitely still have room for improvement, but I'm glad she really liked it. Sadly, the flowers 'bled'  little when I applied the top coat. Probably didn't have the patience to wait for it to dry completely especially since this was done at 10pm.

Snowflakes on Spark de Triomphe

Mum wanted something different from what she did on her toes last Christmas. I'm quite glad she chose OPI: Spark de Triomphe cause it's my first time using it since I got it quite some time ago!

Mum requested for snowflakes as well. Since Spark de Triomphe is a rich gold shimmery colour, I did the snowflakes with black acrylic paint to bring out the contrast.

Satisfying end result! <3

Gelish: Christmas Snowflakes

Corinne, a really sweet customer of mine came over to get her nails done for Christmas! She bought pies for my family and I and even prepared a Christmas present for me. Such thoughtful customers never fail to make my day. (:

The very first time I met her, she was so fascinated by the snowflake design! I told her that it was a Christmas design that I did last year for my mum and she said that she would wait for Christmas this year to get it done.

Finally... the wait is over!

I used Gelish: After Dark for the base and sponged on white for a snowy effect. The snowflakes were drawn with white acrylic paint.

Corinne was in love with the snowflakes and requested for them on her toes as well! The base I used was OPI: Royal Navy topped with ChinaGlaze: Fairy Dust. Honestly, there is no difference whether or not you do Gelish on your toes since regular polish lasts relative long for a pedicure. Hence, I suggested doing a regular pedi for her toes.

It always feels nice to do Christmas designs in this season of giving. But I'm sure my snowflakes can be further improved. (:

Express Manicure: Swirled Roses with Mini Polka

Angelia saw my sweet roses with mini polka design on my mum's toes, she requested for the same on her fingers. She was a little worried inititally that her fingernails will not be long enough to carry the design but in the end, this design actually helped to make her fingernails appear longer!

Angelia opted for OPI's What's With The Cattitude. The roses were done using acrylic paint before lining the sides of the white with a silver striper polish.

We decided to have polka dots on the other fingers so as to leave the thumbs as the main focus for the day. Really sweet looking. <3

Cost of this manicure: $12 (including express manicure)

Swirled Roses with Mini Polka

Hello everyone! I apologise for the lack of updates. Work + studies have been really crazy. End of the year is always a killer period for teachers. Makes it much worse now that I am studying and exams are in November. Will probably be hibernating during that period. =(

Anyway, here's a design I did for my mum quite a while ago.

Realised that the picture does not do justice to the design at all! The picture is a little too dark ya? But bear with it. (:

Base colour used was Sparrow Me The Drama from the Pirates Collection. I used the big toe as an accent nail. I painted the white with OPI's Alpine Snow and lined it with Art Club's silver striper. The swirled roses were done with pink and red acrylic paint while the leaves were painted with light and dark green. I like this design on the whole! Looks very delicate and lady like. Gives a very princess-y feel! I wanted to add some rhinestones or bullion beads but mum hates those! She always says its a waste to put it on her toes as she feels very "sayang" to wash it away. hhahaha. I'd love to do this design on fingers!

Halloween is coming! Maybe I should find time to do some halloween designs. =)

On a side note, I find it very unprofessional for others in this line to promote their services at the expense of bringing others down. On the surface, they openly claim that it is for the benefit of their customers. But honestly speaking from a business perspective, they are just trying to promote more business for themselves. So selfish and unprofessional I feel..

Overdue Daisies

Some time back, I saw a design on Simply Rins and decided to use Mummy as my guinea pig! Moreover, I was dying to try OPI You Don't Know Jacques so I combined both and killed 2 birds with one stone. Hahaha.

It really is an extremely easy design and I was very satisfied with the end product! So was mummy. (:

As such, I'll be having a promotion for this design!

