chocolate origin - chocolate lava cake

I realised I forgot to blog about this and since I'm quite bored now and thinking of what to post on my blog, I shall write about my chocolate lava cake craving when I came back from China. 

Welfare Ryan from my JC class wanted to organise a welcome back lunch/dinner for me but somehow most of everyone wanted it to be on mid autumn festival, so that they can all go back to hwach for the maf event. But, I didn't want to go for maf anymore, and neither did ryan, after our terrible experience last year. So, in the end, only the two of us met up for tea to eat chocolate lava cake. I got a list of recommended lava cakes from ladyironchef, and we initially wanted to go to Jewel's Artisan at Orchard Central BUT we found that it had CLOSED DOWN. Well, but even if you didn't know that, there's still one at Somerset 313 which we went to after that. 

Chocolate Origin, located at basement 3. It's quite a small cup, for $5. Top half is the molten chocolate cake, and the bottom half is vanilla ice cream. Hot and cold. Well, warm. It's quite satisfying and yummy, if you ask me. The cake melts in your mouth so that's great, and together with the ice cream, is quite a nice combination. I'd go back for more any day, although I could do with more cake and less ice cream, because I love chocolate. 

xoxo

nail art: sweet florals

Nails for this week is this sweet candylicious floral look from Chalkboard Nails. I really liked the colours and design for this so I copied that look and made a tutorial for you guys :D 

I used a soft metallic pink - it actually looks silver with a tiny hint of pink, pretty pretty - a light pink for the floral base, a darker/hot pink for the floral outline, dark mint green (instead of light mint green as used by chalkboard nails), yellow and black. 

1. So, paint your nails two or three coats of the metallic pink for the base colour. You can use a light beige, nude or light grey too. Those would be nice as well.
2. Then, use your light pink polish to make irregular circles for the flowers. Concentrate them towards the sides of your nail rather than in the center. 
3. Using your red/dark pink polish and toothpick, make some outlines for the flower. I did three strokes for the outer petals and two or three smaller strokes for the inner petals. The strokes do not need to be neat and straight, in fact, making them squiggly or irregular actually gives quite a nice look. They make your flowers look bigger and bolder. 
4. Then, using your toothpick add mint polish for the leaves. I used a darker turquoise rather than light mint green because I felt that the base colour was already quite a light and neutral colour. I like to go bold with colours.
5. Finally, add random yellow and black dots in the remaining spaces. I paired two black dots together and yellow ones were bigger but single. Use a toothpick for this step too. 

My mum finally asked me to paint this design for her. It's the first time she's wanted me to paint a design for her. I'm guessing it's because it she thinks it is more age appropriate because of the neutral base colour. I'd usually use mint green for the base when doing florals. 

xoxo

nail art: sweet bits ice cream drip nails

I've always wanted to try out this drip nail art thing because they look so fun and yummy. But they look a tad bit hard because to make it nice, you really have to know how to draw that drip part nicely. I still need a bit of practice, as you can see. 

1. I used a blue nail polish with confetti from etude house. It's part of some ice cream series I guess since the bottle is shaped like one. It's cute, but it's actually not very nice to use because the colour pigments don't spread well. Otherwise, it dries pretty fast. As for the brown, choose something dark that looks like chocolate sauce, if you are aiming for this look. Other colours are fine too. There are some pretty cool combinations if you google them. 
2. I had to do 2 - 3 coats of base colour to hide the streaking and ensure that the colour was more opaque.
3. For beginners, I suggest starting with a line of brown (I think I'm gonna call it chocolate sauce instead). It doesn't have to be straight. 
4. Then, make a circle for the bottom of the drip by dotting your brush or dotting tool. Extend the drip upwards to the tip of your nail in a thinner line. If you look closely at nicer drips, they actually have a curvature where it is starting to drip. It gives it a more realistic look. I tried to do that, but it still doesn't look as nice. I guess I'll have to find a better method of achieving the look. The curvature also applies to the drip so it sort of forms an elongated hour glass shape.

So, this nail art is really very yummy to look at. It makes me crave for ice cream every time.

nom nom

xoxo

diy: aztec tribal phone cover

I've always wanted to do aztec design for my nails, but it's quite hard to do those fine details with a nail polish brush. I knew you could use permanent marker but that is sort of cheating eh? Anyway, I was supposed to make Chen Xin a case for her future iphone 5, so I asked her what design she wanted and it was between aztec and chevron. I've seen a nice aztec design using sharpie markers here, but that required a little too many markers. I'm on a budget heh. So I bought these four colours, aqua, peach, turquoise (looks more blue to me) and plum from Times bookshop at Plaza Singapura for $1.30 each. The rest of the colours are nail polish, except for the black which is also a marker. As you can see, I used a lot of lines of varying thickness, intersected with some zig zags, triangles or circles. The patterns create a break between the solid colours and that is the trick.

