Flowers

Twinsie Tuesday - Inspired by Your Hometown

9:00:00 AM

Press Sample
Good morning polished peeps!  Going to be a fast post today because I'm writing this right now at almost 1am with a half completed manicure.  I need to get better at editing the photos then right after writing the post right after I'm done doing so.  I probably won't change and will still procrastinate until the bitter end, but what can you do?

Today is Tuesday meaning it is again Twinsie Tuesday!  Today we are creating manicures inspired by our hometown.  Now, I'm kind of a private person when it comes to this blog.   I haven't really stated where I'm from because the internet can be a kind of a huge place and I'm never sure who is reading this blog.  So for today's post, I'm kind of remaining anonymous and not sharing where I'm exactly from, other than I'm in the United States.

Where I am located, Spring is finally arriving.  The leaves on the trees are peeking out, the crocuses and daffodils have bloomed, the tulips are on their way, and the grass is turning greener by the second.  After the long Winter we had, despite this being a cold Spring, I am welcoming it with open arms.  I don't even care that it's going to rain today, it's better than snow.

For today's manicure, I decided to do something very Spring-y.  That of course, flowers with pastel colors!  I also used my newest obsession, the OPI Matte Top Coat that I used last week.  I told you I was going to go matte crazy.  

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Mary Kay - Lemon Parfait
  • OPI - You're Such a Budapest
  • Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art - Purple Violet
  • Sinful Colors - Pistache
  • Zoya - Hunter
  • OPI - Matte Top Coat
There is nothing that I love more than a floral manicure such as this one.  Roses are one of my go-to favorite floral designs.  I think I've gone rose happy in the past few months on this blog after a huge hiatus for about a year.  I don't know why I stopped, but now I just cannot get enough.

I cannot get enough of the base color for this manicure.  Lemon Parfait by Mary Kay was another polish that my friend provided me for review as she is a consultant for the brand.  I think I love this color better than Carefree Coral, and that's saying a lot since I am not a yellow person.  I just never think it looks right on my nails.  This polish is a perfect pastel lemon-y yellow which is truly a cream polish.  It kind of dries with a semi-glossy semi-matte finish.  It was a bit patchy with two coats, so I added a third to even things out.  You could get away with two coats if you did one thin followed by a thicker second coat.



While Out the Door was not used as the final top coat for this manicure, I did use it to first seal in my design before adding the matte top coat.  This tip was provided to me by some of the lovely ladies of The Beauty Buffs a few weeks ago when I was shopping around for matte polishes.  I never asked specifically why these ladies put on a glossy topper before the matte, but I think I figured out why on my own.  Do you see how smooth the design looks?  The first coat of the glossy top coat evened out any uneven bumps I had from doing the art, then the matte went over it and literally created one even surface.  My nails almost looked like I was wearing appliques.

Speaking of Beauty Buffs, this would have been the perfect yellow manicure for last weeks theme.

What do you think?  Liking the roses?  Fan of the yellow base with the purple flowers?

As always, don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra

Well I guess I lied about the whole short post thing lol.

Until next time, <3

**Some products in this post were provided for review, please see my disclosure policy**

Animal Mani

Guest Post for Manicured Monkey

9:00:00 AM

Good morning polished peeps!  Hope you all are well!  Today I have a guest post for you all over at The Manicured Monkey!  I couldn't be more excited to post over at Kristin's blog!  Back in 2012, when I was just starting out with this little blog, she highlighted my blog and did a little interview with me.  Kristin is an awesome person who has supported me and my little blog since the beginning, and I couldn't be more grateful!


For today's guest post, I came up with a cute monkey manicure since she is the Manicured Monkey!  Please head on over to her blog see the full post with more pictures!

Until next time, <3.

Tape Mani

Striped Nail Art with Mary Kay Carefree Coral

9:00:00 AM

Sample
Hi polished world!  How are you all on this fine day?  I'm sorry that I missed yesterday's Beauty Buffs post.   I'm still bummed, but what can you do.  I sure hope that you checked out all the other lovely ladies posts.  I promise to be back in two weeks!

Today's post is one that I have been wanting to share for awhile, but Easter week kind of came and took over.  A friend of mine is a Mary Kay consultant and asked me to review the Mary Kay polishes for her.  She wants to be able to give her clients the most honest opinion regarding the product, and since she doesn't know much about polishes, she asked me!  I'm pretty sure she also asked me because she knows that I'm very honest and if I hated something, I would flat out tell her and my followers.

The first of the two polishes she gave me to review is Carefree Coral, which as you can tell from it's name is a coral polish.  After seeing this tutorial on Pinterest I fell in love with the color combo.  I figured that this would be a perfect time to re-create the look, but with a different tape design since I was kind of lazy when I went to paint.  I'll recreate that exact design eventually.

