Tutorial: Pied-de-poule nail art with Konad

Chickenfoot stamp nails!

I'm not attempting to cast an optical illusion to your eyes, and I haven't been smoking.

Pied-de-poule or pied-de-coq (chicken foot, or rooster foot) stamps are (usually) black and white stamps used on tissues, including haute couture trends for winter seasons. They're called like that, because they look like some drunken chicken walked all over a white tissue and created a geometric pattern, apparently. In french, because of course.

Yeah, mine are greenish-windows-98 blue. Because anarchy, that's why.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!

No, I haven't drawn all that crap in my nails finger by finger, do I actually look like someone with such patience?

Konad Nail Art Plaques

Not gonad, you immature thing. Konad. 

Maybe this is cheating. I think it's awesome. Konad Nail Art consists on a kind of nail-stamping method. Yes, you can find it on eBay. But pretty much any nail shop these days has Konad (or fake wannabe konad) kits. They cost from U$ 10 to U$ Depends-on-how-many-plaques-you-want. The normal kit comes with 1-2 plaques, the stamp tool, the plaque holder and the scraper.

But you can buy plaques and kist straight from their online shop here, too. The pink hurts my eyes, but their stuff is great.

Calm down, I'll explain everything step by step so you don't get lost.

 01) Paint nails

I tought this was pretty obvious. But after you sand your nails, kill your cuticles or simply push them, and do all the preps, pick a color that suits you best and paint your nails.

I've chosen the, as mentioned on the tiny picture subtitle above, green-blue Windows 98 color as background, AKA, Risquè's Husky color:

I apologize if my cuticles look a little butchered. The weather here made my hand's skin rather dry and for me the only way to put them back in shape is by doing my nails normally until they get used to being treated again.

02) Stamping Kit

Your nail stamping kit will have the following objects:

1-  Stamp Plaque of choice

This is  a full-nail stamp, which I've used to achieve the effect. There are plenty of images you can choose from, some are french nail, stamped french nail, any cute pic you can imagine, fleur-de-lis, flowers, retro stamps, lines, squares... You can check the models from Konad website here. There are 3 series of stamps released so far. I only have 8. Lol.

2- Plaque holder

You can live without it, yes, but, it makes much easier to use the stamps if you have it, because you gotta scrape the polish off the plaque, and if you don't have a holder, polish gets everywhere. You can use a newspaper or a plastic meat board to replace it, but it's still slippery or messy compared to simply usign the holder. Most kits already have the holder with them.

3 - Polish Scraper

You'll understand what's this for in some seconds, don't worry. But basically this removes the excess polish and allows you to actually use the stamp.

4 - The stamp tool 

It's a simple two-sided rubber stamp. This is the epitome of how clever this product kit is. The polish draw adheres to the surface and then transfers to your nail. Some kits have only the big side. The small, green bottom is used for small details like flowers and such. For the whole nail, like I'm doing on this one, you gotta use the big, pink side.

03) Stamping 101

1 - Apply the polish to the plaque

I have two favorite black nail polishes, this one - China Glaze's Liquid Leather, and Chanel's Les Vernis, Black Satin. Since I keep the Chanel out for"I won't spend this preciousness on nail art application", I went for my beloved L.L.

Here's why: You gotta apply a generous layer of the polish, covering the stamp you've chosen completely. You have to be quick with this, so it may take a couple of tries until you get the stamping right. If you're too slow, the polish will dry on the plaque - specially if it's China Glaze, they have quick dry ingredients - and you'll have to start over. 

Tip:  Always choose strong polish if you want a solid effect of the stamp. If you choose semi-transparent nail polish, the stamp will not show clearly on your nails.

02 - Scrape the excess of polish 

Take the weird thingy I've shown you before and run it over the plaque, leaving only the polish in the gaps of the stamp. Make sure to make a single, parallel and sleek move, so the stamp will be consistent. If you push it down, it's gonna be more transparent on your nail.

03 - Copy & Paste the stamp

Yeah, it's like Ctrl+C Ctrl+V, handmade:

Press the stamp tool on the plaque (see how the holder has the excess of polish on it, and the stamp is filled with black polish)

You'll get something like this:

Then, roll it over the nail, from left to right (or whatever, right to left) so you cover the whole nail with the stamp.

