About Me

(Thanks to Esther for the adorable picture!)

Hello there, and welcome to my blog! My name is Allie Hartman, and I'm currently a seventeen-year-old teenager in her junior year of high school, currently living in central Illinois. This blog follows my wild and crazy adventures in the world of nail polish.

Hey, look, it's me!

I started painting my nails around mid-2012, and I haven't look back since. A few months after I discovered the magical realm of nail art, this blog was born. At the time I had around twenty bottles of nail polish, and almost no idea what I was doing. I just wanted to share something I loved with the internet, and everything grew from there.

Over a year later, I've now got a stash nearing 150 bottles of polish (tiny in comparison to what some bloggers have, I'm sure, but for a teen living off of a meager allowance with no job at the moment, I'm quite proud of it). An entire room is dedicated to my nail polish endeavors, with polish lining the desk and miscellaneous nail-related items scattered across the floor. This once-hobby has definitely developed into a full-fledged addiction!

Outside of the nail polish world, my hobbies all fit in the range of nerdy and geeky. Currently, my favorite television show is Sherlock (seriously, email me about it- I could talk about that show for hours on end without getting tired), but I'm also a huge fan of The Walking Dead (I've definitely got a stronger tolerance for bloody, gore-y things than 99.9% of the teenage girls in the world), The Office (that's what she said), and the Legend of Korra (I will gladly punch anyone who asks me "but how could you enjoy a silly kids' show?").

On an average day, you would most likely catch me playing Minecraft, baking, drinking tea, listening to music, or playing with my cats. The Minecraft addiction started mid-freshman year, and from then on it's been my top favorite form of procrastination for homework, studying, and finals. Baking is also a form of procrastination for me, but also a huge stress reliever, like painting my nails. My dad has a serious egg allergy, meaning we rarely have them in the house, leading to me learning all forms of egg-free and vegan baking. Not all of my egg-free experiments were completely edible, but I love learning to incorporate different ingredients than I'd usually use. The tea obsession started after I swore off of soda; I was dying for something tasty, but I really wanted to drink healthier, so I turned to tea. It's definitely been an awesome switch! Music is a huge stress-reliever in my life, and I am completely in love with the alternative and indie genres. If you're ever bored, try asking who my favorite singer at the moment is, and enjoy watching as I attempt to make a solid decision, and completely fail (I'll probably name ten and mutter something about how "decisions are really hard").

My two kitties are an adorable part of my life. They both love forcefully climbing their way onto my lap and work space when I'm trying to paint my nails/do homework, but they're cute enough that they get away with it. Enjoy some pictures of my sweet not-so-angelic kitties!

Here's Abraham taking a
nap where I paint my nails.

And here's Oscar, giving me the "there's no
way I'm moving, so deal with it" face.

Along with nail art, some of my more creative hobbies include drawing (it's never been my area of expertise, but I've been working on it and I've been improving a ton recently!), painting, needle felting, knitting, and my personal favorite, ceramics. I also spend what would most likely be considered an unhealthy amount of time editing and re-designing this blog (usually as a form of procrastination from studying). 

About the blog's name: Platypi (platypuses?) have always been one of my favorite animals - I still have a stuffed animal one I got when I was a toddler that I used to drag all around... well, everywhere. When thinking about blog names, I came up with "the Polished Platypus," and it really stuck for me. Not much of an interesting story behind this one!

I'll receive any questions, comments, obsessive fangirling about Sherlock, or anything else you'd like to talk to me about at polishedplatypus@gmail.com; I might go a few days without checking that email, so if you desperately need a response, shoot me a message on my Facebook page letting me know you've sent something, and I'll scoot on over to my email ASAP. I also check for comments periodically, and although I might not always get around to responding to all of them, I do read and appreciate every single one!