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Mary Kay - Carefree Coral
  • Orly - Gumdrop
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
Such a fun color combo!  Carefree Coral is a tad brighter in person than what I could capture on my camera.  I really need to figure out what's going on with that thing.  Thank goodness Spring is here and the weather is getting better because I can start photographing outside again and burn my lightbox.

Started getting off topic there....Carefree Coral.  Love this polish.  It applied evenly in two coats, but for this manicure I used three.  While it is a cream polish, it applied very much so like a crelly (cream jelly mixture).  On it's own, it was so shiny and honestly didn't look like it needed a top coat at all.  It was really impressive.  I added a top coat of INM Out the Door to my left hand for the pictures, but on my right hand (which is my dominant hand) I did not because I wanted to test the durability of the polish.  Both hands wore exactly the same.  After 3 days I had some tip wear, and a very tiny chip on my right hand pinkie finger.  For a polish without a top coat, to me that's pretty decent, especially since I'm super rough and my job consists of a lot of typing.

The polish bottle is a tad small, so I was expecting a tiny brush.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that the brush was a hybrid between the OPI and Zoya brush.  Not too big and not too little...just perfect.  I like those slightly bigger brushes because I can get my polish to apply perfectly.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Zoya brushes but they can be a tad too small.



I love the design.  Something different for me.  I'm kind of annoyed that my thumb nail black stripes were thinner than my ring finger.  Don't laugh, but my thumb kind of reminded me of a pattern you would see on underpants.  Or a cute bathing suit.  I'll go with bathing suit over underpants.

As always, I love Orly Gumdrop.  I think it paired perfectly with the coral polish.

What do you think of the design?  Have you ever used a Mary Kay polish?

If you would like to purchase a bottle for yourself, click here!  The polish is $9.50.  Anne is super nice so if you have any questions about other Mary Kay products, do not hesitate to ask her!  She will help you with whatever you need!

Until next time, <3.

**Some polishes in this post were provided for review. Please see my disclosure policy**

The Beauty Buffs

8:00:00 AM

Hi polished world.  How are you all today?  I'm kind of upset because I sadly do not have a post for this week's Beauty Buffs post.  Between Easter and work, I have had no time to create one.  I did have the most perfect manicure planned, and if I had three more days, I could have done it.  I do apologize and promise to be back in two weeks posting with this lovely group of ladies!  


This week The Beauty Buffs are posting about everything yellow!  I can't wait to see what all the posts contain and hope that you check them out!


An InLinkz Link-up

Until next time, <3.

Matte Mani

Twinsie Tuesday - Matte and Gloss Combo

9:00:00 AM

Good morning polished world!  How are you today?  I'm doing well.  Yesterday the weather was gorgeous and I was finally able to clean out the inside of my car.  Love doing that annual car Spring cleaning, especially since all Winter I rarely clean the inside due to the cold temperatures.  Now I feel like I have a new car again.  And of course, I got the cleaning done just in time for another cold front to move in.  Oh well, I'm happy.

Today is Tuesday, meaning yet another Twinsie Tuesday!  I had a minor panic attack over today's post because I didn't have anything planned ahead of time like I usually do.  With Easter week on the blog last week, I kind of got delayed with my other posts.  It's going to be kind of crazy for me, but I'll get through it.

The Twinsie Tuesday theme for this week is matte and glossy combo looks.  I've never done a combo look before so I was rather excited to finally create one.  Only problem, my matte top coat really wasn't my favorite.  I bought forever ago a bottle of NYC Matte Me Crazy, which I loved, but it always gets goopy halfway through and it takes a long time to dry.  I needed something new.  I asked the lovely Beauty Buffs what their favorite matte top coats were and majority of them responded with the OPI Matte top coat.  So on Friday I went to my local Sally Beauty and snagged the last bottle.

For today's manicure, I copied The Polishaholic's matte/glossy quilted nails.  I loved Jen's design back in 2012 and still constantly look at it with the intent of re-creating.  Now, I finally got the chance!  Let's take a look!




Colors Used:
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
  • Sinful Colors - Charmed
  • INM - Out the Door (Shiny Top Coat)
  • OPI - Matte Top Coat

 So loving this look and all the polishes used with it.  Orly Liquid Vinyl is my favorite black polish ever.  It applies smoothly and evenly in two coats.  If you really wanted to, you could get away with one, but sometimes when I apply a base it's a tad streaky.  Even though some things can be a one coater, I never do one coat.