04 - Repeat x10

(Unless you have some missing fingers)

CLEAN UP! Every time you repeat the process so all your nails are stamped, remember to clean the stamo tool and the plaque with cotton soaked in polish remover. Otherwise, the leftover of stamp will, on the plaque, not allow another perfect copy, and on the stamp tool, will overlay the stamps you applyed to other fingers.

05 - Finishing:

There's gonna be some excess paint around your nails. Just like in the other tutorial, use a stick, metal or wooden, with a cotton rollled around it, soaked in polish remover, and wipe out the excess.

At last, apply a clear, shiny top coat, or a 100% clear polish on top of the whole deal. Otherwise the stamp will wear out. Make sure the stamp is totally dry before applying the top coat, otherwise it will blend with the clear polish.

Ta-daa!

There, your nails are done.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, geeky fashionista minions. 

Maybeon the next tutorial I'll make another mess and teach you how to make "english" nails (frenchies gone wild).

And also, before i forget, happy "I have boobs" day!

I solemnly swear I will not make a post with pink animated glittering animated gifs. But I might post something today about Women's Day.

February-March eBay blast

I know I have a problem. But hey, wouldn't it be a much bigger problem if I was paying the 100% price with taxes my country absurdly charges for the very same items?

It's almost a rainbow, it sure as hell sells unicorns and glitter. It's my WorldWideWeb treasure chest.

It's also the reason my credit card will someday jump off the window.

Because shoes.

Magic Scotch tape dispenser - Black Stiletto

I've been keeping an eye on this one since last year, but since I still had my own standard boring office tape dispenser working fine, I could find no excuse to buy it. But then my parents kidnapped my tape dispenser, and no matter how many times i bring it back to my wardrobe, it mysteriously finds his way back into their stuff. 

So I said, what the hell, I found one cheaper than most (Costed me U$ 14,00 with shipping fees). It's coming from London all the way here now. 

There are other versions available, in pink, or red mary-janes, animal-printed, blue sandals, or even some bedazzled bejeweled ones custom-made by very bored people:

This one is from Canada, and the little purse is a post-it dispenser. You can buy it here. 

There's a thousand other versions, and nto just shoe ones, they have bird-shaped, stickman shaped, and many others, just throw in "shoe tape dispenser" or "fun tape dispenser" on your search window and have fun scrolling.

Something blue

I love scarfs, and I have a LOAD of them. I'm serious, last time I counted, I had over 40 of them. The problem is 95% are made of wool, or pashmina with cashmere (try saying that out loud, very fast, 5 times), and my city has an average of 25-35 Celsius degrees (screw F

fahrenheit  I'm not gonna convert it). Whatever, It's a hot place. Last year, winter here had about 2 weeks of below 15°C and the rest wasn't cold enough to keep a jacket on all day.

So I went to this store to buy myself some shirts (I never buy, and do not recommend to buy clothes or shoes on eBay, I found out the hard way the tissues and quality are never what you expect, not to mention the fits and sizes. The only time it was successful was this medieval dress, which I should post about in the halloween this year maybe). As I'm checking out my 2 shirts out of the 20 I tried on (I hate cloth-shopping) I see this rack with beautiful light-tissue silk stamped scarfs, and It was all fine until I saw the price tags...

They wanted the equivalent of 35 dollars for a damn scarf.

My reaction?

TO EBAY, BITCHES!!!

And then i found the lovely blue+purple scarf you're looking at above, (There are other color combinations, check it out) for FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS, FREE SHIPPING.

I can only wonder, god damn it people, do you need that much money? ¬¬

Well there are plenty of scarfs under U$ 10 on eBay, go knock yourself out. 

I'll be brief on the next item since they're far more important to me than to you, but I'll still put them here for design purposes:

Mini-purse crossbody for parties

It's small enough to keep your phone, ID, money, credit card, it won't make you slap people while dancing, and it's cute as hell. Bought it cuz' my smallest bag still fits an average human head inside. Don't worry, I haven't tested.

U$ 13 + Shipping, Comes in Black, White, Pink (they call it red but it's clearly pink), Green and Light Brown. Click here to check it (I bought the black one). 

