TTIL #19

Do It Yourself.

a few days ago my friend brought me to a street in hong kong where they sold beads and strings and small jewelry parts of all sorts. i wasn’t actually planning to purchase or make anything, but once i saw the incredible selection, my creative gears started turning.

I’ve been wanting a ring-chain-bracelet for awhile now. after seeing a few online and one at a local boutique for a whooping $500, I’ve lusted over the style for the past few months. so when i saw the intricate pieces and parts at the craft stores, i was inspired to make my own.

here are a few images that inspired me:

with a charm

 

darker look

 

more extravagant, but nonetheless still gorgeous

 

and so with the right pieces, i whipped up two DIYs that i am absolutely in love with…

Gold

 

Silver

 

and the total cost for each is less than $30hkd. whats even better is that they are made customized to my small wrists. it also makes them extra special and unique since i designed them myself. super proud*

which one do you like?

TTIL #18

furniture rearrangement.

welcoming my newly installed up and running air conditioner, I decided to do some furniture rearranging for my corner of the house, which is my room, my bed, my desk, and my couch, all in one.

it’s actually not as bad as it sounds. despite the fact that I have slept on this couch for a whole year now, I have grown to manage space efficiently and creatively. it’s forces one to think differently when the environment that you are once accustomed to alters drastically. for me it’s from having my room with a full walk in closet to this couch that’s competently sized for my height.

I wish I had a before pic of the arrangement. it’s in a much better position now since it has really opened up the area. before the couch was pushed back and against the window wall. the back panel was also pushed down, creating a much larger bed space which I never made use of. the increased depth made it difficult to access the window. also having everything jammed into a corner made the residency unwelcoming and a place for clutter to breed.

I love how it is now. I really do. it’s a fresh look 🙂

Maybelline Hyper Diamonds Eyeshadow

As promised, i said i’ll post about one of my recent purchases: Maybelline Hyper Diamonds Eyeshadow in Emerald.

GREEN!

a few days ago i passed by my local drugstore and picked this baby up . i never thought i’d wear green eyeshadow, because I’ve seen some girls give it ago and honestly, it looked pretty tacky. fearful of going down the same road, i was hesitant to make the purchase.

what changed my mind though was how beautiful the color payoff is.

swatches.

so sparkly. so purty.

as the campaign promotes, these are shadows with a heavy amount of glitter. they aren’t exactly your-everyday-go-to-work-shadows. that being said though, does not mean you cannot incorporate them into an everyday look. i would suggest putting an very natural and matte brown shade thats a few shades darker than your skin tone, and use the darkest green color and line your eyes with it. using the darkest green as your eyeliner will give your eye look a pop of color, rather than finishing it off a black eyeliner which could look heavy for a “work look”.

my fave colors out of the set are the last two on the right, particularly the olive green one. it swatches so beautifully and the color payoff is incredible. it has a lot of dimension especially with the finely milled glitter added to it.

all of the colors swatch beautifully except for the golden color thats second from the left. i feel that that one swatches more as a layering color. it doesn’t a smooth base color like the others. it does have just as much sparkle and glitter as the others though.

overall I’m very happy with the purchase, so much that I’m thinking about going back to pick up the bronze set since its on sale 😛 i recommend this line for those looking for an affordable monochromatic shadow set for parties and those big events. check check, check it out!

Lets Go Green.

GREEN!

 

Coming Sunday…

Drying Makeup Brushes

I finally made the effort to clean my brushes.

i probably should be cleaning them much more frequently, but hey, I’m lazy. haha. that explains why i have so many…so that i can rotate them XD.

many people have different ways of cleaning and drying their brushes. what i use is bobbi browns brush cleanser (my aunts, i “borrow” it haha). it does a decent job, although it takes two washes to get the foundation out of my flat top kabuki brushes since they are much more dense than the others.

what i’d like to share though is my drying method. there are various ways to dry your brushes. there are many products such as brush shapers to help with the drying and shaping process of makeup brushes.
I’m poor, so my method is much more ghetto. haha, but hey! it works!

you will need:

– clothes pin
– elastic bands

after washing my brushes, i lay them out flat on a paper towel. i try to give the brushes a tilt forward so that the water doesn’t accumulate between the hairs and the handle. i make sure i give them a good ‘shaping’ before i lay them out to dry.

don’t forget to tilt them!

after about…o i don’t know…half a day? i hang them up to dry. this way ensures that the water will drip to the ends of the hairs and evaporate. you can actually skip the previous step and go straight to this one if you wish. just make sure you lay something underneath to catch all the dripping water.

makeup brush tree.

heres a step by step on how i made the elastic and clothes pin contraption. tip*: when you chose your elastic band, be sure to choose a size that’ll stretch for the amount of brushes that you are gathering. if you have a large elastic and not enough brushes to ‘fill’ it in, they’ll slip out.

TADA! and you’re done!

all good to go.

how do  you dry your brushes?

Visitors

yes its been awhile since i wrote a post.

my family was visiting from vancouver the past few weeks and therefore i spent most of leisure time with them. even though i saw them only a few months ago during my visit to vancouver, it was still a delight to have them here with me.

since there is insufficient space at my grandmother’s place, my mom and my sister stayed at a hotel less than half a block away. when dinner time came around, they came over to join the party. it was quite a sight coming home to seven people huddling over a tiny foldout dining room table, in a less than 200 sq ft living room. sure getting close to the food was a challenge and there weren’t enough seats for everyone, but i absolutely loved the scene. growing up, i wasn’t exposed to the best family situation. it wasn’t until this past year that i realized how important family is and how much i enjoy being with those that unconditionally love me. Experiencing this heartwarming ‘kodak’ moment has left an imprint in my heart. its ones of those memories that i will replay, to remind myself of what family means.

my family also made the effort to have lunch with me during my work hours during their visit. i was overwhelmed with joy when i saw that even my grandma travelled farther than she usually is comfortable with, just to have lunch with me.

i loved having my sister around the most. we are five years apart but somehow get along just fine (probably shows how immature i am for my age..haha). we did a bit of shopping when she was here, i took her up for a hike to The Peak and also brought her to indulge a list of awesome hong kong food places that I’ve accumulated over the past year. without question, it was difficult to watch her leave. i semi begged her to take me with her to vancouver lol.

speaking of vancouver, its almost my one year anniversary since my departure from there. time really flies. i will probably write about a post for it in a few days…