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

Four long years

Exciting, exciting news, everyone.
As of 10pm Friday night I have FINISHED my degree!! I submitted my last assignment (but not after a LOT of tears on Friday) and study is OVER!

It is such a bizarre feeling, waking up on a weekend and not having study to do. It's going to be even more bizarre coming home from work tomorrow and realising I don't have to spend the night studying. I already feel much more relaxed. Today I don't even know what I did! I spent part of the day making frankens (and came up with a gorgeous red jelly with glitter and hexes that I love) and reading blogs.

I'm going to take advantage of this extra time by doing more complicated nail art and frankening more. I have a tonne of untinted lacquer base, polish tints, glitter, flakies and hexes to play around with and I can't wait to show you some of my creations!

To my fellow nail bloggers who still have a few weeks of uni to go: hang in there!

Em

My first Spectraflair franken

I received my Spectraflair and Colour Morphing Powders from Cathy of the fabulous More Nail Polish on Tuesday.
Let me just say that talking with Cathy about ordering these was so easy, and she shipped them the very next day. I was lucky enough to score the last lot of Colour Morphing Powders, so I was beside myself!

I started with a simple Spectrafranken which I absolutely love:


Hot, right?! I’ve called this one Hot Stuff. It was super easy to make: a whole bottle of Ulta3 Bouquet and approx. 8 tiny spoons of Spectraflair.
I love it. It is so eye catching and the rainbow is so strong.
Spectraflair is so easy to use. I’m hooked!! Even though I’m nowhere near finishing the 2 grams that I have, I want to stock up on more
It helps to start with a good base polish. This franken applied like a dream and that’s all down to Ulta3’s fabulous formula. I had minimal clean up work because it just glided on so easily.
This was two coats with a coat of Seche Vite. I had full coverage in one coat but wanted to make sure I had the maximum holo effect ;). And in case you're wondering, the Seche Vite didn’t dull the holo effect at all!

Here’s another photo to show off the gorgeous rainbow a little more:

*Happy sigh*. My life is now complete. I am so excited that I can make my own holos in any colour I want. I’m dying to make a dark green holo and I want to have a go at making a red holo.

I will hopefully get my order of 5mL nail polish bottles tomorrow, so I’ll spend the weekend Spectrafrankening up a storm (in between studying, of course!)

I hope you liked my first Spectrafranken as much as I do! Excuse me now, I’m going to go stare at my nails some more.

Em

Frankenpolish–Purple Meteor

I finally tried out my Coastal Scents silver hologram glitter powder and did some frankening.

 

I started with an old Revlon pink tinted shimmery top coat that I’ve had for a long time and added some hologram powder. Then I thought “meh, boring” and added some of an old dark purple polish and a little black. I couldn’t tell you the exact measurements, because it was a bit of an experimental one.

Anyway, I ended up with a holo polish that I love.

 

Pretty, pretty dark purple holo.

 

This is two coats, no top coat. It’s crazy pretty. Love the dark purple and holo combo! A tiny bit disappointing because the holo powder is a linear holo in the jar but doesn’t turn out linear on the nails

 

Oh well, here’s a close up of the bottle to show the pretty sparkles!

 

 

Do you like frankening?

 

Em

eBay and mummy haul!

I love it when I get more than one package in one day! I felt thoroughly spoilt when I got home from work last Thursday and found my eBay package waiting and the goodies Mum had bought for me on her trip to Melbourne

 

 

50 little pots of glitter for frankening. Wheee

 

Very fine paintbrushes for nail art and a couple of dotting tools.

 

Two plastic palettes for mixing frankenpolishes.

 

Then I ripped into the package of goodies from Mum.

 

k.k. nail polishes. These don’t have names (annoying!) but they are all beautiful colours They are only $2 each!! I wish I lived in Melbourne where I could get these Look at the beautiful gunmetal grey on the left!!!

 

Sally Hansen Cuticle Massage Cream. This stuff smells amazing and is so moisturising. And look at the awesome price Mum got it for!!!

 

It’s kind of weird looking but I promise it smells good! Nice and apricotty.

Aaaand some delicious choccies. YUM! The Milk Duds were awesome and the fudge .. oh my! There was a little bundle of Haighs Dark Chocolate Squares which were amazing too. There were two mint choc biscuit bars but, er, I had them as a pre-massage snack What?! I needed some quick fuel  

 

I loooove getting goodies in the mail

Em

First frankens

Welcome to my first frankenpolish post! First, if you’re not sure what the hell a frankenpolish, check out Dr Frankenpolish’s post on Frankenpolish 101. It will tell you everything you need to know about frankening.

On Saturday I made my very first franken, a baby pink glitter.

I mixed 2/3 of a bottle of a Colour Co pearly white shimmer with 1/4 of a bottle of a The Face Shop’s bright pink and added fine white glitter. Next time I will have photos of the nail polishes I used which went into the mix instead of just the end result. But this time I got a little overeager and forgot!!

Here’s my end result:

Sorry for the crap photo. I’m learning how to take good photos of nails!! I promise I will get better!

This franken turned out pretty good. I liked the colour, but I definitely overdid it on the glitter so it was too lumpy. God it was thick, but it actually made it really easy to apply.  I put on two coats of Orly Sec n’ Dry in the hope that it would smooth it out a bit. It did, but not enough! I’ll add some clear polish to the mix and that should thin it out a bit. I didn’t name this one because, well, it’s crap, so let’s just call it No.1.

 

My second franken went very well! I’ve completely fallen in love with jelly polishes but find them really hard to find in South Australia, let alone the desert where I currently live in a mining town 600km from the capital city of Adelaide.  So I decided to do the next best thing and create my own.

I call this one Squashed Grape.

Pardon the messy cuticles.

I love it, love it, love it!!! It’s a gorgeous purple, almost magenta (the colours are slightly pinker in this photo because of the light) which looks so squishy and cute. My first jelly!!! It was a fairly thin consistency so I had to make sure not to overload the brush when I was applying. It’s worn pretty well, only one chip on my thumb and one bald spot on the other thumb (maybe I just have weird thumbs!)

For this one I used half a bottle of Mode XOXO purple creme polish and half a bottle of some Maybelline clear top coat I had lying around. It was so, SO easy and I see many more jellies in my future.

 

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get my order of BYS polishes which I ordered off Fashion Addict. I’ve ordered 12 of them so stay tuned for some reviews on this great Aussie brand.

Em

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, Nails in the Desert. I am a 20-something year old from Adelaide currently living in the desert, well out of my comfort zone and away from friends and family. So how do I deal with this? I paint nails!

For the past six months I have been getting more and more obsessed with nail polishes. My collection of polishes is growing and I'm now starting "frankenpolishing", which is mixing my own nail polishes.

Stay tuned for a couple of my own creations, I hope you enjoy!
Em