Hello lovely followers!  How are you tonight?!

Today I bring you something I have been looking forward to doing for a while - a guest post for my friend Ave over at Polish Pixelle!  Originally, Ave and I were going to guest post at the same time on each others blogs, but due to my great injury on my pointer finger, I was unable to post when she posted on my blog.  I was so happy though that Ave shared her awesome Street Nails  while I was unable to do nice designs.

Now my nails are nubs, but the injury has completely grown out, meaning I am able to return to the great world of nail art!  I could not be more happy!  You have no idea how insane I was going just doing "plain" manicures and then adding something to refresh them.

So now I shall leave you with a sneak peak of my design for Ave....head on over to her blog if you want to see the full post!!!

Neon, neon, neon!!!! I'm obsessed with neons!!! When I first saw the China Glaze Summer Neon Collection, I was unsure if I would purchase any. I have a Sinful Colors neon which I loved, but it was a jelly and took about 4 coats to get full coverage. When I saw the neons again released this season from Sinful Colors, I debated on purchasing them, but decided against it since they were flat cremes, and personally I'm not a huge fan of cremes. Shimmers are my friend. After seeing some swatches of China Glaze and the shimmer these neons had, I needed to find them and purchase them! So happy I did because I'm hooked and by far they are my favorite polishes!

Originally, I only purchased three polishes from the collection, Hang Ten Toes, Splish Splash, and Sun Kissed.  Days passed, and after much consideration (okay maybe not much) I went back to the store and purchased I'm With the Lifeguard.  After these purchases plus a top coat, I may I need to go on a no-buy again.

I ran home and immediately put Hang Ten Toes on my toes for by far one of the best pedicures I've ever had.  For my nails, I put on Sun Kissed, the obnoxious highlighter yellow polish.  I could not stop staring at my nails!  After two days of continuous typing thanks to a final paper, the tips were becoming a bit worn, so instead of touching them up, I decided it was time for some nail art....and what better than neon leopard nails?  I'm in love with leopard nails, and in fact did a guest post featuring leopard spots over on Ryan's blog Dream a Little Dream of Polish.  I figured why not do a design I was in love with on a color I am in love with.

Can you see my injured nail?!  It's grown out so well!!!!

• Base
• China Glaze - Sun Kissed
• Leopard Spots
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Sinful Colors - Black on Black

I shall start this post by saying that my left hand pics still show damage.  I probably should have never posted them and will get random rude comments, but whatever.  I liked the mani and wanted to share.  And I'm too lazy to photoshop a smile or sad face over it.  Luckily, the nail now is grown out and I am one happy chicka.

Then my injured left hand in the sun.

Well, here it is!  My post to go along with my Julep Maven Intro Box Giveaway.  If you haven't entered yet, you must!!!

As I stated in that post, I had ordered the It Girl Introductory box.  At the time I ordered it, I thought I was receiving Spring colors, but instead I was pleasantly surprised by three different colors.  Those are Lily, a pretty pink creme, Daisy, a mustardy yellow creme, and Sasha, a coral creme.  Out of all three of these polishes, Sasha is my favorite, but we'll get to that.

When I first sat down to paint my nails with these polishes, I was stumped.  I had no clue what nail art pattern I could do with the three colors since they all were all darker cremes.  I'm not one for yellow nail polish (unless it's neon), so I didn't want to put Daisy down on all my nails.  After playing around with the polishes for awhile, I decided to revisit a previous manicure - the vintage roses.  I loved this manicure when I first did it, and I thought it would be fun to do them in a different color.

Here is what I came up with:

Yay non dominant hand photography = slowly getting better.

• Colors Used:
• Julep - Sasha
• Julep - Lily
• Julep - Daisy
• Sinful Colors - Snow me White
• Revlon - Sassy

I really, really, really am in love with Sasha, reason why I painted that as a base on majority of my fingers.  Right from the start, I knew that is what I was going to do.  The color was just perfect, I wish my camera captured it better, because trust me, it was so much more gorgeous than what this looks like.  With the white stripes on it, the color really popped out.

