Cloud Mani

New Years Eve Manicure! - Metallic Clouds - Take 2

9:00:00 AM

Happy New Years Eve!!!!  How are you guys going to celebrate tonight??  Personally, I'm going to be an old lady and Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve.  I will also most likely be in bed by 1am.  I'm not a huge party person, and am very much a home body.  I do go out with friends to the mall and stuff, but partying, clubbing...ehhh hate it.

Even though I'll be staying in, I still painted my nails just for the occasion!  Thankfully it wasn't a disasticure either!  I was very nervous it would be seeing as I broke a nail while jumping on a bounce house with my nephew, and had to chop all my nails down.  If this break happened anywhere other than a bounce house, I'd probably be really angry.

For the manicure, I wanted to include silver, gold, and black, as these are the colors that stand out to me when I think New Years Eve.  I remembered the metallic clouds/scalloped tip manicure I did a few months ago and loved how much the metallic looked with a cream polish in the middle.  It was one of those manicures I could not stop looking at.  I decided to try that look again with these colors.

Let's see how they turned out....





Colors Used:

  • Sinful Colors - Black on Black
  • Silver
    • Sally Hansen - Celeb City
    • Sinful Colors - Queen of Beauty
  • Gold
    • Sally Hansen - Golden I
    • China Glaze - I'm Not Lion
Sparkly, metallic-y....totally screaming New Years Eve if you ask me!  Achieving this look is rather simple, and requires no nail art brushes what so ever. Begin by painting on a base color of your choice.  When your base is dried, take your second polish and place the brush half way up the nail.  I let the polish pool  bit to make a rounded edge, then pull towards the tip of my nail.  I then do the same thing a little lower to give the scalloped/cloud look.  When this coat is dried, repeat this step with your third polish.

I'm happy I decided to layer glitter over the gold and silver polishes.  You can't really see the silver glitter over the silver, but you can see the holo specks of I'm Not Lion over the gold!  I just love how they turned out!

What do you think?  What are you sporting on your canvas' for New Years Eve?

I truly hope that everyone has a SAFE and blessed New Year!  Emphasis on the safe, please do not drink and drive, and be cautious of others on the road!  See you all back here in a few days <3

Favorites

The Favorites of 2012!

9:00:00 AM

The year 2012 has come to a close, and so has an amazing almost year of nail blogging.  I cannot believe that in February I will be hitting my one year anniversary on this blog!  I was thinking of holding off on doing a post such as this until then, but between now and then, I'm sure I'll have dozens of new manicures fighting to be my favorite. 

When I was tagged on Instagram to pick my favorite manicures of 2012, I went through all my posts and just was amazed at how much I have grown.  My nails are longer, my pictures are clearer (for the most part), and my lines are a lot smoother and neater.  My most recent accomplishment is not flooding my cuticles.  After looking through all of them, I narrowed down my favorite manicures to the following six.
I kind of hate how I set this up on Instagram because they all were my favorite but the roses were like the center of attention....so now I guess I'll rank them.  

Here we go....my top 6!


1.   Pandas! - I did these guys for the Black and White day on the challenge I so lovingly quit.  I need to pick back up on that eventually.  I love doing animal nails, and these guys were just so adorable.  I loved the accent nail of paw prints....I really think that made the manicure what it was!

  1. The Natural Leopard Spots - done again for the challenge, this was my first leopard manicure done with actual leopard colors.  Throughout the year, I have done numerous neon leopard spotted manicures, which I loved, but this one was my favorite of all.  I think it was because of that glitter accent nail.
  1. Dotted Flowers! - This was a manicure I copied from Nicole over at Young, Wild, and Polished.  This manicure was one of my first successful attempts at dot flowers.  The glitter, the dots, the flowers, everything was just perfect with this manicure.  I was beyond thrilled that I was able to achieve this manicure, especially since Nicole is a dotting master, and well I'm far from!
  1. Red Roses - Aren't they pretty?  I love painting roses on my nails.  It's one of the easiest flowers for me to do!  These ones were just so large on the nail and looked almost like a stained glass pattern in real life.  I have a tutorial post for these I just haven't gotten around to posting them!  I'll be doing that sometime before my one year anniversary! I swear!
  1. Birthday Cupcakes - The blue, the glitter, the cupcakes, need I say more?  I loved them!
  1. Santa! - I've done leprechauns, gnomes, and a bunch of animals, but these guys were just so adorable! 

So, those were my favorites, let's take a look at what my top 3 (okay top 4 because I think the views for #3 are due to google) posts were according to page views!
1.  Converse Nails - my neon, rainbow shoes!  So adorable.

