Because it's definitely feeling like summer.

Quick post. Haven't had time for blogging lately. Apologies to my fans. Chos.

Just wanted to show you guys this summery concept nail art I came up with during a rare stretch of downtime at the office.

Hopefully I'll have time to paint this on my actual nails soon. It's been difficult to fit doing my nails in my schedule lately.*sigh*

Downtime's over now, though. Ah, well. Ain't no rest for the wicked. Hehe.

- Jix.

Wild Peach Cosmetics Palette.

I just wanted to share with you guys a little gift I got myself for my birthday last week.

Remember how I was raving about the Unii palette? I know I got some of you interested, but apparently, the online shop I got it from has closed temporarily. Plus, it is quite expensive.

If you're still looking for a customizable makeup palette, here's a really, really good alternative which is readily available locally:

This is the Wild Peach Cosmetics Palette.

Yes, I got another customizable palette. Heh.

Well, my makeup storage has gotten a bit too cramped and I could save space by depotting pans and disposing of their individual packaging. And I needed a place to store my depotted makeup, in case I wanted to switch around the contents of my Unii.

Justifications, I know.:p

Honestly, I initially just wanted to buy Wild Peach's magnetic (magnetizable?) sticker sheets to use with my Unii palette. But their palettes were such a steal, I couldn't resist. And how pretty is that turquoise damask design?!

It's the same concept as the Unii and the Z-palette -- a case with a magnetic bottom for you to stick depotted makeup pans in.

I got my Wild Peach palette for only Php 280.00. This one is the personal palette. They also have a larger version which sells for Php 550.00.

The Wild Peach palettes are made of stiff cardboard with a magnetic closure, much like the Z-palettes (but this is still cheaper than the Z-palettes). I know "cardboard" makes it sound flimsy. But when I finally got a hold of it, I was pleasantly surprised that it felt pretty solid. It may not be as hardy in comparison to the plastic of the Unii palette but this is pretty darned good. You might have to be careful when using it for travel, though, since this doesn't have a latch to secure the cover in place, just the magnet.

Wild Peach personal palettes have a mirror attached to the inside of the cover, which is nice if you plan to bring this around (the larger ones have a clear panel on the cover). It comes with a sheet of the special sticker (roughly the same size as the palette) and a little leaflet with instructions on how to depot your makeup, as well.

The size is almost exactly the same as the Unii palette. According to their product description, the dimensions are as follows:
Inner: 5.4" x 2.8" x .3"
Outer: 6.03" x 3.43" x 0.54"

It's a comfortable size for a travel palette, IMO.

The personal palette is available in several designs while the large palette is only available in black.

Image taken from Wild Peach leaflet.

Aside from the palette, I also purchased three sheets of the special Wild Peach sticker. Each 8.5"x5.5" sheet costs Php18.00. These stickers are for those pans that aren't made of ferromagnetic material.

I think it's so awesome that they're selling these, too. I was getting worried about what I would do when I use up the sticker sheet that came with the Unii palette. To my knowledge, these are not magnet sheets (since magnets may cause problems with matching polarities, thus repelling instead of sticking to each other). They're... erm... magnetizable? Ah basta, they stick to magnets. I can't tell what they're made of. Haha.

Anway, if you want to get a Wild Peach palette, you can email your order to wildpeachcosmetics@gmail.com. You can also visit the Wild Peach Cosmetics Facebook page for more details.

See what a space saver this is?

- Jix.

DIY Gift Idea: Paracord Bracelets

From my experience, it's a lot more difficult to come up with gift ideas for men than for women. So for those of you who, like myself, are struggling with gift ideas for their brothers/dads/boyfriends/husbands, especially this holiday season, here's a gift idea for the outdoorsy/adventurous men (and women) in your life: Paracord Bracelets!

A couple of paracord bracelets I made for a friend.

Paracord, also known as parachute cord, is a type of thin nylon rope that was originally used for, well, parachutes. It's composed of a outer sheath with 7 core strands and typically has a minimum breaking strength of 450 or 550 pounds. Paracord bracelets also go by the name of "survival bracelets". The cord in these bracelets are woven in such a way that one bracelet can contain around 8-14 feet or paracord, more or less, depending on the type of "weave" you use. During emergency situations, like say for broken straps, or a water rescue, or a tourniquet (okay, morbid example, I know) these can be unraveled and you have several feet of cord at your disposal.

Raw paracord with the core strands exposed.

I first heard of paracord bracelets from Dax. I think he saw it on either The Awesomer or Reddit. Now, Dax and I have this thing for giving each other bracelets (we make a lot of those embroidery thread friendship bracelets for each other). When Dax said he wanted a paracord bracelet, I really wanted to get him one, but at that time we couldn't find it in any of the outdoor or sports shops. Once again, I turned to my friend Google and I was able to look up a local online shop that sold paracord by the foot. They also sold ready-made and made-to-order paracord bracelets plus some other paracord creations. But I thought it would be nicer if the bracelet was hand-made by myself, too.