Going at $10 (inclusive of express mani)

Available only on 17th/24th July

Book an appointment now!

valerie.gmh@gmail.com / 94577783

Mum's first french

Sorry for the lack of updates! This time of the year is one of the busiest moments for most early childhood teachers out there. Portfolios and parent teacher's meetings were haunting me for the past week! But I'm glad everything went well and parents are very satisfied with their children's learning under my care. (:

That aside, here's a long overdue picture of my mum's first french manicure experience. I was disappointed with the french that I did for her. Partly was cause it was done at 11 in the night with bad lighting (mum's thinking of changing the lighting in the living room) and the white that I used was extremely thick! Gonna spam it with Seche's restore.

The base colour that I used was OPI's Passion - a famous base colour for french. It's a very light pinkish colour, making your nails look very natural for french manicure application. I used OPI's Alpine Snow for the tips before drawing the flower outline with black acrylic paint. Lastly, I layered it with OPI's I Juggle Men before topping the center of the flower with a pink rhinestone.

Though the french was disappointing, I absolutely loved the flower. Looks extremely elegant and perfect for weddings in fact! Would love to do this design on someone's fingers. If you're interested, do contact me at valerie.gmh@gmail.com I may give a big discount for this design since it's something I really wanna try! (:

Roses & Springtime

Miss Mary came over on Wednesday to change her nail design before going for her Genting trip today. She brought He Laoshi along too! (He laoshi's my ex-colleague who was my partner when I was teaching in my previous school. A really nice lady. (: )

I showed them my nail mags and they had a hard time deciding! Spoilt for choice. Hahha. I did He Laoshi's nails first. She picked a nail design from the magazine and I tried to replicate it. Was quite disappointed with the pictures. It doesn't do justice to the design! Looks A LOT better in real life. My Canon camera was flat, so I had to use the Olympus one.

 

He Laoshi wanted this particular shade of pink polish, so she brought it from along with her. It's from TheFaceShop, not the usual OPI range that I use. But the application was still manageable. I was quite worried at first because some of my faceshop polishes became rather streaky after a while. But it turned out well. (: On the index and ring fingers, I covered half of the nail with black acrylic paint by painting it diagonally to give a contrast with the pink. I then swirled roses with pink and white. On the middle finger, I created a half moon design before swirling roses with black and white. On the thumb and pinkie, I just swirled roses as the nails on her thumb were rather short. I painted the leaves with green acrylic paint before lining the "partitions" with my silver striper polish.

Miss Mary couldn't design what to do! She said, "Okay I choose this colour. You can do anything you want!" The colour she chose was 'Who The Shrek Are You' from OPI's Shrek Collection. It's a really nice shade of green, that is striking yet not flourescent kinda striking. A very pleasant shade of green in fact. It's one of my favourites too!

Since the polish was rather striking, I decided on drawing white flowers for her with acrylic paint before outlining it with black acrylic paint. Lastly, I added random swirls and dots to make it look more natural. I was really happy with the end product! Miss Mary showed off to He Laoshi and said, "You see! My nails longer... can draw nicer lor.." Hahaha..

They were so cute! Miss Mary suggested holding my name card and doing free advertising for me. See the gimmicks they came up with.

 

I sure had a fun time painting their nails. It was a night of laughter. That's how manicure sessions should be - light hearted and relaxed. (:

Swirl Roses

I invited my ex-colleague, who is also my mum's very close friend, Miss Mary, over to my place the other day to get her nails done. She has a really nice nail bed that's long - exactly what I need to practice nail art. Hence, she brought her OPI Polish over and I did a manicure and pedicure for her f.o.c.

I used OPI's Planks A Lot from the latest Pirate's Collection for the base, before swirling the roses with white and purple acrylic paint. I added the leaves with dark green acrylic paint before adding details with light green acrylic paint to give it more depth.

I really liked the outcome of it because it was a vast improvement as compared to the first time I tried swirling roses. Practice makes perfect eh? (:

Miss Mary has a habit of painting the exact same thing for her hands and her feet. Hence, I created a matching set for her toes. Felt bad cause boyfriend dropped by my place and was waiting for me to finish. Miss Mary was so afraid that I'd just forget about her toes. Hahaha.

Tadah! I'm happy with the end product. How about you? How would you rate the design?

Miss Mary will be coming by again on Wednesday to change her design. Stay tuned! (: