The Matryoshka

As promised, my nails are done!
This one took me quite some hours and effort. And even some moments of wiping the nails completely clean and starting back from scratch.
After much struggling and fighting I ended up with the following look in the middle of the night...

It does need improvement; a lot of improvement. But considering the effort and precision it takes to achieve even this little much, I'm cool with the outcome for now. Not sattisfied... just cool.

It's called 'The Matryoshka' and it was inspired by a gift magnet I received in 2009 from a very dear friend of mine. A very simple gift which, to me, has a story behind it. I really value it more than I could tell.
Simply looking around in my room for inspiration my eyes fell on the magnet on the white-board and with a smile I thought "hmmm, why not?"

So here you go...'The (yet amateur) Matryoshka'.

Colors used to achieve this design: Red Hot (Jordana) as the base color on all the nails. The dots on the middle fingers were done with Creamy Fucshia (Jordana), Mellow Yellow (Jordana) and Good Luck Charm (Jordana).
First I tried to paint the face directly on the fingers...but it was too much of a manouvre. So I decided to paint them on tape, let them dry and stick them to the nails and secure them with a topcoat.
I think I didn't let them dry that well thou, since the topcoat smudged the design a bit.
Colors used for the face were Sea Shells (L.A. Colors) for the face, Brown (Jordana) for the hair, Creamy Fucshia (Jordana) for the cheeks, Red Hot (Jordana) on the lips, a little Good Luck Charm (Jordana) in the eyes and originally the nose and the rest of the eye were painted with a Black (Kiss) nail art pen. Thou that faded almost completely...

Again the whole designing was done with tootpicks and the ballpoint by the way. In two weeks I'm goint to be in Miami and I'll check on some stamping sets and dotting tools. As for now, I can roll with my creativity and some simple everyday stuff to achieve the wanted designs...

Well, this was it. Any changes, any new nails, any updates...you'll be one of the firsts to know.

As for now, I'm off.

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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Grey had more than 50 shades...haha

Last friday I had a gig as the masters of ceremony at the installation night of the local youth brigade.
An official ceremony... in front of the prime minister and other important people (just so you might get an idea of what I'm talking about)

For this event I wore a black and white pencil dress and red stilleto shoes and I wanted the face to look a little classy as well. I ended up with grey semi-smokey eyes and red lipstick...
hmmmm...classy enough!

To my personal opinion I could have done much better. But for a quick make-up done in my car using no more than the mirror in the visor...it turned out quite OK.

Only, I think I looked more mature with this look...

Here, take a look...

I used three shades of gray on the eyes. A lighter shade on the complete eye as a base color, a medium shade on the eye bone and a darker shade on the outer corners to give it a night look.
Lips are in 'Hollywood Red' (Jordana), Blush in 'Nuance' (M.A.C.)

I plan on doing my nails tonight...so you can expect another post shortly. Besides, I have yesterdays' make-up look to show you as well...
So let's say...until soon , lovebugs.

X's n'O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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Muddy Miss Leopard

I wanted to try some leopard print this time. And I wanted to test-drive the 'Beavis and Mudhead' (Catrice)..
Perfect!!!! I'll combine them...

Last night I made the first attempt which resulted into a major fail. Didn't like the color combination, detested the way the design turned out and was plain disgusting! Really, see for yourselves...

Couldn't force myself to look at that for more than 24 hours....yuck.
So as I reached home tonight I took them off and retried the whole process... Only, I used a different design and decided upon a different color combo. And THIS is what a heart-rob looks like...(even if I have to say that myself) I love it!

The base color is of course the 'Beavis and Mudhead' (Catrice). On the accent nails I used 'Pink Lilac' (Jordana) as the base color since it's soft and girly especially in combination with the brown. For the prints I used the 'Beavis and Mudhead' and accentuated with 'Little Brown Dress' (Essie). Again I used The ballpoint and toothpick to create the design. And I think it looks just lovely...don't you think?