Paracord bracelets are usually woven using macrame braids/stitches. You can make it with or without a buckle. There are a whole lot of video tutorials now on YouTube so I don't think I need to post my own. I do recommend checking out TyingItAllTogether's YouTube channel for tutorials on how to do various knots and braids.

BTW, I get my paracord from The Para Shop Manila. They have quite a selection of colors, too. I made myself a hot pink and electric blue one. Hahaha.

Making my hot pink and electric blue paracord bracelet. Hihi.

Here's another one using a different kind of weave.

Made using half hitch knots.

Recently, a friend asked about Dax's bracelet and after explaining what it was, she thought it was a brilliant idea and asked me to make a couple for her to give as gifts. She says I should make a business out of it. Haha.

Of course, I highly recommend making them yourselves, especially if you're giving them to someone. It just makes it more special.:) But if you don't have the time or patience to do so, you're more than welcome to order from me. Just comment/text/email jika(dot)macachor(at)gmail.com/Facebook or Twitter message me.:)

Mine and Dax's.:)

- Jix.

XL-C Image Plate.

No, I did not free hand these nails. Hehe.

The answer to how I did that design is nail art stamping. If you're not familiar with stamping, it's a method of creating nail art where you apply nail polish to a design etched on metal plate, pick up the design with the stamper and transfer it on to your nail. You can do a Youtube or Google search for "nail stamping" if you want to learn more.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you guys this image plate (the metal plate used for stamping) I acquired recently. The XL-C image plate. It's the most be-yoo-ti-ful image plate I have ever seen. Ever. I am so in love with it. Just look at it!

See the detail on that?? The designs look Indian/Thai/batik/tribal-inspired. I'm so excited to use all of them! One of the neat things about this plate is that most of designs come with mirror images. So if you're OC with symmetry you'll have no problems with this plate. Also, some of the images have these curved bottom edges which you can use to make patterned french tips. Cool, right?

So you can better see the designs, I stamped all of them on a piece of paper and scanned it. I couldn't get the whole of the design images though. Apparently, each design is too big to fit on my stamper. That's a good thing, IMO. No worries about the design being bitin for your nails!

I got this plate from a stall at 168 Mall in Divisoria for Php 500.00. But I'm so sorry, guys, because this plate I got was the last one in the store and I wasn't able to find it in any of the other nail art stalls. I've tried looking for it online but the local online nail art shops that do sell it are out of stock, too.

If you really want it, I would suggest doing a Google search for it. But be prepared to pay international shipping fees. My plate doesn't really have a brand but I know these kinds of plates also go by the name of Cheeky XL plates. Try searching "XL C image plate" or "Cheeky XL C image plate". Good luck on the hunt! Hehe.

- Jix.

DIY Framed Accessory Holder

I used to hang my accessories using these hooks with adhesive backing because I hated poking holes in my wall. But the problem with adhesive hooks is that they would eventually lose their stickiness and fall off, never to stick again. Now my wall is scarred with ugly adhesive residue.

I needed a method of hanging my accessories that would hold up well and be able to cover the adhesive stains on the wall. So I made this:

I can't take full credit for the idea, though. I've seen similar projects on Pinterest and other blogs. I just had to figure out how to DIY it.

This was made around two weeks ago. I've already hung it up, but there was still a section of wall with adhesive residue that was still exposed. So I decided to make a smaller version to cover it up. I also documented the process so I could show you guys how I did it, in case you want to make one yourself.:)

What you'll need:

• A nice picture frame. 
• A sheet of cork. Just plain cork. Make sure it doesn't have any backing like wood or hard board or else you won't be able to cut it.
• Adhesive. I used my spray adhesive for this but I think using rubber cement or wood glue would work just as well, if not better.
• Box cutter, ruler, cutting mat, and old newspaper (to protect your work area).
• Fine gauge sandpaper

Where I bought my materials: 

• Picture frame - My original idea was to find one of those cheap, gaudy, carved, gold frames and spray paint it with a matte white. Surprisingly, those frames were hard to come by. But then I found this one. Though it's made of plastic and not quite as big as I wanted, it was exactly the look I was going for and I didn't even need to do any painting. I got this at the home section of SM Department Store. The bigger frame was, I think, Php 179.75 and the smaller one Php 129.75.

• Cork - I found the cork in the office supplies section of SM Makati Department Store for Php 64.75. It came in an approximately 12"x18" sheet and was enough for the two frames.
• The spray adhesive was something I already had from my thesis days. You can get it at National Bookstore or in hardware stores. Rubber cement and wood glue, of course, may also be found in hardware stores.

