Monday, May 16, 2011

my first franken aka my new favorite polish!

Hey guys! Super super exciting post to share with you today, on my 4-month blogaversary!!

I was inspired by Chris from Lacquer Ware For Tips and Toes/DragonRhia Creations to make my own franken. She has since stopped blogging so her links are no longer active, but she was awesome.
She is the franken queen and is much more brave than me when it comes to pouring polishes into other polishes. Hah!


I decided to try and make something like Deborah Lippmann - Glitter In The Air.
But, me being me, I decided to make it purple.

Such a success. I'm so in love with this polish.
Ready to see it?

(click to enlarge)

Ahhhhhhhhh I love it!
I have a thing for purple and for glitter. So it is automatic win.


New favorite polish.


I'm sorry that my cuticles are a bit messy - my clean up brush literally fell apart and I need to go get a new one.

Since I'm at work right now and I'm a bit bored, I'll tell you exactly how I did it.

Step 1: Get a bottle. You can buy empty bottles from some websites or craft stores or beauty supply stores, but I don't know where to get one in my city, so I had to improvise. This means I had to empty out a bottle I already had. This was probably the hardest part! Haha.
I chose to dump out a really old yellow NYC polish that takes like 10 coats to be opaque. Even though it is crappy and I never use it and do not like yellow, I still had a hard time pouring it out. Haha.

Step 2: Clean out your bottle. It is important that you do not pour it down the drain. I poured mine into an old pill bottle. Then you pour a small amount of acetone into the bottle, and shake it up. This will clear the remaining polish out. I had to do it 2 or 3 times before it was totally clean.

Step 3: Clean the brush. I dipped mine into a small amount of acetone as I do my nail art brushes. Make sure you clean off the entire stem of the brush with a tissue or something.
The stem of the brush goes up into the handle - and polish gets up there too. I set the brush upside down and poured a tiny bit of acetone in there to dissolve the polish that was in there. I cleaned it out with a q-tip.

Now you're ready to start adding polishes!

Step 4: Choose your polishes and start adding them. It is better to add small amounts as you can always add more, but you can't take some out if you add too much!

Mine consists mostly of:


Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Invisible, an unnamed Sally Girl pink glitter (small and large glitter pieces), and Wet N Wild Party of 5 Glitters. This photo was taken before I was done adding so you can't see exactly how much I used.

I ended up using nearly all of the Sally Girl (I would have put it all in but it did not want to pour out!) and just less than half of P05G. This is what my bottle looked like before I started adding color:


I used maybe a fourth of the bottle of Invisible just to make the glitter a bit more sparse.
You have to keep shaking it to get it to mix as you add more colors.

And then I started adding white. I used China Glaze White On White because it is a bit thinner than other whites I have, so I thought it would mix better.
I don't know how much I used but it was probably around 20 drops. I added the drops 2 or 3 at a time, and shook it up to see what it looked like.
To tint it purple, I added drops of Nicole by OPI - I'm a Belieber. Around 7/8 drops.


I kept trying it out on one nail to see how opaque it was. Towards the end I was adding 2 white and 1 purple drop each time to keep the color the same but make it more opaque.

It takes 4 coats, but that's okay, because I love the depth and the glitter floating in all the layers!


Are you as in love as I am?!
Now it just needs a name! Ideas?

I might have to find some empty bottles for future frankens!

59 comments:

  1. SO pretty! You did a great job for a first time franken!

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  2. It's gorgeous!! And has so much depth! I have the same issue with finding empty bottles, I so want to franken, the other day I ordered empty bottles from Ebay, but it was only till they arrived that I saw they were empty STRIPER bottles, which wasn't said in the title of the product. And it wasn't really visible in the pic. D'OH! I feel so lame, hahah

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  3. Absolutely gorgeous! Great job!

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  4. OMG!!! It's incredibly cute!! You have to start selling it and you'll become rich :)

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  5. Beautiful!!! My plan is to buy some WnW clear polish for 69 cents and then I won't have a problem dumping it out for frankens!

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  6. OMG! I LOVE glitter in the air but this one I love even more! Great job!

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  7. OMG!!!! Rebecca This is absolutely beautiful!!!!! You did a great job and frankening! I kinda want it now. lol... You should start making and selling them I would deff buy it! You need to give it a name. I suck at frankening. You can buy empty bottles from transdesign.com.

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  8. That is FREAKING INCREDIBLE!!! The first franken I ever wanted to make was a version of Pop Tart frosting - the white frosting with round rainbow shake-y things in it? I hope that made sense. This is MUCH better. LOVE IT!!!

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  9. Yayyyyyy I'm so happy you all love it!
    And the franken queen loves it, so it must be good! hehe.

    I'll try to pick up some more supplies and mix up a couple more :)

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  10. OMG, they are so beautiful! awesome job!

