Word of the Week: Hematite

OK, so I picked this word partially because I thought it sounded like a funny word.  I really had NO IDEA what it meant, only that I'd heard it mentioned in relation to jewelry.  Pitiful, I know.  My status as a novice charm bracelet-making diva could not be more apparent.  Anyway, here goes.......

HEMATITE is a mineral, colored black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish brown, or red.  It is mined as the main ore of iron.  It is harder than pure iron, but much more brittle. The name HEMATITE originates from the Greek word for blood, haima. When crushed, HEMATITE will turn water red.

USES: Beyond its use as ore, jewelers appreciate its shiny luster for creating engravings, cameos, cabochons (see my post dated October 3, 2009, Word of the Week: "Cabochon" ) beads and imitation diamonds. HEMATITE'S popularity in the jewelry world was at its highest in Europe during the Victorian era, and has since seen a strong resurgence in North America, especially in the western United States. 

Last but not least, apparently HEMATITE is also known for it's "mystical" properties.  It is said that wearing it will bring about favorable outcomes of petitions and lawsuits, and that it should be considered de rigeur for all attorneys. Oh well, I guess I missed the boat on that one in my other life as a lawyer.  LOL.  Live and learn. 

Time to go make some jewelry.  Ciao.

"When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."

- Joseph Campbell

Color Club Decals

Today just an easy and fast manicure using Color Club decals from Black and White collection.
How cute are those?
As you know, i am not a decal person, but those just touched my heart :)
I wore this manicure for 3 days, and nothing happened to the decals!!! It also was very easy to apply it using the orange stick, and i loved that you don't even have to press hard for them to stick completely.

CANDY CANE NAILS

These are fimo clay candy canes that I purchased from oaktreedollshouseminiatures.com


One these nails I added sequins into the acrylic and painted on snowflakes.

On these nails I did a fade and added fimo clay snowmen on the ring fingers from kennickkreations.com. I also painted on snowflakes.

More one stroke nails

Here are some more of my recent manicures made with acrylic paints.
Please let me know how do you think i could improve those designs in terms of colors and composition. Please tell what do you like and don't like, i really want to hear some critics
Garden Rose

Aqua Flower - for some reason those paints are not showing up well on pictures, so i played with brightens to intensify the colors

Some of my First 3D Nail Art Creations

First of all I want to say that I hope everyone had a blessed holiday. I have many things to be thankful for this year. Today is my birthday and I am very excited about the year to come! I can't wait to see what's in store.

Now, I want to share some of the 3D nail art designs that I have been inspired to do so far. Below are pictures of my first nail art designs.


The first design is purple with clear rhinestones in assorted shapes and colors. This is the first design I attempted with nail art decorations. Honestly speaking its not one of my favorites but I learned what doesn't look good. This design taught me a lesson, so I'm not ashamed to show my bad work also. I'm definitely not a professional I just love nail art and I like doing it myself. I got all of these decorations from Michael's and you can usually find rhinestones and crystals there easily. They are a little bit more expensive than other places I get decorations but those places are online, and after shipping charges its just better to get them from Michael's.






This design is a french manicure in black with pink pearls and bows. I did the original video to show it as 2 variations of one style. For this nail art design I used hot pink 2mm pearls and and pearl bows. I got these decorations from Ebay. This design looked much better in person, its a shame the pictures really don't do it justice.




The next design I did for Halloween in a Goth style. For this nail art design I painted my nails red and covered them with black Tulle fabric. Again, I did different variation on each nail except the forefinger and pinky. The decorations that I used for this design were roses, rhinestones, and bows. I also got these decorations from Ebay. The effect that I was going for was a fishnet stocking look. I think it came across well and this is one of my favorites...so far.

Goldy Stamp over black

Hello dear readers!
hope each of you had a wonderful thanksgiving , and great "Black Friday" (i personally past on that this year).
Quick and easy stamp manicure today - i used 24K from China Glaze Khrom collection for stamping. It is not working as good as other CG khromes, but turned out quite well on black polish. Not really visible over dark blue or all lighter ones.
I am still in search for perfect gold polish that will work with stamping.

Sweet X'mas

colorful polka dots

(mix crystals and pearls all different colors)

mini crystals

crystal leopard

its my own nails. very simple pink design

crystals seashell bling bling!

Back in Black: multi-strand pearl and wire-wrapped crystal necklace

Back in Black

I finished another multi-strand necklace tonight that I'm loving -- it's the result of self-imposed jewelry challenge number two. I wanted to create something just right for a holiday party I'll be attending next weekend.  Since the plan is to wear black, I thought I'd mix and match black pearls, white pearls and wire-wrapped smoky crystal beads.  Last but not least, an inherited vintage silver multi-strand bracelet became a beautiful add-on to balance out the piece.  I really do love it.  Can't wait for that party.... 

Hope today's holiday was a grate(ful) one for you!

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'Thank you,' that would be enough."

- German philosopher Meister Eckhart   

The beauty of dimension

I am a huge fan of nail art and have been for many years. Recently I was introduced to Japanese 3d nail art and have become enthralled by it. I have grown to love the texture and how just one gem, rhinestone, flower or other embellishment can transform a simple nail design into something magnificent.

When I first saw 3d nail art designs I was amazed at how elegant they were and I had to have my nails done that way! It was a must. I went into my favorite nail salon and inquired if they offered this service and was told it would be "very expensive" as in addition to the cost of decorations, I would also be charged $20 an hour for the nail technician's time. Honestly I don't think they even had any nail art decorations. Were I live there are many nail salons and they all do is acrylic, gel, tips, hair removal and nail art with paint. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one shop that was prepared to do my nails the way I wanted.