On another note, I got a gig as the official make-up artist of the 'Bikers Life magazine'. (GASP) M-HM, Yeah boy... :D
I know the designer of the magazine personally, and she approached me this week to see if I was interested...
Well I DID get cramps, goosebumps and an accelerated heartbeat when the question was asked....but not enough to make mw not try the challenge out.
If it's something for me or not? Time will tell...
As for now, I'm in!!
So they are holding the Bikers Queen Contest soon and today the contestants had their professional photo shoot at three different locations on the island. And I was there helping with the make-up and stuff...HOW EXCITING IS THAT?
Didn't get to make-up ALL the 10 girls...some were wearing their own stuff and some...well some were a bit hard headed. The team I worked with is extremely fun, down to earth and... loud. And in spite of a very warm weather and having to travel around with a big bag of make-up I had an amazing time!

Doing make-up for yourself is of course always easier than doing the same thing for someone else. You already know the contour of your own face, you know your stronger side, your flaws and you know exactly what you want and how you want that. Having to make up someone else, and especially someone you've never before seen in your life, is an art... Finding yourself in front of a clear clean canvas with the task to create your best piece.

I did my best...if I get my hands on the pics of the girls, I'll make sure I'll show you!

As for now, this is it. I'm exhausted...it sure has been a long day...

See you soon darling.

X's n O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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'Dear Mermaid

I walked around a couple of days without having painted mý nails....and I felt NAKED!

Last night I decided to try on another look with my new polishes. This one's called 'Dear Mermaid' and it looks like this...

I'm seriously in love with my nails at the moment...seriously.
Here, I decided to include a picture of everything I used to achieve this look (minus the base and topcoat).

Base color is the Acid DC from Catrice. And on the accent nails I decided to use Cosmic from Jordana instead of the Glorious Aquarius from Essence. Difference is, the Cosmic has green glitters, which complimented the Acid DC in this case to my opinion.
The nail polish remover and the cotton swab where used for cleaning up possible mistakes around the nails of course hihi.
The stamps were made with Birds Flying High from Catrice Coolibri (Limited Edition), the BIC pen (yes just a regular ballpoint) and the wooden stick you see here. I actually filled the insides of the bigger circles with the Kiss Nail Artist pen, but it somehow faded before getting topcoated. Nevertheless...I'm happy...

...and totally dazzled!

See you in my next post darlings!

X's n' O's

Sy

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"Make-up" your mind

Hey dazzling,

hmmm it's been a while since I last did make-up posts and I have no idea why it took me so long haha...

Well here are some of the most recent looks... (note: I said "some" )

One of my b-day looks...'Damsel in the grape vine'

Combo of purple, aqua and just a dash of black

(tired and sleepy here...sorryyyy)

The other b-day look was a simple combo of blue and green...just that.

I call it, 'Peacock prance'

Are you still with me?

Hmmmm..let's see...besides the b-day looks I also have this one called 'Smoke Signals' which I wore last Friday to a mega fun sushi-night with my girls...

This is a mixture of black, beige and a copper-ish tone...

Last but surely not least (for this post) today's look. 'Sultry Rosy'

A very bright pink (looks kinda red on some of the pictures), beige, grey and white.

So there...a couple of the crazy make-up combos I tried recently. Of course I also use neutrals...I do, very often as a matter of fact. One of these days I'll take a picture of my 'everyday look'. But as for now, this is it.

Hope you enjoyed.

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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Shrimp n' Dip

About time I tried the new goodies out, right? Hell yeah..

As you can already imagine, I wanted to try them out the very night I got them. But you know, I was tired (literally dozed off with them next to me on my bed) and since I planned to go to the beach last Tuesday (and the beach is very well known for ruining nail designs) I decided to postpone the ''itch''.

Until yesterday...
I sat down with them all  in front of me again (hahaha indecisive much) and brainstormed on my very first try out with these.

And I ended up with THIS...called 'Shrimp n' Dip'

Yup, I used the Pimp My Shrimp from Catrice and topped it off with the Circus Confetti from Essence. This was my first try on the famous glitter nails technique. (So be gentle on me)
To be honest, it took me a while to get used to my fingers being so shiny (LOL) maybe I had to try just one accent nail just to get used to the bling hahaha. But this morning when I woke up I was loving them nails crazily much.

