Category Archives: General

15 Nov

Philippine Flag Nail Art (and a plea from my heart)

Hello friends,

I mentioned in my last post that we were hunkering down for super typhoon Haiyan or Yolanda as it is locally called. Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, you have heard about the catastrophic damage that the storm has left in its wake. Those of us in Cebu City were spared the brunt of the storm but many, many others in this beautiful country were not and they are suffering unimaginably. Thousands have lost their homes. Many are literally starving and suffering dehydration as relief goods are difficult to deliver through blocked roads. Clearing roads of fallen trees and buildings and other debris takes much time and there are many people in many places that need help badly! Many people have been evacuated to Cebu City and Manila and now the government is scrambling to find housing and daily sustenance for the thousands of people with nothing left! The casualty count is getting higher and bustling cities are now in ruins. It is absolutely heart breaking.

Needless to say, with all this going on, I find it hard to bring myself to do my nails. But I decided to do these to honor the strength of the Filipino people and to raise awareness of the situation here.

Philippine Flag Nail Art

These nails were inspired by the Philippine flag. I used two coats of Caronia Tea Rose (red) and then added San San Blue Sapphire to half the nail. I added gold studs I bought at Blooming Nail Cebu. These “flag nails” could have been more detailed as I could have added stars and the sun you see in the picture of the Philippine flag (below). But, I have been busy doing other things that mean more to me and I don’t have the heart to spend much time on my nails at all lately. I hope you can still see how it is inspired by the flag. One day I will do another design inspired by our flag.

Philippine Flag
Photo Credit: Mike Gonzalez
The nail art community is jam packed with AWESOME people. Seriously, you gals have hearts of gold and I feel like I can ask you to please PLEASE consider donating some money via any organization you feel comfortable with. You can donate through the Philippine Red Cross, UNICEF or another  big organization like that. You can also donate through many smaller organizations that are doing wonderful work and are effectively and QUICKLY helping people. May I suggest the non-profit organization Lilia’s Place? I know Doug and Lisa, who run this organization, personally. They are a great couple who have huge hearts for helping others. They gave up their comfortable lives and jobs in the US and left all their family behind and have been working with street families in Cebu City for over 4 years. Now they are working to help those affected by the typhoon as well. I can assure you that they will use your money immediately to purchase relief goods and take them to those in need. Just yesterday they brought a truckload up north of Cebu and provided food and water to a village of 300 families that hadn’t had a bite to eat in 4 days (pictures on their FB page)! Can you even imagine?!? Please consider sending some money through them if you would like to fund a smaller relief effort. If you choose to donate, please include a note that the funds are for typhoon relief.
I want to assure you that every dollar counts! Just one US dollar can buy 3 pounds of rice or 3 cans of sardines or 4 liters of drinking water. Do you think you could have PB&J or ramen for dinner just once this week or drink water instead of soda or  hold of on a polish lemming for a while and send a couple (or a couple hundred) dollars to help get some food to someone in dire need? Please?
If you are in the Philippines and want to help by volunteering but don’t know where to start, please contact me via email (rdrobins84@gmail.com) and I will do my best to find a place in your area where you can help in some way.

I don’t know how often I will be able to post in the next few weeks as my priorities right now are spending my free time volunteering packing relief goods. But I will be back and I hope you will stick around. Please pray for this country as we mourn and try to pick up the pieces and help those hardest hit as much as we can. Thank you for reading all this. I’m sorry for such a heavy post but I hope you will understand.
Hugs to you all!
Rach

25 Oct

The Nailinator has been nominated for a Best Cebu Blog Award!

Howdy!

I’ve got an out of the ordinary post for you today. I don’t have any nail art to show but I need your help.

My blog was nominated for a Best Cebu Blog Award and I need votes to have a chance at winning. I figured since this is a blog award, why not ask my wonderful followers to help me out.
If you like my blog then please click on the following link and like the Facebook post with my entry.

Best Cebu Blog Awards Entry #23 Rachael Robinstein – The Nailinator

Mine is the only nail art blog and it’s considered a fashion blog. Here’s hoping it will help make nail art more main stream in Cebu. 😉 Thank you so much for your consideration and support. I hope you all have a great day!

24 Aug

What’s in a name?

Hi again!

I’m still on vacation and having a blast! 

I had posted this a while back and was surprised to notice it in my drafts. So I apologize if you are one of the 2 people who already read this before I somehow managed to click “revert to draft”.

I thought I’d take a moment to let you guys know how I came up with the name for my blog since so many people have told me they like the name. Not only does it sound cool, it also has some sentimental value. Maybe not all of you have kids but those who do have probably heard of that TV show Phineas and Ferb. Well, my hubby and son love watching that show when they can. Dr. Doofenshmirtz is the evil genius who always comes up with crazy inventions and they all have -inator at the end of them. See pic below.