When my black base was dry, I topped all my nails with INM Out the Door.  When I started blogging, I didn't own a fast dry top coat.  I asked around and found that many girls loved SecheVite and Out the Door.  I went out to my local beauty store and found bottles of both.  I first picked up SecheVite but saw that pesky cancer warning on the back and decided to put it down.  For as much top coat as I go through, I don't want to be exposing myself to nasty chemicals that much.  I then picked up the bottle of Out the Door, which is a tad cheaper than SV, and doesn't contain the chemicals.  I gave it a whirl, and never have looked back.  I love the stuff.  For me, it dries fast and doesn't smudge my nail art.  I love it so much that I buy the big 73ml bottle.

So my nails were super glossy and pretty, so it was time to add my quilted design.  On all my nails, I applied 6 pieces of nail art tape creating the quilted pattern.  For my matte nails, I did two quick coats of OPI Matte top coat.  Holy crow, this stuff is AMAZING!  I removed the tape and literally two minutes later the matte top coat was dried with a perfect finish.  I have not one single complaint and now am going to be doing many matte designs in the near future.


For my glitter nail, I used Sinful Colors Charmed.  This polish is so so so pretty.  It is a very fine silver glitter with pink, green, and blues mixed throughout.  It kind of reminds me of a extremely shredded version of a rainbow glitter.  My camera couldn't capture the colors how I wanted to, but trust me, it's an amazing polish.  I did two thin coats then removed the tape and added a quick top coat of INM Out the Door.

Almost had an uh oh, when I was applying my OTD to my glitter nail, I almost started to apply it to my matte nails!  I would have been so upset because I'm super happy with my tape design this time around.  I don't know how I did it, but almost all my nails look identical.  That never happens to me when I do tape mani's!

What do you think?  Like this matte/glossy combo?

Don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra

Until next time, <3.

Easter

Happy Easter!

9:00:00 AM

Happy Easter polished world!  For those of you who celebrate, are your nails Easter ready?  I hope to have given some of you inspiration over the past week with my designs/tutorials!  Of course, you know my nails are all decked out!

Last year my final Easter manicure incorporated the true meaning of the holiday, and I wanted this year to be no different.  If it weren't for Christ dying for our sins and rising with the promise to come again, there would be no reason to celebrate this holiday.  I am a Christian who is truly grateful for what Jesus did for us.

Let's take a look at my manicure, which is a tad similar to last years!  Of course, I incorporated some modern Easter-y things as well!  I need to figure out why my camera hates me lately.




I'm kind of lazy and don't feel like writing out all the colors that I used for this manicure.  If you want to know, please comment and I shall tell you!  I started off though with a base of white and sponged on blue to green gradient.  It was rather gorgeous and I may have to use the color combo again in the near future.  Once my gradient was dried, I began creating the different designs.

For my cross nail, I created the design using a nail art brush and Zoya Louise.  Once it was dried, I used a white polish to create the draping cloth.  The eggs and flowers were done using dotting tools and striper brushes.  When all the designs were dried, I used a green polish with barely any paint on the brush and painted the tips to look like grass.  Sadly it covered my light green gradient, but I love the grassy look.


I'm somewhat happy with how they turned out.  My floral nails didn't turn out exactly how I wanted them to.  I really like my egg and cross nails though.  I like how this year's cross is thicker than last years.

What do you think?

To all those who celebrate, I hope you have a Blessed and Happy Easter!  Enjoy your day with family and friends and try to not forget the true meaning of the holiday!!!!

<3 <3 Until next time, <3.

Easter

Easter Bunny Nail Art Tutorial with Sally Hansen

9:00:00 AM

Press Sample
Good morning polished peeps!  Did you see yesterday's Easter Bunny nail art?  If you did read it, then you know today's post is dedicated to how you can get the look for yourself using polishes that you can purchase at your local drug store.  For my actual manicure, I used Orly Instant Artist polishes which only can be purchased on Orly's website or on Amazon.  If you want to get the look by Sunday, well it's impossible to do so with shipping times, so I decided to re-create the look using polishes you can purchase from your local drug store!

Sally Hansen recently released nail art striper polishes and nail art pens under their I <3 Nail Art line.  The amazing people at Sally Hansen sent me some of the lovely products for review which I just received on Tuesday.  Ever since I opened the box, I've been dying to use them to see how they work and get a review up on the blog.  As you know, I truly believe that there is a nail artist within each and every one of us, and products such as these which are readily available to the public at drugstores really make it easy for us to find our inner nail artist!

So, enough of my babbling, let's get to the tutorial using all Sally Hansen products!


