Happy 2nd blog-iversary–then and now

Happy blo-giversary to me!!!

 

Today marks two years since I started blogging. I can hardly believe I’ve stuck to it this long. While I’ve been a little irregular with my posting in the past six months or so, I always come back to the blog when I’m ready

 

I wanted to take a look at how my manis have changed and improved over time.

 

This was my first mani I showed on the blog:

This was also my first EVER frankenpolish *hangs head in shame*. This was back in the days where I thought you could add just any glitter to a nail polish and it would work. So I used some craft glitter I got from the local newsagent. I tell you what, I must be ahead in the trends because this could definitely be a textured polish It was gritty and bumpy but I was proud of it because it was my first!

 

This was the first mani I showed on the blog of another brand:

I thought this was a great photo at the time. Now all I can see is messy application, zero clean up and uneven nails. I still have this polish but I haven’t used it since.

 

This was my first attempt at nail stamping:

I hadn’t quite worked out how to line up the stamps and apply a top coat without smudging. I was very proud of this at the time!!!

 

This was my first Spectrafranken, September 2011:

Now this one, I still love. I used Ulta3s Bouquet as a base colour and added Spectraflair, which I bought from Cathy at More Nail Polish. This sparked my obsession with making my own nail polish.

 

And when I learnt I could actually buy suspension base, tints, pigments etc and make my own polish from scratch, I created this, November 2011:

 

I called it Bloody Mary. It was a squishy red jelly with red micro glitter and red holo hexes. I’m pretty sure I still have this somewhere.

 

And the rest is history. Love Thy Polish was born and more pretty colours were created.

 

This is my current mani:

This is two coats of MUD Camomania with some stamping from the Pueen Love Elements plates. I love it!

I feel like I’ve come such a long way in these past two years. Sometimes I feel insecure about my manis and if they are good enough but I know in myself that I have improved 100% since the start of my blogging days.

 

Thank you so much for reading my blog
Em xxx

Custom Polish–Olive Ya!

This is a polish from when I was messing around making new colours for my Love Thy Polish line of nail polish.

I can’t decide whether I like it or not! I’ll let you guys decide…

This is Olive Ya!

Two coats. I still can’t decide if I like it. Hrmmm!!

Em

Revlon–Stonewash & Custom Polish–Party Smurf

I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect white polish for a long time now. I haven’t found it yet but this Revlon polish is pretty dang good, especially if you don’t want a stark white!


Revlon Stonewash, two coats. Formula was awesome and it’s got a slight shimmer to it. As I said, perfect if you want to avoid that “liquid paper” look on your nails.
The accent nail is a custom creation of mine that my sister in law named “Party Smurf”. Someone has been playing too much Smurfs on their Android phone

I loved this mani because it felt so clean! Sometimes it’s nice to have a simple, palate cleansing polish.

My next white to try is Ulta3 Lily White, the PRC version. I’ve heard it’s the best one coater white polish from the Aussie girls. I hope so

Em

Custom Polish–Silver Surfer

I’ve been taking a break from my custom polish line, Love Thy Polish. There has been so much drama in the polish world about ‘indie’ polish makers and it’s made me take a step back and realise the polishes I like to make (and most of the time don’t make) are generally not what the blogging community want. On the other hand, they’re not what the general public want either. They’re somewhere in the middle. They’re what I want. And I’m fine with that! I get more enjoyment out of making half a bottle of polish for myself, trying it then and there, taking photos of it and blogging it. So that’s what I’m doing at the moment.  Who knows, maybe I’ll go back to selling them and I’ll still make them by special request, but we’ll see!

 

Anywhoo, enough babble and onto the holo goodness!

This is my silver holo, Silver Surfer. Nothing fancy, just a shitetonne of Spectraflair dumped in suspension base. I realised I didn’t have a silver linear holo and was craving holo goodness! I love making holos because they always turn out beautiful

 

What do you think?
Em

Love Thy Polish–Unnamed

Good afternoon all,

I’m writing this from my sick bed. Yes, I’ve been hit with the dreaded Winter lurgy that’s been going around my small town. Unfortunately once one person you know has it, most of the town catches it. I know a lot of people who are resting up in bed right now!!

