What cheers me up?

There are a few things that instantly cheers me up no matter what… and here’s my list of items that cheers me up.

1. Shopping
2. Good food/happy food (i.e. steamboat!)
3. Bubbletea (only the standard bubble milk tea from sharetea with minimum sugar please)
4. Flowers (sunflowers/gerberas would be lovely!)
5. Pretty nails.

No matter how shitty I am, so long I get myself any of the above, I’m good. Am I easy to please or what? If you are on my instagram, I guess you would see alot of #1, #2, #3. #4 are rather rare, maybe twice a year I get flowers from the husband. #2 is the most common because you can survive without any of the items above but everyday, we need to eat.. at least 1-2 meals. I normally only do 2.

As for #5, it is an indulgence for me as a mum. But its an irony, because while it is an indulgence, it is also a tiring affair… because I always do my own nails. It takes time, effort and most times, a sacrifice of sleep to be able to paint my nails. I sound like I set myself up for a torture but I cannot (1) justify the money paid to others when I have everything at home at my disposal especially when it comes to gelish nails and (2) i really really love looking at my pretty nails.

The trade -off is usually something simple and manageable, yet still pretty to look at. Here’s some of the manicures that I have done in the past months. The last manicure that I posted was in May, and that seems like a long time ago now that we are already in September. Yikes. I’m panicking each day as we inch towards the end of the year, because it feels like I haven’t accomplished much for 2014.

These are all done in gelish polish.

I super love this, but I also spent close to 3 hours to paint this because I couldn’t get the stripes on my right pinky to be perfectly straight and I just couldn’t live with anything less perfect. I got a lot of compliments for this set of polish, but actually, the design is taken off one of the pictures that I have on my pinterest nail board (follow me if you haven’t already done so!)

This last french nails with a twist is one of my favourite designs to do, because its so pretty and nice and elegant. When I did this, I had my nails cut really really short, and it was a little hard to paint because I kept paining my flesh instead, but of the 3 designs here, it is also the fastest one to achieve and my all-time favourite!

Which manicure/nail art do you like? I haven’t figured out how to do elaborate/intricate designs with gelish yet because they bleed so fast before I can cure them and some of the gelish formulas that I have are a little on the watery side, which makes control a lot harder. I don’t quite have the time to explore yet either, but I will someday. If you have a tip or two, do share it with me! Thanks in advance and come back soon!

Read about the past posts related to manicures here.