Colors Used:
  • Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
  • Sally Hansen - I <3 Nail Art Pen - White
  • Sally Hansen - Striper - White
  • Sally Hansen - Striper - Hot Pink
  • Sally Hansen - I <3 Nail Art Pen - Black
Tutorial
  1. Start off with a base coat of a pastel polish.  For this post, I used Sally Hansen X-Treme Wear in Mint Sorbet.
  2. With the Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art Pen in white, draw the outline of the Easter bunny.  I started off with the circle, then added the ears.
  3. Using the white striper, fill in the head of the bunny.
  4. With the black I <3 Nail Art pen, dot on the eyes.
  5. Using the Hot Pink striper, draw a line in the middle of the ears, then create a tiny triangle under the eyes for the nose.
  6. Outline the bunny using the black I <3 Nail Art Pen.  Add a top coat and enjoy!
Cute right?  Honestly, the lines were a lot cleaner using these products than my actual post where I used my nail art brushes and dotting tools.  I'm first going to talk about the striper polishes.  I LOVE these!  Now, these aren't like your normal everyday striper polishes.  I was expecting to open the bottle and see one of those super long awkward thin brushes that are impossible to work with.  I've started to get the hang of them, but honestly still hate those long things.  Instead, I found an awesome surprise when I opened the bottle.



The polish had a short thin brush!  See, isn't that awesome?!  When I opened the bottle, I thought to myself "If these polishes are awful to work with, I'm cleaning them and keeping all the brushes because this is awesome."  Luckily though, the white and pink that I used for this tutorial were awesomely formulated.  Even application and full coverage without having to continually apply separate coats.  From my first experience using this, I would say it's a must have.

The pens are rather neat as well!  I was expecting to see something similar to a ball point pen when I opened them, but instead the tip is a hollow white tip that fills with the polish.  The white one I have is a rounded tip, and the black is a fine tip.  As you can see from step number 2, the white is rather thin.  Both this and the black were kind of watery and not like a typical polish.  I felt that I had more control creating a straight line since I was using a pen and not a nail art brush.  Since the black was just as thin as the white, I found that I had to go over the outline for the final step a couple times times before it became dark enough.  I think if you want to outline your design, I would use the striper instead of the pen.  I liked the pen for creating outlines for the designs I fill in.  If that makes sense.

What do you think?  Like the design?  Will you recreate it?  Have you tried any of the Sally Hansen I <3 Nail Art supplies?

The X-Treme Wear polish I purchased for $2.89 at my local drug store.  The I <3 Nail Art Pens are $5.99 and the stripers are $3.99 at Walgreens.  According to Walgreens website the striper's are Buy One Get One 1/2 off.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! If you recreate the look, please, oh please, share it with me!  I can't wait to see.  Remember to tag those manicures with the #tlcinspiredmani tag on Instagram!

Until next time, <3.

**Sally Hansen provided the I <3 Nail Art Products.  All opinions expressed in this post are my own.  Please see my disclosure policy**

Animal Mani

Easter Bunny Nail Art

9:00:00 AM

Good morning polished peeps!  How are you all today?  Easter is right around the corner, are your nails ready?  So far I have done hatching Easter chicks and jelly beans.  Now today I am bringing you bunny skittles!  And I still have one more design in mind for Sunday!

Kind of like my jelly bean manicure, I wasn't too fond of how they turned out.  Now after three days of wearing them, the little guys have grown on me.  They're kind of adorable, and with their pastel skittle background, they're perfect for Easter!  I like them so much that I even created a tutorial for them which will be posted tomorrow!  Today I'm going to focus on the colors used, and tomorrow on the technique using different polishes which you can pick up at your local drugstore.

Let's take a look!  Sorry about my photography again, the camera hates my pastels.




Colors Used:
  • Bases
    • Sinful Colors - Bright Lucite
    • Zoya - Dot
    • Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
    • OPI - You're Such a Budapest
    • Zoya - Cole
  • Bunnies
    • Orly Instant Artist - White and Black
    • Zoya - Micky
See, they are kind of cute!  I really love the pastel skittle base that I did.  I tend to stick to using two colors for a base, so doing a skittle manicure was really out of my comfort zone.  When I do skittle manicures, I sit with the five bottles on my table and keep re-arranging them trying to figure out what order is going to look best on my nail.  I never have that problem when I do two colors.  Surprisingly though, this manicure didn't take me an hour to figure out the painting order.

I started with Blue Lucite on my thumb since it was the brightest of the pastels.  I then took my second brightest pastel, You're Such a Budapest, and put it on my ring finger to pair it with the bright blue.  I then grabbed the two of the lighter pastels, Zoya Dot and Cole and put them on my pointer and pinkie.  All that was left was the mint which is not too bright and not too light.  Perfect balance.