Anyway, on to the polish. This is another Love Thy Polish I created a few weeks back when I was formulating new colours. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out!

 

I haven’t named it yet because nothing has jumped out at me … any ideas?

 

Two coats. Formula was great and it was very smooth for the amount of glitter I packed into it. It’s got a peacock-y greeny blue jelly base with red and light blue glitter. Very pretty and hard to capture

 

What do you think?
Em

Love Thy Polish–Smurfin’ It Up

I’m ba-aaaack! Yes, I’ve been slack on the posting lately but my full time job contract has just come to an end and I’ll start part time work this week. I’m throwing in the towel in regards to full time work because I just can’t do it anymore! 40 hours a week at work + 6-7 massages + trying to get my custom polish business up and running means that I was one stressed out chick. I was getting loads of headaches and just basically feeling too overwhelmed to get out of bed some mornings. Anyway, enough of my babble.

I’m going to show you one of my Love Thy Polish custom nail polishes today.

This is Smurfin’ it Up, modelled by my lovely friend B:

A brilliant smurf blue shimmer, three coats. This is probably the most popular polish so far, and it doesn’t shock me. It’s such a beautiful colour!

 

Feedback is most appreciated

Em

Custom Polish–Purple Pixie

Hi all,

I hope you’re having a relaxing weekend! I thought I’d share with you today one of my newer custom polish creations for Love Thy Polish. This is Purple Pixie:

 

Indoors in my light box. Beautiful purple I love it!

 

Now for the outdoors shots:

Ah-MAZING!!! Check out those rainbows! I’m in love This was only two coats, the second done just for intensity and not coverage. I wore this for a good three days without any chips.

 

Here’s a slightly washed out photo to see those pretty rainbows a bit more:

*Drool*

 

Don’t you just love holos?! If you’re interested in buying a bottle, they are $15 each and you can leave a comment below or email me: zeedeveelgirl AT gmail DOT com.

 

Em

Custom Polish–Struttin’ Like a Peacock

Here is one of the custom polishes from my new nail polish range, Love Thy Polish.

 

This is Struttin’ Like a Peacock:

Three coats, I think this was. It’s a peacock green coloured jelly with green flitter and green hexes. Yummy

 

What do you think?

Em

Love Thy Polish custom nail polish range

So I’ve been a wee bit preoccupied lately and have been neglecting my blog. You probably haven’t noticed but I haven’t been posting as much. I’ve been working on a new project which has taken up most of my free time, and I’ve been having so much fun with it!

 

So without further ado, I give you …

I’m creating my own nail polishes and selling them! At this stage they are all hand mixed/hand poured, but I’d like to get it to the stage where I get them manufactured.

 

Here is a taste of some of the summer colours I will be releasing at the next Market Day in my town. I’m still deciding on a name for this collection. There will be a couple more polishes in this range too.

 

 

Regular/glitter/shimmers will be $12 and holos/colour morphing polishes will be $15 each.

 

I’m still working out the finer details but I just wanted to share this with you!

 

I have a Facebook page too, so please go and ‘Like’ it!

 

Thanks everyone,

Em

Custom Polish–You’re On My Turf

 Another custom polish. I seem to like the green holos at the moment, and that's just fine with me! It's been sunny and hot here so a perfect opportunity to show off the gorgeous rainbow effect that Spectraflair gives custom polishes.

Here is You're On My Turf:

Two coats. Goooorgeous mid-green holo :D Love it!



I have been so addicted to holos lately, and I love that I can make my own so easily.

Have you been mixing up any polishes lately?
Em

Custom Polish–Toxic Slime

I’ve been looking for an excuse to use more of the colour morphing pigments I bought from Cathy. I decided Christmas was a good enough excuse, so I made a Christmas-inspired polish.