Instructions:

       1. Remove the backing and the glass from the picture frame.

       2. Trace the shape of the backing onto the cork and cut it out.

       3. See if the cork fits into the back of the frame. If not, trim it with the cutter or sand it down. If you're OC like me, you can sand the ragged edges of the cork (it usually gets ragged when you cut it) to smooth them out.

       4. You'll notice that the cork is a bit thicker than what the frame allows for so what I did was cut little notches in the corners so I could slip in the plastic tabs that held the backing in place.

       5. Apply adhesive on the flat side of the frame backing (the one without the stand and the hanger loops) and stick it on the cork.

And you're done!

I took a cue from my sister and Anj's comments on my Instagram about using earrings as pins for the cork.

I got this set of earrings from AI Online Shop for Php 18.00. I also got bigger ones for my necklaces at Php 21.00 per set. The earring posts were a bit too long, though. So I trimmed them down with a wire cutter and voila!

You can either choose to let the frame stand or hang it up on the wall. I hung mine up using these small plastic hooks with tiny nails in them. (In the photo, you can see the adhesive residue I'm trying to hide)

This is what my accessory "corner" looks like now.

I'm so happy with it! Looks so organized and pretty! Now, for rest of the room.:p

- Jix.

Personalized.

How do you guys like my new layout? Is the text readable? Hehe.

I realized last night that, without meaning to, my blog design turned out extremely similar to a plate I did for Arch 144 (Color Dynamics) back in college. Look!

Ayayay. My tastes are so predictable. Not necessarily a bad thing, I guess? At least, I'm consistent. Haha.

On a side note, that up there was the very first 3D model I created on Sketchup. I used the plate to practice. Apologies if it seems rough and kitschy. Hehe. The rendering was done by Dax, BTW, using VRay.:)

Anyway, to give credit where credit is due with regards to my layout:

• My header was created using photoshop brushes from the tropical brush set by Mel of Mels Brushes
• The wooden background was originally white. I just colorized it on Photoshop. I found the background image through a Google image search which took me to this page. I don't know who exactly to credit, though. Sorry.

I'm still trying to get the hang of designing this blog. I know it's not much, but I think I actually like the simplicity of this layout I came up with.

Blogger friends, what Twitter widget do you use? I'd like to add one to my sidebar. What other blog widgets would you recommend (i.e. Pinterest, Instagram, etc.)? Help me! I am such a n00b. Haha. Would appreciate your comments/suggestions.:)

- Jix.

Braided Nail Design Tutorial.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram have probably already seen this.

As I've said, this is my first manicure in over a month and I wanted to do a design that would 1) showcase how pretty Orly "Luxe" is, 2) be in line with the "Pink October" theme (October is breast cancer awareness month for those, like Dax, who don't know -_-) , and 3) look good on short nails (since I've been cutting my nails to the quick to get rid of any unhealthy nail asap).

So I thought, what better way to tie that all together than to do a braided nail design! Heh. See what I did there? Eh? Eh? *nudge nudge* Tie it in... Braid... Get it? Aaaanyway...

This is actually a pretty popular design, as of late. It's been making its rounds on the nail art blogosphere. I think it's because it looks intricate but is fairly easy to do and you don't need any special tools to do it. I'll show you how.

First, pick three colors. The colors that I used for my manicure were Orly "Luxe" (of course), Caress "Pleasure" and Caress "Rose Beige", pictured below.

Orly "Luxe", Caress "Pleasure", and Caress "Rose Beige"

Now, on to the design tutorial. Just use the brush that comes in your nail polish.

Braided Nail Art Design Tutorial.

See? Pretty simple, right? Just keep applying the colors in sequence. You don't need to follow the exact number of strokes I made. Then, clean the edges and apply topcoat when you're done.

BTW, please excuse my crude methods, but that's really how I do my concept and practice nail art -- on acetate.-_- Methinks I should get some of those fake nails if I want to do more of these nail tutorials. Hehe.

Just some tips for this design:

• Wait for each color to dry before applying the next color. This is the only drawback to this design -- it takes time. I would suggest doing one color on all of your nails, then do the next color, apply on all of your nails, and so forth. That way the polish will have semi-dried on the first nail by the time you move on to the next color.
• As much as possible, choose polishes that are opaque in one stroke so you don't have to go over them again before moving on to the next color. In my case, it took me a little more time to do this design since the pink colors needed two coats for opacity.
• This is just my opinion, but I think selecting one pearly or metallic color to go with two creme colors really accentuates the design. Three cremes is fine, too. But more than one "bling-y" color may be overkill. Hehe.

That's it. I hope you guys liked this. Show me if you decide do this design on your nails! And if you see any of my nail designs you'd like to learn how to do, tell me and I'll post a tutorial here.:)

- Jix.