I mentioned in my Hatched Chick post that I really am a huge fan of Zoya Dot from the Awaken collection.  Dot's sister Cole from the same collection is another polish I am now a huge fan of!  It's a gorgeous orange/peach pastel polish which applies evenly in two coats.  For my pinkie finger, I used three coats because I may or may not have dented an area which is now covered by an ear so you can't even tell.  It's such a gorgeous shade which I typically would never gravitate towards.  It reminded me of an orange creamsicle.  Yum, now I want one.

What do you think?  Do you enjoy the little bunnies?  Are you a fan of Zoya Cole?

I used my Orly Instant Artist polishes to create my bunnies.  I love these polishes, but sadly, they aren't available in drug stores or Sally Beauty Supply.  I think the only place you can get them is Orly's website and maybe Amazon which can kind of be a pain if you want to create this look by the weekend.  Due to this, tomorrow's tutorial is going to re-create this look using polishes and supplies you can pick up at your local drug store!  I kind of thought the tools I used in the tutorial are a lot easier than what I did to get the actual look on my nail.  Enough about that today, you'll see my full review tomorrow!

If you like the Zoya's used in this post, they are for sale on their website for $9 each.  Cole is a must have in my book.  It will make for an amazing base in future nail art designs.

Until tomorrow's tutorial, <3.

**Some polishes used in this post were provided for PR purposes.  Please see my disclosure policy**

Press Release

Zoya Magical Pixie Summer 2014 Press Release

12:00:00 AM

Good early morning Polished world!  I'm posting A LOT this week!  I think I have at least three more posts coming.  Well, when press releases come out, I can't hold them back and hide them from you guys!  Especially when they contain such pretty polishes!!!

I'm happy to introduce this Summer's Magical Pixie collection by Zoya!  This collection will contain three Magical Pixies, the chunkier PixieDust polishes with the holo glitter.  I loved the first Magical Pixies, so I'm rather excited about these!

Let's take a look!  Click the images to make them bigger!



That purple!!!  All three will retail for $10 and will be available for pre-order today, April 17th!

See you all in a few hours for another post! <3

Easter

Twinsie Tuesday - Gifted Polish - Jelly Bean Nail Art

9:00:00 AM

Press Sample
Happy Tuesday!!!!  I hope everyone is doing fantastic today!  The weather here has decided to go from 80 to 40, so you know how I'm doing.  Although, it is Twinsie Tuesday so I am rather happy about that!  Today's theme is "gifted polish".  Now, I don't have really any gifted polishes.  I did receive a few polishes as graduation gifts which I remembered after I planned this post and painted the manicure.  Isn't that always how it happens?

Anyways, my plan for today's manicure was to use some polishes that I think would be awesome gifts to give to any polish loving person!  I went through my stash and had a huge amount of polishes picked out.  My mind was going crazy trying to figure out how I could incorporate all of them.

Since I started Easter week on Saturday, I started to think of different Easter themed manicures.  Then, inspiration hit.  I remembered this manicure by Twinsie Alum Heather from Peace, Love, and Polish.  Miss Amber from Nails Like Lace actually recreated Heather's manicure as part of a birthday tribute to Heather.  Kind of an amazing post everyone should check out.  The jelly bean manicure is perfect with the theme of "gifts" since it is a common Easter gift!

So let's take a look at a common Easter gift manicure using polishes that would make awesome gifts!




Colors Used
  • OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
  • Zoya - Livingston, Darcy, Thandie, Micky, Josie
  • Orly - Charged Up
First polish that would be an awesome gift to a nail artist is OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  This polish was released as part of the Amazing SpiderMan collection when the first movie came out.  I could only hope that they re-release it with the second movie, but I highly doubt it.  It's a perfect off white polish which doesn't take away from the nail art.  It applies evenly in two coats thanks to that perfect OPI formula.

The good thing about jelly beans is that they're primary colors which ever nail polish enthusiast should own.  Starting with red, Zoya Livingston is perfect.  This polish was released as part of the Fall Cashmere collection.  To me, it's like a crelly, which applies awesomely in two coats.  I'm going to have to grab a back up bottle of this since it is my mother's favorite red as well.  For orange, I selected Zoya Thandie from the Summer Stunning collection.  Micky (the pink), Josie (the green), and Darcy (the yellow) were all from this collection as well.  All the creams in this collection are favorites of mine.  They're so saturated with color, have a perfect formula, and are great for nail art.  I'm super psyched for the Tickled collection because from the preview the creams already look just as amazing!

I selected Orly Charged Up for the purple.  I have mentioned that lately I'm falling in love with Orly polishes, and this is one of them which started that love.  I purchased it during a BOGO sale at Sally Beauty Supply to replace Sinful Colors Amethyst.  Both this and the Sinful are great polishes.  Compared to the Sinful, I would say that the Orly is more like a crelly leaning more towards the cream side, where the Sinful is a legit cream.  Perfect coverage in two to three coats with a great fun purple color. 