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  11. It looks AMAZING! From a distance it looks dotty and awesome, and I love the glitter pieces floating in the layers. I have to try frankening!
    Hx

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  12. THIS IS AWESOME! I am going to bookmark this page so that I can give it a try later!! Love it!!

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  13. I love this! The depth of this is great!

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  14. This is seriously one of my favourite polishes I've seen in a while. I HAVE to try this!!

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  15. The glitter looks great with that color!

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  16. Great! I love it! I have that tiny bottle of Sally pink glitter too! I've been wanting to franken Glitter in the Air--I ordered a couple of glitters from NYX Girls for this purpose--I guess great minds think alike! What did you name your franken polish?

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  17. I absolutely love this! It totally reminds me of Funfetti Cupcakes for some reason. lol

    Wait! I have a name idea... "Rebecca Likes Cupcakes". It's a nod to your blog and the polish's cupcakey-goodness! ♥

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  18. Wow this is awesome! I love this!

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  19. i love this amazing for a first try!!!

    shel xx

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  20. Just went shopping for the missing ingredient to copy your recipe!!!

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  21. Oooh my gosh, that's absolutely GORGEOUS!

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  22. That's an amazing franken! I think I might make my own version of that...

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  23. This is so so so cute! I love it!

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  24. Wow this came out fabulous!!! I ave never attempted franken'ing (to scared I will end up with mud each time LOL) But maybe I will attempt this only because I love how it came out!!!!! Or maybe I'll just buy one from you hehehe

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  25. thank you thank you thank you!
    good luck to those of you trying it out!

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  26. I still can't get over how gorgeous this is...

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  27. what is this??? this is something you should do in at least 20 colors and start selling as a line! I'm in love! <3<3<3

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  28. I love this SO SO SO much and I am so going to try and make it and others like it! (If you don't mind!,I will give you credit though!!)

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  29. thank you everyone!
    sam, go ahead! show me it when you're done :)

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  30. This is so pretty and like delicious.lol

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  31. How didn't the purple nail polish color the glitter? :O

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  32. i didn't put in much colored polish at all, so it is sheer enough to let the glitter shine through. :)

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  33. This is pretty! Reminds of cake! Anyhow the two links of the blogs you posted, are not accesible cause they are exclusive and as a result I could not see what you were talking about but your franken looks amazing!!!!

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  34. ^aw, she disabled her blogs. it's okay, she just made a lot of frankens but she has since given up blogging.

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  35. I made several frankens, inspired by this post, last night. I managed to get four different ones out of one bottle of Po5G! I made a blue, yellow, green and pinky/purple. I'll blog about them soon and credit you, of course, for the amazing inspiration. Thanks bunches! :)

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  36. I failed in my attempts to dupe GitA last night, but it was so late and dark in here. Having hubby pick up more Po5 and several clear polishes today. :P Still thinking of this post when ever I see Po5! :) Thanks for the inspiration!

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  37. i look forward to seeing your attempts!! hehe

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  38. Great first franken! Check out my new blog please!!! www.cogghescorner.blogspot.com

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  39. I bookmarked this in my favorites, so I can make my own version!!! Thanks for sharing this... Yours is AWESOME!

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  40. you inspired me to make my own franken. :) I used your recipe as a guideline and added my own twist. I used WnW Po5G for the pops of glitter and Milani Disco Lights to give it that uniformed background glitter, which actually gave it a look that reminded me a little bit of Barielle Falling Star. I used SH White On and Revlon Royal as my colors and it made a dusty sky blue/grey which looks AWESOME next to all the different color/sized glitters. When my son saw it on my nails this morning, he said it reminded him of cake - which automatically made me think of you. :) So, thanks for the inspiration!! My nails and are pleased.

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  41. that's awesome kellie! thanks for sharing :)

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  42. OMG. I got it!!!! It looks awesome. I use your recipe, Thank you so much Rebecca

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  43. I hunted on the Sally website, and I believe the color you used is called 'Chunky Glitter Pink', your picture of the bottle is a tinge blurry, but it looks really really similar!

    http://www.sallybeauty.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-SA-Site/default/Product-Show?pid=SBS-812098&dwvar_SBS-812098_color=Chunky+Glitter+Pink

    (Sorry for the long link)

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  44. Yep, that's it! I totally forgot you can look up their names on the website. Thank you! :)

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  45. I just did this!! It's awesome!!! I call mine "my pretty lilac birthday... cause my birthday is actually on the 18th :) of Nov! And I will wear this then! Thanks for the tutorials!!!

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  46. Rainbow Sprinkles or Cupcake Cutie :)

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  47. This is such A CUTE COLOR!!! Glitter in the Air is by far one of my favorite polishes and you recreated in an awesome shade! Revlon came out with something similar called Popular, I'll have to swatch it soon, but I think it looks very similar to this shade! Just lovely!

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  48. I need this!!! Did you clean the inside of the empty bottle and applicator with water and soap or you just wiped it with tissue?

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