Similar bags in Brazil cost at least U$ 25.

LED Wooden alarm clock

It's been 2 weeks I've kept my laptop on for the sake of using it as an alarm clock. My cellphone no longer wakes me up, I became such a ninja on turning it off, I don't even remember disabling the alarm anymore. So because my laptop needs some sleep, I've found a new alarm clock.

I found it's design quite interesting, it's simple but cute, and it's very small. It's a 6cm³ cube, you can plug it normally to the wall, USB it to your computer or add batteries. U$ 10, free shipping, here.

You can find it in other colors, white, marble, and different shapes. You can also pick the color of the lights. I went for white lights + black wood.

TK Fine Vario Mechanichal Pencil by Faber Castell

0.3 - 0.35mm

This baby was my lost childhood. 7 years ago I brought it among my drawing stuff to the beach house. When I returned home, everything was there, except this mech. pencil.

This is the most expensive item on my purchase list this month, U$ 18,95 + Shipping. My old Pentel 0.3mm mechanichal pencil (I love this graphite for drawing because it makes very smooth sketches and very defined details), was being an old bitch. The barrel kept coming off the socket and breaking the graphite. So I decided to browse for a new one online, considering the price of brazilian drawing supplies are from double to triple price as USA or other place's prices. I accidentally found my old lost love, the TK Vario, flipped out completely and went straight for it. Should arrive in 1-2 weeks.

I've also bought 2 more items, a "Web Design For Dummies" for 5 bucks, and another mysterious item which I will dedicate a whole post about, and it's specially for the LADIES. So keep your eyes up. I'll be writing a nail art tutorial today, and tomorrow, you might just find something that will change your... *drums*

Nope, I wont tell you.

Cya all later!

Absent-minded to present-minded

You might hate me for disappearing, but you can't actually hate me, can you?

Simply bored.

Truth be told, I've been web-bored lately.

My classes in university restarted this week, which brought me to an unusual, or maybe usual state of mind.

Don't feel too stunned, i live in the southern hemisphere. This means July = my 30 day winter vacations, and November-February are my summer vacations. 

It's not quite the secret I'm addicted to, not several, but one particular game, Granado Espada. And in my last 2 posts i have talked about the server transfer and all that crazy mess. Truth be told, all i was doing on vacations was being useless and playing that game, until the boredom truck hit me.

Meet Bored Emilia. Emilia is not amused at T3Fun now. She's also not very amused about her little virtual world being so shun lately.

So I'm at a point the internet does not quite seem to distract me as much as it did. I dig up every link in my insane favorites bar (someday I'll introduce you to them, so you can finally recognize how insane I am), read new posts, and then sit here asking myself "Okay, now what?"

Dear god, entertain me or kill me, please.

I guess this is some divine-mental-subconscious sign i need to get a life. 

I've been keeping myself busy with irl warfare, chasing some internship sign up attempts, signing up for extracurricular classes and stuff. God help me, I think I'm growing up. May the heavens forbid such thing from ever becoming 100% true. 

Don't worry, you know my inner child is still safe. And properly tied up and caged, for YOUR safety.

Netherless, I hope this helpless strange feeling I've got can justify the fact I abandoned you guys for some months. I was gaming, very entertained, and since I didn't want this blog becoming a Granado Espada gaming blog, I didn't post much else. 

But I'm here and I'm back, gaming a bit less but still wanting to post as before, I have updated my literary blog, Alluar - Letters from the battlefield (linking it here in case you're way too blind to see the huge banner on the right side of the screen). 

The muses have poked my brain and I am back on writing track. Still today I will show you a few epic stuff I've found on eBay, for both gals and pals, and later a ladies-and-fabulous-divas tutorial on how to make some nail art I haven't yet decided, but I do have to do my nails tonight so i'll make something fabulous for you, my beloved pups. 

For my Granado Espada fellow players, you all know how lame the game is right now. The economy is going to hell, and all those bugs we have been waiting 3 months to get fixed still haven't been properly eliminated from the face of the virtual world, and raids suck, because the loot sucks. And why raid if the loot sucks?