I was iffy about my Jelly bean manicure and was debating on sharing it or not.  I had a struggle with these nails.  Funny though, the nails I seem to struggle and feel super iffy about, I get the most compliments on.  Many people asked me if they were stickers, which to me is a huge compliment.  I'm happy in the end that I did them though and am rather happy with how the post turned out despite not really having gifted polishes.

Oh, how I got the look!  I started off with my base coat of MBSW.  When it was dried, I created the jelly beans by using a dotting tool.  When those were dry, with a small nail art brush, I added the white little accent.  Super easy and super fun!

What do you think?  Do you own any of the polishes I selected as ones that would be good gifts?  Are they polishes you would think to give to others?

The Zoya's can be purchased direct from Zoya's website!  Make sure to check them out!

Don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra

Until next time, <3.

**Some polishes used in this post were provided for PR purposes.  Please see my disclosure policy**

Press Release

Zoya Tickled & Bubbly Summer 2014 Press Release

12:00:00 AM

Summer is around the corner ladies!!!  Okay, maybe it isn't where I live since yesterday it was 80 and now today it's going to be 40 with possible snow.  Regardless of the snow, I'm going to think of the gorgeous summer weather and gorgeous polishes that are coming our way!

Today I'm sharing with you the new Zoya Summer collection....Tickled & Bubbly!  The Tickled collection consists of 6 gorgeous creams, and the Bubbly collection consists of 6 gorgeous shimmer glitters (which have holo pieces).  Please check out the pictures below!!!  Click to enlarge of course!




I'm kind of pumped for both of those blues...and the purples, and the pinks....oh the greens as well!  Fine, you caught me, I'm thrilled for all of them.

Colors will be available for pre-order today April 15th on Zoya's website!  Each bottle will cost $9.00!  All your tax refunds should be coming back, so what better way to use them then on polish!  I'm such an enabler lol.

Head on back later today for Twinsie Tuesday!  Until then <3

Animal Mani

Hatched Easter Chick Nail Art + Tutorial

9:00:00 AM

Press Sample
Oh hello there!  How are you all today?  I'm kind of awesome since Spring seems to FINALLY be here!  I got to drive with my window open yesterday.  Yes, you read that right, it's warm and sunny enough for me to not be in a winter coat and have the wind blowing through my hair.  I love it.

Easter is right around the corner so I figured it was about time to start bringing you some festive manicures.  As I said on my Facebook and Twitter, I decided to not do a nail art wheel, instead just a few designs on my nails with maybe a tutorial or two thrown in.

So, here I am kicking off Easter week on The Little Canvas with not only a manicure but a tutorial for how I got the look as well!  Let's take a look at my Easter Chicks!  (The pastels killed my camera...I thought only neons were supposed to do that ugh.)




Colors Used:
  • OPI - You're Such a Budapest
  • Sinful Colors - Bright Lucite
  • Zoya - Dot
  • Mary Kay - Lemon Parfait
  • Maybelline - Sweet Clementine
  • Orly - Instant Artist - White and Black
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
A little different than last year's Easter Chicks, and honestly, I'm loving this look much better!  I think the little guy is so cute as an accent!  I also decided to go all pastel instead of some pastel and then a dark yellow.  I'll talk more about the polishes after I do the little tutorial!

Tutorial:

  1. Start off with a base coat of a yellow polish of your choice.  I picked the pastel Mary Kay Lemon Parfait
  2. With a white polish and a nail art brush, create the "crack" of the egg by drawing a chevron in the middle of the nail. This does not have to be perfect since a cracked egg is not perfect!
  3. Fill in the bottom half of the nail with a white polish.
  4. With an orange polish and a nail art brush, draw on the little beak.
  5. Create the eyes using a medium sized dotting tool.
  6. Decorate your egg!  I decided to do little pastel dots!  Finish off with a top coat!
If you want your shell to stand out more against the pastel white, you can outline it in black.  I like it this way and have never tried it with the black, so I can't really tell you which looks better.


As I said above, I love the little guy as an accent nail.  Isn't he so adorable?  And isn't Mary Kay Lemon Parfait the most perfect pastel yellow?  My friend is a MK consultant and asked me to review the polish since she's unsure about formulas and such and wanted to give her clients the most honest review of the product.  Plus, she knows me and knows that if I hate something, I will say it.  I'll give a more thorough review after my Easter manicures are done since I have an awesome design in mind using it, but until then, if you're looking for a perfect Easter pastel yellow, you need to grab this!  Perfect formula that had full coverage in two coats.  The polish is $9.50 and can be purchased here.