This left me no choice but to do it myself. ;) My love for the internet has taught me over the years that vast amounts of knowledge are accessible. So I started my learning adventure into the world of 3D nail art and I have become completely adsorbed! I have been continuously doing designs on my own nails for the past 5-6 months and I must say I love how my skills are coming along.

I have learned a lot of amazing techniques from other great nail art lovers who are kind enough to share their art with the world. I had quite a time trying to find decorations and they were so helpful and inspiring. The contests they have on their youtube pages are so fun and engaging! So I decided I would like to share mine as well and hopefully inspire others to try this fabulous form of art. I also hope that I can help find all the tools needed to make your own fantastic 3D nail art creations!

You have to check it out! FREE ZOYA POLISHES!

Awesome "Black Friday" even from Zoya - ZOYA GREEN FRIDAY


"It's just our way of sending some green back to you!"

While other retailers taking all your green, let Zoya give you some FREE green!

Spend $20 or more and recieve 6 of our favorite greens for FREE*.

That's right, Zoya Tangy - Zoya Envy - Zoya Midori - Zoya Irene- Zoya Suvi - Zoya Veruschka all 6 for FREE on Zoya Green Friday Only with any purchase of $20 or more at http://www.zoya.com/
Code will activate on Thanksgiving (11/26/09) at 5 PM (EST). So you will have plenty of time to gobble your turkey and then gobble up our great greens too (who needs football anyway). Code will expire on Friday (11/27/09) at 5 PM (EST).
CODE: GREENFRIDAY

Evening Snowfall

Hello Dear Readers!
Today i am publishing manicure that i actually have on my nails right now, i really like how ti turned out - especially the cute little star gem from Pretty Shiny art kit that i reviewed yesterday.
The base color is Zoya "Demi" and the glitter is by China Glaze - such a brand Alliance :)
I wonder if you, guys going to be checking out blog on holidays or not? Would you like me to keep posting?

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

These are acrylic nails. I used white tips and art glitter in blue boy. It is a very subtle glittery blue. So pretty for winter. I added clay snowmen with a blue background to look like a snowglobe on the ring fingers. I painted shimmery blue and silver snowflakes with a migi nail art pen from miginailart.com on all of the fingers.

The snowflakes on these nails are fimo clay from kennickkreations.com.

On these nails I made a 3D snowman on the ring fingers. First I added 3 small white balls of acrylic for the body. Then I used my migi nail art pens to paint eyes, buttons, a carrot nose, stick arms, a scarf, and a hat.


On these nails I added fimo clay candy trees on the ring fingers from kennickkreations.com.

new beaded jewelry - earrings 133

This beaded earrings are mae with 8mm, 6mm, plastic beads, seed beads, 5mm jump rings, 10mm crystal plastic beads. Do you like them? If you like them please leave a comments.

Color Club - Pretty Shiny Hollidays

Hello Dear Nail-Art Lovers.
Today i have a product review post. Color Club sent me new collection "Pretty Shiny Things" by Art Club - which is a total sparkle of the upcoming holidays. I was so excited about this collection, and i have been waiting for this release since August ,and finally i got a chance to put my hands on it. What to say - I am in love!!! Again as many times before Color Club made exceptional job with this shiny and glamorous art kit.
The kit includes 3 strippers - gold, silver and cooper, Gold and silvers swirled beads and a gems carousel. I would especially say a word about sparkly gold stripper - because this is the best gold stripper i have ever owned - it is structures and very sparkly, very opaque - and does not look yellow on nails as most of the gold strippers do.

The gems and beads are super cool - very very sparkly and look truly gold and silver. Swireled beads are very original, and carousel gems are a "must have" - i dreamed of metalick rhinestones like this for year.

The quality of gems is truly exceptional, i am again super impressed. The beading are very light weight which allow really easy application in terms of locating and picking it up, it looks for me like made of some elastic not very hard plastic. This material is a huge advantage compare to cheap, not professional products, because it makes the gem stick perfectly to the nail, following its curve. The gems are also very thin, does not "grow" up from the nail. I tried to show it on this picture - see, swirles are not tall at all, wich is also a very cool thing

Lacy french is made using stamps and Gold Stripper from "Pretty Shiny Things" nail-art Kit


Here more pictures of the gems. I think that cooper color is very fresh , original and cool looking .

Also some words of the decal included in the kit - you ll get 2 sheets - gold and silver decals .
I am not a big fan of the decals, in fact use it very rare, almost enther. But those really touched my heart, especially silvers, it is so cool looking that i lol probably wear it for the thanksgiving. I also think that decals can be a good idea for pedicure, not much work at all, look nice and stay on place for really long time.
I paired deacal with Color Club Cristmas collection polishes - marriage made on heaven :) Pics are a little too light - but teh result is really very nice and professionaly looking.
I am so in love with this Gold and Silver kit - its like all my gem dreams finally came true.
I ll post more designs with those fabulpouse gems in my next posts, so stay tuned .

JAMIR SEBASTIAN E. ESPIRITU

hi there, I just wanna share the pix of my new born baby....
JAMIR SEBASTIAN E. ESPIRITU he was born on November 14, 2009 at 8:12 am in Isaac Cathalina Medical Center..

I'm so blessed because he is very cute and healthy... thank GOD...