I used a glossy cover but I think you're better off using a matte cover where the ink can cling on better. I'm having trouble sealing the colours. Clear nail polish makes the ink run. 

I'm trying out this studio gloss on the cover now instead. I got it from Made With Love/Papermarket for about 5 bucks, I think. It's not as bad, but the sharpie ink still smears. So the colours aren't so intense but at least it doesn't disappear. It also gives quite a cool effect, like watercolours running. It's not too bad. I only had problems with the green and blue parts, but other than that, the case still looks great. I really had to seal the case because the case is glossy so the ink doesn't stay that well. 

Lesson learnt. 

I will do one for me on a matte cover hehe

xoxo

scrap: see you soon

This is my first scrapbook layout in almost a year! I took around 3 hours to do this. 
Since this was the only photo I could get my hands on for now, I decided to scrap it. Besides, what better way is there to keep a polaroid? Although I probably would have liked to have more photos for big papers. 

I kept my layout rather simple this time. Not much dimension but still with layering. I didn't really have a design in mind when I started out. So I just chose a bunch of matching papers to work with first. I chose this yellow background from Amy Tangerine's Sketchbook collection, and then I used this piece from American Craft's Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection:

I cut out all the elements because I couldn't decide what I would use yet. So the ideas started forming once I could lay out the elements and form a rough design. I have so many things to use that I don't even remember what I have, yet I still want more. The possibilities are limitless, you see. 

I like white space, so I tend to concentrate my designs in one area.

Polaroid photo featuring rui and michelle when we met up for lunch with allison and jung at NUS. After that rui and i followed mich to orchard because she had a dental appointment there. 

oh and mich and i were wearing matching pink shorts!! but you can't really see it in the photo because there's too much exposure. 

I will definitely try to print out more photos this week to do up since I have one more week of holidays to go. I don't think I'll have time to scrapbook when term starts :(

If you'd like to know which other product I used, drop me a comment :) I do remember my stuff. 

xoxo

200,000

At one point of time, I was inspired by thenotebookdoodles to do fancy penmanship, but I guess that didn't last long. I still admire her work and I like to create my own original designs too, so I will work on that when I need to. I do appreciate pretty handwriting but I think my handwriting has gotten uglier over the years of practicing to finish papers quickly. I'd have to be patient with writing if I want to achieve pretty perfect alphabets. I bet she's quick in doing so with all the practice she's been doing. Her handwriting is almost constant! Then again, it's been quite a long time since I've held a pen. The last time was when I had to write cards for our ALP exchange mentors. Even then, it was writing in chinese and my hand ached after a paragraph of writing. oops. 

So, I did the above doodle last year, when the music video came out, although it seemed longer than that. Polaroid photo credits to flickr. So, doing random things like that also help to improve my Photoshopping skills a bit. If not for these, I don't think I'd be so familiar with photoshop today. Plus, typography is always fun. 

The Rocket Summer - 200,000


Introducing one of my favourite singers. He has a very smooth voice and he can play almost any instrument. I'm always amazed at such people. I want to be like them, but I don't think I can. I don't even commit to my piano. His songs are more contemporary christian though. Mostly. But nothing too strong. It's still a nice reminder now and then.

Hehe okay, so here's to me continuing to be crafty even as I pursue a degree in IT. 

xoxo

MEEEEECH

Went to the airport last night to send my dearest michy back to canada. We hardly had time to meet up because I was in china while she was back in singapore for summer. see, china's fault again. we only got to meet up once, together with rui, allison and jung for some chit chat. 

My mich is still crazy, retarded and the only one who hangs a thousand and one keychains on her bag (for me to play with, of course). I still remember like about two years ago, we were preparing to go for prom at her house, and playing with fake eyelashes. I'm glad to have a single eyelid friend like you, but you cheated by putting double eyelid tape, so i think mine looked a bit weird. Anyway, after prom, you were going to be whipped away to canada and I wasn't gonna see you or be able to say random nonsense with you for a long long time :( It was already sad to not be able to study in the same class with you again but then you were being shipped to canada?!!! D: </3

So, to the one who always talks crazy stuff with me during class when I'm bored and keeps me laughing everyday; feeds me when i'm hungry; lets me play with her cheshire cat and KAPIBARA; and the one with crazy soft hair @v@, i thank you and love you with all my heart <3 i miss you a whole lot and hope to see you sooner than a year!

I hope you land safely and arrive in your residence in one piece, you tiny little thang with a bunch of big heavy bags. Remember to think of me often :D 

xoxo