I'm also loving Zoya Dot.  Such a pretty pastel pink!  It was a little sheer with the first coat and was nervous that it was not going to build at all.  I applied the second coat and I still had some bald spots, so I went back through and did three and finally had full coverage.  It is a soft pink that I can see myself using for some floral designs.  Dot is part of the Awaken Collection and is $9.00.  It can be purchased on Zoya's website.

What do you think?  Liking the colors?  Liking the chick as the accent nail?  Something you'll try?

Remember, if you do re-create the look, please tag tlcinspiredmani on Instagram!  I would love to see!

Can't wait to share my next Easter manicure!  Until next time, <3.

**Some polishes used in this post were provided for promotional purposes.  Please see my disclosure policy**

The Beauty Buffs

The Beauty Buffs - Royal Blue (Floral Nail Art Tutorial)

8:00:00 AM

Hello polished world!  Hope you all are doing well today!  Today is my second post as a member of The Beauty Buffs!  You may remember that two weeks ago, our little group published our first posts about pastels.  If you haven't checked it out, make sure to go back and take a look! 


Today's theme is Royal Blue.  I was so excited when I first saw this because as you may or may not know, I love anything blue.  Yes, I know that I say all the time I love anything mint, but blue is really where my heart lies.  Maybe with purple as well.  Regardless, I really love that I could go into my stash and re-visit some of my favorite polishes.

I have always thought of royal blue as a rich sailor blue.  I decided to Google the color to see if I was on track, and I found that there are light and dark versions.  Truly, depending on the person, it could be different.  So I grabbed four bottles from my blue stash that were the most royal blue to me. 


The first polish I selected is OPI - OPI Eurso...Euro.  This is one of my favorite blue creams.  I used it in my manicure I posted yesterday.  To me, it's one of the darker royal blues.  The next polish I selected is Zoya Dream.  Looking at the bottle, it's a lot darker than it really is.  When it's on the nail, to me, it's a royal blue.  The holographic glitters throughout give it a new dimension which makes the polish not as dark as well.  Truly a must have polish for anyone.

If you aren't willing to spend the $9 price tag for OPI or Zoya, drug store brands have you covered as well for royal blue.  I next selected two Sinful Color polishes.  The first is Midnight Blue, a gorgeous royal blue shimmer polish.  I'm not even sure you can call it a true shimmer, but it's truly gorgeous.  This was my first blue polish when I started my little hobby.  The next bottle of Sinful Colors I selected is Endless Blue.  This polish (from what I have read) is a dupe of Essie Butler Please and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue.  When I Googled royal blue, both the Essie and Sally version popped up, so of course I grabbed this bottle.  A gorgeous two coat polish that is perfect for Summer.  Now the Essie is about $8.00 a bottle so you can't go wrong snagging this dupe or the Sally Hansen version for $1.99 or $2.99.

Since Midnight Blue is an oldie but goodie of mine, I decided to use it to create an easy and adorable nail art tutorial for today's post!


Colors Used
  • Sinful Colors - Midnight Blue
  • Orly - Instant Artist - White and Black*
  • Zoya - Darcy*
*While I used these polishes, you could just as easily use a Sinful Color Black/White/Yellow polish.  I used these ones because they were handy and my white had dried up.

Tutorial
  1. Paint your nail with a base coat (blues tend to stain) and then paint your nail with your favorite royal blue polish
  2. With a medium sized dotting tool and a white polish, create a dot flower.  Do this by starting off with one dot at the top, then two off to the side, then two closer together at the bottom.
  3. Once the white dot flower is dried, with a black striper or a nail art brush and black polish, add a little line on each of the petals .
  4. With the medium sized dotting tool or smaller, use the yellow polish to create the yellow inside of the nail.
  5. With a small dotting tool and the white polish, fill in the empty spaces with little polka dots.  Add a top coat and call it a day!
I have stepped out of my nail art zone today and decided to look for an outfit which I think that this look would look adorable with!  I started out looking at Polyvore but kind of got confused with how to actually use the site.  By next post, hopefully I'll have it down.  Anyways, since I failed at Polyvore, I was going to just share my favorite polish and the tutorial, until I logged on to Pinterest.  One of my old co-workers has been pinning royal and navy blue outfits all day long.  It's so weird how it happened!  I rarely talk to her and she has NO clue about today's post, and here I am logging in to see a full feed of just what I was looking for!

My mind was set on a white dress with some form of a blue cardigan.  This is the look that my co-worker pinned.


**no source as it led to a .jpeg link and I did a Google Image search and turned up with tumblr/pinterest links**

Now, this isn't the exact dress I was looking for, but it totally works!  When on Polyvore I was looking for blue dresses, but quickly decided against it because I feel like the blue of the nails would clash with the blue of the dress.  The white dress, with a blue cardigan and blue nails just seems so fresh and perfect to me.  