Catrice application went effortless yet again (still in loooooovveeee with their flat brush. SOOO HANDY!). Two quick covers, and I had a totally opaque and even coverage. And the Essence, for being a glitter polish, was pretty awesome too. It allowed me to play well with the glitter, not to get chunky anywhere and it has a quite workable shine itself.

So...this is the first trial with my new polishes...hope you liked it!

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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It showered...polishes

There are days when you're exhausted...I mean really really worn-out, yet you can't sleep. And today's one of those days for me. I'm (very much) sleep deprived, did a scavengers hunt basically the whole day and I'm desperatelly in need of a massage (seriously).
 But I'm also ecstatic...reason why I couldn't sleep as yet. (read: hyper-kind-of-happy...yeah with the well known silly dances.)

In one of the previous posts I told you that the 'Genius in The Bottle' (Catrice) broke in shipment and I used what was left to create 'Zebra in the Golden Sunset' before it dried. Well, my sissy in law was kind enough to send me another Genius.
And I tell you. the Genius did not travel alone...(grins widely...very widely)

I also got these other beauties...

 Acid DC

Beavis &Mud-Head (A color they actually don't make anymore)

Pimp My Shrimp

Coolibri (The blue one on the left)---> Limited Edition Babyyy :)

Essence Special Effect Topper in 'Glorious Aquarius'

 and 'Circus Confetti'

And as thou le sissy smelled that a new mascara was on my 'to buy' list...she sent me a new bottle of my favorite Maybeline mascara...c'est magnifique!!!!

Reason enough for a round of silly dance on a sore body, don't you agree?. (Actually the sleepier and more exhausted, the sillier the dance steps). I laid them side by side on the bed beside me and have been admiring them with a stupid smile on my face as if waking up with a Hollywood Hunk beside you...Patrick Dempsey? Chris Hemsworth? lol...

All came with a beeeeeeaaaauuuttttiiifffuuullll (and unique) postcard made by the man himself; my big bro, Francis Sling. (You can purchase yours too on francissling.com).

Once again, a trillion thanks sissy...love you lots! You're amazing!

Also thanks to the very down-to-earth miss J.K. who brought me the goodies...it's been a pleasure!

Gosh, look at the time!!!! Scavengers hunt continues tomorrow morning so I NEED NEED NEED to get me some beauty snooze.
But I can't wait to sport my new "jewels"...already seen some color combo's I wan't to try. But of course...you'll be updated as soon as I do.

See you around hunnies...

X's n O's

Dazzled (+ tired n' happy)

Sy

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'Rose in the Darkness'

Obviously a person can just NOT wear birthday nails forever. I took them off last Monday and did these yellow retro nails. But I didn't take any pictures of it since (sincerely) it was nothing but yellow nails and black retro-like stripes (haha).
But today I decided I wanted something else. Something a little bit more fancy!

Now, there's this sketch I made for the first time in my teens. I called it, 'Rose in the Darkness'. The whole thought behind it was to be a rose in the darkness and let your beauty shine in places where beauty lacks.
It has been one of my favorite sketches....just for that thought behind it.
So I kinda recreated it on my nails....(yeay)

It's not exactly how the sketch looks like...but it does cover the idea somehow. I hope to show you the real sketch sometime...

The base is black (Jordana)
The flowers Techno Red (Milani) & Frankly Scarlet (Revlon)
The leaves Melon Green (Santee) & Voodoo (L.A. Colors)
TOPCOAT Rapi Dry (Marion)

Yeah right...a whole potpourri of polishes hahahaha

As you might already know...no professional tools have been used to paint the flowers....I used a BIC pen...
The bottom to stamp the base on and the tip to paint the swirls in.
The leaves where done with simple toothpicks.
Hahahaha be creative!!! Why spend a lot on expensive stuff??

Hope you like it.

Dazzled,

Sy

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