 

This is Toxic Slime:

Three coats and a slight visible nail line. It’s very sheer! But a gorgeous green and the red pops in the light.

 

Here’s a blurry shot to show the gorgeous sparkle:

 

And another one, just to show the gorgeous red on the nails and in the bottle:

 

I didn’t want to cover this polish too much, so I just stamped a simple bow on each thumb:

I used Konad image plate M59. Cute Notice how in full sunlight the polish throws off more of a yellowy green colour shift. Strange! But gorgeous!

 

Hope you’re enjoying your holiday season!

Em

Custom Polish–Grass Roots

I made this custom polish the other day and I’m so pleased with it. Once again I was trying to make a dark green holo but didn’t quite get there because this colour captivated me.

 

This is “Grass Roots”

Two coats. Gorgeous, huh? I stamped “Merry Christmas” using Konad image plate M12 and the presents are Bundle Monster plate BM-205. That’s right, I managed to stamp using a Bundle Monster plate without screwing it up

 

Here’s another shot:

 

And another:

 

Ahhh pretty. I love how the blue of the rainbow pops!

 

Love it

 

Em

Custom Polish–Sparkly Vampire

Another attempt at the perfect red holo. Wow, it’s a hard one to create.

Here it is:

It looks a tad on the pink side. Gerrr. Why is it so hard to make a good red holo!? Probably because the silver in the Spectraflair lightens it.

Anyway, this is two coats. I used the Beauty World untinted lacquer base and their two red tints. It’s not as holo as much others, but still pretty gorgeous!

 

Here’s another shot:

I love this photo of the bottle with the holo “border” on it!

 

Then I tried out another of the images on my Red Angel image plates:

These image plates are gold!!! Clean, crisp images every time. Love

 

Tomorrow I’ll have the last of my new holos for you, the black one, which is as yet unnamed. Stay tuned!

Em

Custom Polish–Mad Scientist

This polish is relatively unobtrusive in the shade. It’s not a bad shade of green:

Two coats of my new custom polish, Mad Scientist.

 

It’s when you step out into the sunlight that it really screams out at you:

RAINBOWS! I SEE RAINBOWWWWWWWS!

I love it. I actually love it. I’m not sure that I’ve actually seen a green holo quite this shade. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong! It’s bright without being too in-your-face. Although, like any holo could be too in-your-face.

 

And one more for luck:

This was two coats, by the way. I was going for a darker green but stopped at this colour because I liked it so much.

 

I am just obsessed with creating my own holo polishes. It is just so easy!

 

Are you cracking out the Spectraflair and creating your own holos?

Em

Custom Polish–Freakin’ Awesome

Woooooohoooo, the first of my custom polish creations from last night! I wore this today and it had me absolutely drooling. It’s the most holo-y holo I’ve ever made.

Are you ready for this?

Here we go!

 

Isn’t that just PERFECT?! I cannot believe how strong the holo effect is. It just pops rainbows all over the place! This is two coats.

I took a photo during the creation of this so you could all see:

 

Such a professional work area, right? Well, my computer desk is my “lab” for creating polishes so there’s random crap strewn everywhere.

 

Here’s another gratuitous holo shot:

Delightful. Just delightful. Although I was aiming for a darker purple, I wouldn’t change this polish for the world!

 

Here’s a photo of my thumb, which I stamped with my new Red Angel image plates:

Wow, what a creepy thumb shot. I never knew I had such ugly thumbs! Anyway, these Red Angel plates are AMAZING! I bought them from Amazon and they got here so quickly. I was worried they were going to be like Bundle Monster, which I struggle with, but they’re not. This was a crisp, clear image which transferred well on my very first try.

YAY! They have so many awesome designs so I’m looking forward to trying them all out.

 

Next in my series of creations I will have Mad Scientist, a funky bright green holo!

Em