Texas Polish Haul

Oh.  Hi y'all!

I apologize for the delay in today's post.  Apparently the last few days have fallen into a black hole where the only things that exist are hot water bottles, Midol, and Downton Abbey on the DVR.  Don't judge me.  However, I promised you a haul post from my Texas trip, so I dragged my lazy fat butt up the stairs and set to work taking pics of all the pretty things that I'd already managed to put away but it's okay because it's for you and you're like family.  F'realsies.

Texas Recap!

Hey y'all!

A few of you will already know this, but Mr. Faff and I spent the last couple of weeks back in Austin, visiting my family and friends.  We returned Saturday morning, retrieved Isis, and spent the rest of the weekend unpacking and catching up on sleep, and of course, I put a little time aside to write up this post for you!

Texpat Cooking Files: Breakfast Tacos!

Hey y'all!

As luck would have it, I'm guest posting today over at MyDreamality!  Want to know how I keep my breakfast Texan even while I'm 5,000 miles from home?  Check out my recipe for breakfast tacos and the video tutorial I made!

Hope you're all having a great start to the week and the month.  I'll see ya tomorrow!

Guest Post by Yaya of MyDreamality.com

Hey y'all!

Today I have the privilege of introducing you to the only other British Tex-pat I know.  I came across My Dreamality (actually, at the time she was the Expat Frugalista, but rebrands happen as we grow and change) by odd but fortuitous coincidence in the world of beauty bloggers, and quickly fell in love with her adventurous spirit and love of beautiful things.  It's now my pleasure to introduce you to my beautiful blogger friend, Yaya.

31DC-D11 - Reversed Polarities

Hey y'all!

Today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Reversed Polarities, which confused quite a few people, apparently.  Originally I had intended to do a purple and yellow half-and-half nail with some needle dragging in concentric circles, but after Debbie explained what she meant with this prompt on a group discussion board, I had to rethink what I was doing.  The less confusing term for this look would be something like photo negative, or inverted colors, where the colors of a nail art are flipped to the opposite color.  I almost immediately thought a skyline mani would look cool with the colors inverted, and possibly because we just booked our next trip to Austin, I just had to give it a try with my hometown's skyline.

Texas Traveling Nails

Hey y'all!

Happy Friday!  I've been gearing up behind the scenes to power through the rest of the year, and hopefully to start posting to my neglected YouTube channel again on a weekly basis.  My hope is that I'll be able to do nail polish swatches and art here on the blog, and use my channel to do tutorials for polish nail art and... acrylics/gels!  Since taking my tech training, I've been gathering supplies and practicing with them so that I can hopefully start those weekly videos before the end of the year!  I'm waiting now for my gel supplies to arrive, along with a training practice hand, which I'll use for the videos since I've decided I'm rubbish at keeping my own hands in frame while I'm working on them.  In the mean time though, I've still got a lot of polish nail art to show you, and I'm starting with the nails I did last month before setting off on our trip to Texas.  I wanted something sparkly and burnt orange and white (because I'm a Longhorn, afterall), and threw these together the night before we left (in a rush because I still had to pack!).

Nail Rehab Week 2 and a Day Trip to Somerset

Hey y'all!

Don't have any nail art for you today, but I did want to give you a status report on my nails, talk a little more about how I'm rehabbing them, and also show you a few pics of a trip Mr. Faff and I took on Monday out to Somerset.

Texas Sunset nail art

Hey y'all!

I was looking through my very small "vault" and came across these nails that I was so proud of when I did them, and managed to not have time that week to post them, so I wanted to share them with you.  This look is a bit of an homage to my homesickness, because I know my friends back home are soaking up a lot of heat and some beautiful burnt orange sunsets this time of year.

Birthday haul!

Hey y'all!

Since last Friday was my birthday and I posted my vacation haul, I figured it was only appropriate to follow that up today with my birthday haul!

To start, I figure you might want to see the nails I was sporting for my birthday.  Basically I was just playing with my nail foils and created this look.  Also, sorry for the crappy dry state of my nails - it was an afterthought to actually photograph what I'd done.  However, they're shiny and festive and I don't think it was a half-bad first attempt at foil nail art.

Purple and Blue Water Marble LTNC

Hey y'all!

So today's look is actually one that I did while we were on holiday in Texas, and there's a really good reason for it - I can't watermarble in England!  I'm not sure if it's a temperature thing, or just that I have a hard time finding distilled water, or what the deal is, but I have tried it a fair few times with lots of different polishes and water types and temperatures, and it just never works out.  SO... when I saw that the Llama Nails Technique this week was water marbling, I knew I was going to have to do some serious forward planning.  These are also the last pictures of my long square nails before ThatDay(tm), so this post is a bit bittersweet for me on that note anyway, but just look how pretty!

#2014BloggerChallenge - A Day in Waco, in Pictures!

Hey y'all!

Today's post is another abnormal entry, courtesy of the #2014BloggerChallenge.  Gaby has challenged us this week to do a "Week/Day in Pictures" and since Mr. Faff and I recently returned from visiting my homeland, I thought I would share one of our days of adventure.

Essentially, this is the blogger version of "wanna see my vacation pictures?" - only I promise not to show you 14,874 shots of the same majestic tree in sunset lighting.  Seriously, I promise.

Instead, I'd like to give you a virtual tour of the day we spent in nearby Waco, Texas, which most people have only ever heard of as the home of Dr. Pepper and the place where David Koresh got bonfired, even though that wasn't actually in Waco but rather in Mount Carmel about 15 miles away, except that the news outlets decided it sounded crazier to say Waco and pronounce it wrong but anyway I am off-topic again and I apologize.

'Ikat a cold on 'oliday... LNTC - Ikat

Hey y'all!

The Faffs recently returned from a 2-week trip to Texas so I could visit family and friends and of course shop for a mess of nail art goodies, coffee, and other sundries.  Unfortunately, both of us came down pretty miserably sick at the beginning of the visit, so our vacation was definitely not what it could have or should have been.  I missed out on spending as much time with my peeps as I would've wanted, and we definitely didn't feel up to doing everything we had planned to do.  However, it's still nice to get away and of course Mommy Faff and I were happy to spend time together.  The Chibi monster also seemed happy to see me and was grateful to have someone else to play with.  He's definitely showing signs of slowing down though, and he gets exhausted very easily so we had to play in very short bursts.  The plus side of all of this is that there will be a haul post coming up very soon (if you follow me on Instagram you may have seen a rather huge nailmail picture I shared, but that didn't include my retail purchases!).  The down side is that while I managed to get 2 weeks worth of nail art up and scheduled before we left, I came back to an empty buffer again, so today's post has literally been photographed and edited today.  Whee for working on the fly!

This week's theme for the Llama Nails Techniques Challenge is Ikat - which I know very little about except that it's pronounced ee-kaht rather than eye-cat.  I'm quite sure there's a joke about Apple's newest pet product out there, but I'm still a bit too full of sinus stuff to possibly attempt more than one pun today, and the title of this post wore me plum out.  Anyway...

Why Americans call British food bland... #2014BloggerChallenge

Hey y'all!

Today I'd like to talk about food.  Not just any food, but mostly the foods that I miss terribly, because as much as I love England and its people, the food just ain't the same!  This week Gaby has challenged us with the topic of food, and I thought it was high time that I highlighted some of the things I wish I could get over here across the pond.

Happy Texas Independence Day!

Hey y'all!

Today in 1836, Texas officially adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence, and broke from Mexico to create the Republic of Texas.