Bristia Update is coming, this wednesday. This is both cool and terrible, because the bugs from recent transfer and patch are still there, and they'll update the game instead of fixing it first. So I might be active just to get the new Bristian dolls and then go back to my MIA state. 

So, I'll be back later tonight to show you what my e-shopping treasure chest has dug up this month. 

Xoxo gossip girl.

Farewell, minions!

PC Maintenance + Sword 2 Shutdown

Yeah, crap, i don't want to either, but okay.

Formatting Vaiolet

Yeah, I'm tacky, i nicknamed my laptop as 'Vaiolet', cuz duh, it's a Vaio, and it's purple.

So lady Vaiolet over here was acquired by my happy soul through a gift from my parents for getting into college. However Lady Vaiolet had not got herself cleaned up since she was bought, 731 days ago. 2 years, whatever. You computer rats out there must be saying 'omfg 2 years without formatting it must be running like a 500MB RAM computer with windows 98"

Not really but she has a lot of errors and bugs and whatsoever, so I'm sending her for a 2-day spa cleanup and format through which I'll be semi-offline. And here's to hoping that when she returns she stops making graphic bugs on my favorite Granado Espada costumes. 

Meanwhile I'll hang around pretending I still have a life, and when she returns, I'll be under Post-formatting disorder, reinstalling all my blings and readappting her to her old self. No, not her old self, that's quite what i don't want, but let's say Vaiolet Patch 2.0

For the impatient T&P readers who don't give an "f" about Sword 2/GE and my computer (you selfish noobs) I'll be back posting some awesome stuff about one of my favorite games ever after Vaiolet's resurrection  I also might nag a bit about The Hobbit movie. Brace yourselves.

GE's Doomsday

Last screenshot + Last disconnect ever on Sword 2 server.

So tonight the servers were at last closed, with the extra bonus of a big heart attack sponsored by our lovely and clumsy GamersFirst + G1-Raiden (click to read more). 

Everything is fine and now we all wait for the next Wednesday - Day 9, to complete the transfer steps and finally login to T3Fun's new server, Castilla.

If you're still quite lost about the transfer, check my previous post, "Doomsday and Fresh Starts". In the undertitle "The Transfer 101" you will find a simple tutorial and links to the forums on how to transfer your account.

Please don't panic, if you lost your e-mail access or if your G1 password has expired you can still execute the transfer, as long as you accepted the terms ingame or in G1's website. 

This is it, boys girl and undecided humans. The end of yet another era for this game. And it stays firm despite the quakes and tsunamis we're put under. I'm sure i'll stay faithful to Granado Espada, most games fail entertaining me ever since I signed up for it, 4 years ago (Almost 5 now, my account "birthday" is in April). 

My hugs and thanks to all of the G1 team, Raiden, Fynlo, Awswyin, Nutcase, the retired Neume, Volktreau and just so many more I'm sorry I don't remember all the names. Forgive me it's 7h50 AM and I had no sleep (Thanks to Raiden's sponsored heart attack and to the server closure itself). It's been great 4 years and we survived a lot (remember the Great Downtime of 2009... x.x). I'm glad I got to survive with you guys. Stay awesome as you already are. <3 Come visit us!

I won't say farewell to any players, after all YOU BITCHES WILL NOT ABANDON ME AND YOU BETTER RESPAWN SAFE WHOLE AND INSANE WITH ME ON THE NEW SERVER. I'm very very eager to play with some fellas from Orpesia and Bristia, and see some very inactive faces beign active again, from my now old dead server. 

*If you're on despair, leave a comment here and I will gladly add you to MSN or Skype or soon-to-be-both anyway. I'll help you through your transfer issues as much as I can, when I'm online again, obviously. I'll be here on one of the abandoned computers of the house but I can't assure as much presence as when I'm with my beloved Vaiolet. Remember I'm not a Gamemaster or an Ambassador, I can't perform miracles :P*

AH! Yeah, one last thing.

Happy new year, geeks, gamers, plastics, players!

Have a merry 2013 and let's hope they don't find another ancient calendar with another end-of-the-world prophecy. Please let Nostradamus stay dead already.

And remember what one of our lovely Geek leaders has said:

 If you wanna change the world, start by cleaning your god-forsaken chaotic room. - Bill gates

May the force be with you!