So when I was trying to decide on a name for this blog I decided to go with The Nailinator. 🙂 Thanks to the men in my life for the inspiration.

Catch ya later gals! Have a great week!

01 Jul

Blooming Nail Cebu

Hello there!                                                                                                                        (Update: April 2015)

I’ve decided to come back and update this post since it still gets so many hits and inquiries.

I don’t know why, but  sometime last year, Blooming Nail decided to change their brand name to Hokee. They still operate out of LJ Cosmetics store in APM Shopping Center by SM Cebu. Their prices and inventory are the same. The only thing they’ve changed is their name.

You can find them online on Facebook and Instagram. You can order online via FB.

I’ve taken a snap shot on Google maps of their place near SM. I dropped a pin on the location of LJ Cosmetics in the shopping center.  I hope it helps those of you on the search for nail art supplies.

LJ Cosmetics Location

 

Original post starts here:

Attention nail art enthusiasts of the Philippines! (Cebu City especially!)

When I started getting into nail art I looked and looked all over this crazy city for a place that sold supplies locally and I even checked online (Multiply, FB, Cebu Classifieds, Etc.) and had no luck at all. I’ve had to order stuff from the US or China and wait for weeks for it to arrive. Not any more my dears!

I was doing my periodic check online about 3 weeks ago and happened upon a Facebook page called Blooming Nail Cebu. My jaw dropped and then I may or may not have squealed out loud and jumped up and down giddy with excitement. They have TWO stores in Cebu that are beauty supply stores that have a new selection of nail art supplies by Blooming Nail Cebu. One is in Colonnade Mall and the other is in the APM Mall near SM. The Shutterbug and I dropped by the one in APM and we had to control ourselves. I haven’t ever seen so much nail stuff in one place before! I was able to get nail glue in a brush bottle, fimo slices, water decals, stickers, polish, flocking powder, foils and most impressive of all, they had a serious collection of metal studs! Barato pa! I will be doing some reviews on the items I purchased there but I also recieved a message about a week ago from Blooming Nail Cebu asking me if they could send me some products to review as well. How could I say no? Here is what they sent me. Thank you Blooming Nail Cebu!

I received these items this week in the mail and I’m quite excited about trying them out. They sent me embossed stickers, water decals, small square studs, Swarovski crystals, foils, flocking powder, striping tape, round glitter pieces, and a new kind of stamping thing I’ve never seen before. Very nice! I hope those of you in the Philippines, especially in Cebu, will check out their FB page or better yet, drop by and see their selection in person. I know from their Facebook page that they accept wholesale orders and will ship! Enjoy!

15 Mar

The Versatile Blogger Award

Something a little out of the ordinary for you this evening.

I’m a little late in posting this as I was nominated by two lovely ladies, Eeeek! Nail Polish! and Ribbons and Ropes, back in February for The Versatile Blogger award but I was having a rough time in the health department at the time. I was so excited about the award and am finally done with my nominations and 7 facts about myself. The rules are nominate 15 blogs that are relatively new and share 7 facts about yourself. My nominations are as follows.

9 to 5 Nails
Crafty Nails
Brijits Digits
The Bubbly Brunette
Short and Sweet in Texas
Flight of Whimsy
 Nail art for fun
Adventures in Nails
Nails for All
PolishNV
Lekker Lacquer
Feeraa
Lovingly Laquered
Crazy Polishes
Fall in Nail Love

This one isn’t polish related but from what I understand this nomination can be for any new blog.

Cuttin’ it up with Amy

So now I’m supposed to share 7 interesting facts about myself. I will share some facts and let you decide for yourself if they are interesting or not. :/

1. I know how to drive but I absolutely loathe driving. It’s not easy to drive in this country and I’m thankful my husband is willing to drive us around when we need to go out.
2. My husband and I spent most of our courtship apart from each other.
3. I am a perfectionist that has an inferiority complex which makes life tough at times.
4. I’ve got two wonderful kids. A genius 4 year old boy and a personality-packed 1 1/2 year old girl. They bring me so much joy.
5. I spend most of my free time creating things. Nail art, painting, sewing, cross stitching, crafting, photography, cards and the like. I’m a very nostalgic person and I like to think I’m pretty resourceful with all the DIYs.
6.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love the decorations, the lights, the carols and everything. When we are stateside, I also LOVE the cooler weather around the holidays.
7. I haven’t posted anything about my blog on my FB or anything like that because I’m worried what some of my friends and family might think about my hobby being nail art. Yeah, everyone that knows about my fear tells me I’m crazy but I still worry. I’m working up the courage to do it. Anyway, I LOVE doing nails. It’s a lot of fun.

So that’s it! Now you know a bit more about me and you know some of the blogs that I love reading and get some inspiration from. Check them out if you have the time and show some love to all these talented ladies!

Thanks again Eeeek! and Ribbons and Ropes. I am honored. 🙂

 

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