Lily I liked as well, and was my second favorite from the box.  I had a polish by Maybelline which is very similar to this color, but it's literally from 6 years ago.  I'm actually shocked the polish still is workable, but that's another story.  My only complaint about Lily was that it dried matte.  Of course with top coat this problem was easily fixed and dried shiny just like the rest of them.  As dark as it looked on the nail, it was still a bright summery color, which I will be using for some pedicures in the near future.

Daisy, I'm eh about.  The color looks a lot brighter in the bottle than what it translates to on the nail.  It's more of a mustard yellow than bright, which in my opinion isn't too summery.  When I heard the name "Daisy" and saw the bottle, I thought it was going to be bright like the centers of daisies. Maybe with some white undies it would be brighter. Application was just as good as Sasha as well.

For the roses, I wanted to mimic the "fiesta" roses I have in my back yard.  I'm really not sure if they fiesta roses, but that's what my dad and I call them.  For those of you who do not know, these roses bloom yellow with orange tipped petals.  They're gorgeous in the sunshine....

Pretty yellow roses with orange tips.  I did the accent nail of Lily, then put a dab of Daisy and then I was upset to find that the yellow didn't show up well on the pink.  I decided to reverse the colors, and was very happy with the result.  Added some Revlon Sassy for the leaves and was pleased.

For the yellow nail, I added some dots of Lily, which kind of blended into the yellow color and made the polish a different shade of pink.  Kind of gross, I wasn't too thrilled with that nail.


If you are in love with these colors and must have them, now is your time to get them for a penny!!!! click here, select the "It Girl" box and use the code "MAVENINTRO". :)

• Strawberry
• Sally Hansen - Red Carpet
• Sinful Colors - Black on Black
• Leaves
• Revlon - Sassy
• Sinful Colors - HD Nails
• Flowers
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Sinful Colors - Let's Meet

I'm very excited to be part of the VIP Julep Blogger program! I was hoping to be able to post the giveaway after I did some pretty little nail art with their polishes, but I'm still waiting on the polishes to come in the mail.  Since the giveaway is only through June 29th, I have decided to post the giveaway first, and then once I receive the box do my awesome, fantabulous nail art review!!!!

So ladies, here is your chance to win an intro box similar to the one I will be reviewing.  I will be reviewing the "It Girl" polish box which is beyond gorgeous and I can't wait to actually use.

If you cannot wait, or have horrid luck and can never win giveaways, well you can receive a Julep box for only a penny with free shipping! How can you go wrong?! Just Click Here, sign up and use the code "MAVENINTRO".

I kind of wish I knew about this program more before the VIP Blogger program because I would have signed up myself.  I absolutely love how Julep's polishes are 4 Free.  For someone who gets rashes from formaldehyde/formaldehyde resin, this is marvelous.

Anyways, I can't wait to review my box and I can't wait to see who wins this giveaway!!!  Good luck everyone!!! :)


  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway prize provided to me by Julep.

Hi ho cherry-o! Ave from Polish Pixelle here with one of what will hopefully be many guest posts! Alaina and I had been planning on doing guest posts on each others blogs for a while and when tragedy struck (read: severely broken nail) I decided to step up and help Alaina out :) Once her swatching nails have recovered hopefully you'll see a guest post on my blog by her!

I was nervous about this guest post since this blog is all about nail art and my blog is more swatch focused. However, I attempted to step up to the challenge with some street nails I had been thinking about for a while. The inspiration for this was China Glazes 'Stone Cold' which to me looks very similar to asphalt.

For this mani I used:

- China Glaze 'Stone Cold'
- Julep 'Blake'
- Toothpick for dotting

I applied two coats of Stone Cold, and used a toothpick to create the yellow lines with Blake.