The dress I wish I could find is something Blair Waldorf-esque.  In an episode of Gossip Girl, she wore the dress above which I found to be adorable.  I imagine that dress in a sleeveless version with no tights and a blue cardigan, or keep the sleeves and have a royal blue bow and tights, and no cardigan.  Maybe my fashion sense is totally wrong, but I think it would be cute and totally compliment the nail art design!

What do you think?  Like the design?  Like the outfit selections?  Am I anywhere on base when it comes to fashion?? 

I love being a member of this group! I feel like I've come out of my comfort zone posting outfits to compliment a nail art look.  Even though the second outfit you kind of have to imagine differently than pictured, I still tried!  I hope to continue to expand my blog and maybe in other posts feature outfits that I think would be cute.

Make sure to check out the other Beauty Buffs!




Flowers

Twinsie Tuesday - Favorite Glitter Polish Topper

9:00:00 AM

Happy Twinsie Tuesday polished world!  How are you all today?  I swear these posts sneak up on me so fast!  Not complaining since I really enjoy being a Twinsie and love these little challenges.  Some of them have brought me out of my comfort zone, and inspired me to do things I never would have done before.  For example, last week I never would have thought to take inspiration from a purse/wallet, and therefore never would have created a manicure that is one of my all time favorites.

Today we are sharing our favorite glitter polish topper.  Now, I own quite a few glitters, but not as many as some of the other Twinsies.  I think Casey Lane's Indie glitter polish topper collection is quite gigantic and I'm rather jealous.  As a person though who does a lot of freehand nail art, I rarely find myself using my glitter polishes.  It's a shame too since so many of them are gorgeous and I love them all to pieces.  I bought them for that exact reason, but there they sit in the back of my melmer.  Maybe I should challenge myself to start using more glitter accents.

For the post today, I debated on using OPI In True Stefani Fashion, but I decided against it.  Instead, I went with my go-to glitter topper, INM Northern Lights.  I fell in love with this product last year after having a love hate relationship with China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I loved the look of Fairy Dust, but the dry time was AWFUL, it got goopy super fast, and it smelled so bad that it always gave me a headache.  After seeing Cristina from Let Them Have Polish rave over Northern Lights, I picked up a bottle and never ever looked at Fairy Dust again.

Let's take a look at today's manicure!




Colors Used:
  • OPI - Can't Find My Czechbook
  • OPI - Eurso Euro
  • China Glaze - I'm Not Lion
  • INM Northern Lights

Isn't this a pretty manicure?  I did this manicure originally in 2012 and I figured it was time to revisit it because it's gorgeous.  It was inspired by the lovely Young, Wild and Polished.  At the time, she used polishes from Essies then new collection, and I used an old Julep, a Sinful Color, and the same China Glaze polish.  Goodness, I can't believe I purchased I'm Not Lion in 2012...how time flies and it's still one of my favorites.  I also used the dreaded Fairy Dust since I had to discover INM Northern Lights.  I'm also kind of amazed with how far I've come in regards to shaping my nails and not flooding my cuticles.

Well, with the discovery of Northern Lights, the recreation of this manicure is perfect.  I decided to make my middle finger dark blue to match the dot flowers.  It just dawned on me while writing this post, the manicure that inspired this one from 2012 was my first ever successful dot flower manicure.  Now I can bust these things out in my sleep.  Really shows, practice makes perfect.


I'm getting nostalgic and off topic in regards to the glitter topper.  As you can see, INM Northern Lights really gives the plain cream polishes a whole new dimension.  It's amazing because it doesn't ever distract from the art, just adds a little umph.  The OPI polishes are gorgeous on their own, but when you add a simple swipe of the holo, they look like a brand new polish.  My favorite has to be it over Eurso Euro on the middle finger.  Can you see how gorgeous it is?!

What I really love about this polish is that it covers up any mistakes I ever make when applying a cream polish.  I'm kind of a klutz when it comes to life in general, so when applying a cream polish, you can bet that I end up smudging it within minutes of applying the final coat.  Nine times out of ten, I use glitters to smooth out these errors and hide them from the public.  And guess what, nine times out of ten it works.

What do you think?  Loving this look?  Ever used INM Northern Lights?

Don't forget to check out the other Twinsie's posts!  I cannot wait to see the girls favorite glitters!


Amanda at Amandalandish
Amber at Nails Like Lace
Chelsea at Nailed Blog
Elizabeth at Did My Nails
Kelly at Tuxarina
Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
Marisa at Polish Obsession
Rachel at Top Coat It
Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les
Stephanie at A Little Polish
Traci at DrinkCitra

Until next time, <3.