I must start this post off by thanking Tianne for sharing her AWESOME Galaxy Nails on my blog!!!  If you have yet to see them, please click here to go see and leave her a comment!  Anytime you want to guest blog again Tianne, just let me know!!!!

Now to my crappy nails which I wish did not have to follow Tianne's since they complete stink in comparison.  I have no idea what to call these nails, all I know is that they're rather perfect for Father's Day because they kind of remind me of a tie.  Mainly since they're blue, but hey, it works right?

This is my first paint job after The Great Injury of 2012 and was unsure if I was going to post it at all.  @PlaidMcPlatypus gave me the idea to put a band-aid on my nail with a lil drawing.  Instead of doing that, I went and photoshopped a sad face onto my pointer nail.  If it weren't for her, I never would have thought of this and I would probably still be sitting days later on my butt wondering "Should I paint my nails blue or purple?"  I think my lil photoshopping made this post more amusing hahah.

We shall start with pictures of my right hand.

And now for my Sad Left Hand that I normally photograph -

Hey everyone!!! My name is Tianne and I am super excited to do this guest blog post for The Little Canvas =) I don't have a nail blog of my own and I've never done a guest blog post so hopefully this works!! Anywaaaaay I'm blogging about my Galaxy Nails. This was my first EVER attempt at these nails so I hope you like!!

When I first decided to do these nails I really didn't think they would turn out. I had little faith in myself for some reason. It took my a while to decide on what colors I wanted to use too. I was staring at all my polishes for what seemed like forever but I ended up choosing these colors:

• Seche Vite bottom and top coat
•  Zoya "indigo"
•  Sinful Colors "snow me white"
•  Sally Hansen "mellow yellow"
•  Sinful Colors "cream pink"
•  Pure Ice "french kiss"
•  For glitter - Nailene sparkle coat

• scrubbing my nails with warm water and whitening toothpaste
• using a 4 sided nail buffer to smooth out my nails
• clipping all my nails to the shape I want them
• taking a nail file to them
• pushing all my cuticles back

1. Used Seche Vite base coat. I love this base coat! its kind of a light cream color with a tint of a shimmer
2. Used Zoya "indigo" as the dark blue base color. In the pictures it looks like I painted my whole nail black but its actually a dark blue. I used this particular color because it has small specks of glitter in it. Its very hard to see in the pics but its there, I swear =)
3. I began painting a nebula on each nail with Sinful Colors "snow me white". I don't like just putting the nailpolish directly on the sponge so I put the polish on a piece of paper then dip the corner of the sponge in it. For each nail I did a nebula in a different spot too.
4. Once the white was dry I dipped my sponge in Sally Hansens "mellow yellow" and went over all the white with the yellow polish using the same technique. 
5. When that was dry I dipped another piece of sponge in Sinful Colors "cream pink" and put it on the ends of my nebula or in the middle of the nebula.
6. I used Pure Ice "french kiss" to blend the nebula into the dark blue background. I used the sponge technique and did it on each side of the nebula where it met the background. 
7. I used a toothpick and dipped it in Sinful Colors "snow me white" for the stars. I clustered most of the 'stars' in one area. 
8. I used my smallest dotting tool to make a few larger stars by dipping that into Sinful Color "snow me white" and just made a few of these larger 'stars' anywhere on the nail.
9. The glitter I used is more of a shimmer. It came in a pack of different glitters my mom got me a while ago but its so sheer and pretty I use it on almost all my nail designs!! I just painted it over the whole design and it totally pulled it together!!
10. I sealed my design with Seche Vite top coat. I love this top coat also. It gives it such a great shine and dries super quick. 

I never used to care when I broke a nail or had peeling, but now I do.  Ever since I started blogging, I try my hardest to baby my nails so I can photograph them and share my designs with everyone!

• Base
• Sinful Colors - Black on Black
• Clouds
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Pure Ice - Kiss Me Here
• Rain
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Sinful Colors - Sweet Dreams
• Sally Hansen xTreme Wear - Blue Me Away!