2.  Metallic Clouds/Scalloped Tips - my first successful attempt at the "cloud" manicure, or what others call scalloped tips.

3.  Grape Nails - Grapes and grape vines...first time using my nail art brushes!

4.  Retro Polka Dots - Retro dot manicure on Sinful Colors Mint Green = love.


 What do you think?  Are any of these your favorite or did you have something else??  

I cannot wait to see what 2013 has in store for me and this blog!  Hopefully I will continue to impress you guys and maybe even inspire a few as well!  Since this was a special post I wasn't originally going to do, tomorrow I will still be bringing you my New Years Eve manicure...then from there, unless I have something urgent to say, I will be posting every three days again!  Until then, <3!

Winter

Snowflake Nail Art

9:00:00 AM

It has finally become an appropriate time to post this manicure!  I painted these in the beginning of December in hopes that we would get some snow, but alas, snow never came.  I tucked them away once I started all my Christmas nail art and planned on saving them for the day when the snow finally came.  And finalllyyy, it was this week!!  We ended up with a white Christmas which I do not think has happened in a few years.  My mind might be a little fuzzy, but I clearly remember last year having a green Christmas.

Last night we got hit with a snow storm that left us with a foot of snow!  I love it, call me weird and crazy, but it's just so pretty!  The pine trees tonight were all still covered from 24 hours earlier and it really was a winter wonderland.  If New Years Eve weren't right around the corner, I'd be grabbing my nail art brushes and re-paint this manicure just to celebrate the snow! 

Let's take a look! Guess where these pictures were taken....it may or may not have been outside of Sally Beauty during the .5 seconds of sun.





Colors Used:
  • Sinful Colors - Precious Metal
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
To get these nails, I painted on 3 coats of Precious Metal, my favvvorite "metallic" polish.  It was sold as part of the Sinful Colors Metallic collection so that's why I put metallic in quotations.  To me, it is not a true metallic polish since it doesn't have that frosty, metallic look.  The glitter flecks in it give it a sort of metallic-y gleam I guess, so that's why it may have been included in this collection.  I'm a sucker for blue polishes, so I had to purchase it, and for 99 cents, how could anyone go wrong?  It's a tad sheer, but builds up nicely in three coats, and leaves you with a gorgeous dark blue, glittery, shimmery nail.

To get the snowflakes, I painted them on using one of my nail art brushes and Snow Me White.  I didn't like how the snowflakes looked on the nail with nothing in the background, so with my dotting tool, I added some white little snow-dots. 

What do you think?  Have you done snowflake nails yet?  Did you get hit by the snow storm?  Do you own Precious Metal and love it as much as I do?

It seems I have entered the nail art funk again.  I tried to do some superhero nails and had 3 disasticures, but have some really awesome magnetic nails on right now.  I'll be posting them after the New Year!  I'm hoping my funk goes bye bye and I'm able to create a pretty New Years Eve manicure!  If not, then you will be seeing a Year in Review post from me on NYE!  Until then, have a good one! <3

BigDaddyBeauty

BigDaddyBeauty.com Sweepstakes!

2:41:00 PM

I'm sure a lot of you are going "Huh?" right now at the title of this post!  Big Daddy Beauty is a wholesale supplier which sells lots of amazing beauty supplies...my favorite, China Glaze.  For example, a bottle of I'm Not Lion (my favorite glitter polish) is only $4.00 on their website!

Well, the website is holding a sweepstakes where one lucky winner will receive a $500 shopping spree!  Amazing right?  Think of all the China Glaze's you could buy with that much money!!!  Second place will receive $250, and third place $100.  To enter, click here!  Please read the rules before entering, I believe you have to be 18 or older!  No purchase necessary to enter!

Good Luck!!!

Christmas

Merry Christmas - Swirl-y Nail Art :)

9:00:00 AM

Merry Christmas to all those Christmas celebrating readers of mine!!!!  Hope you all have a blessed day with your families!!!!  For those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a happy holiday (whatever you may celebrate) or happy day (if you do not celebrate anything at all).  I have to say, this post is kind of bitter sweet for me.  If you read yesterdays post, you know how excited I am how the pictures turned out!  The bitter part, these are my last Christmas nails =(.  I've been enjoying creating different themed designs and sharing them with you all!!!  Although, I kind of ran out of ideas and was pushing for new ones...so there is again another sweet part.

I saw these nails originally on pinterest.  When I clicked the pin, they directed me this post on Dressed Up Nails.  I fell in love not only with this blog, but also the nails.  I needed to have a variation of these nails for my personal Christmas manicure.  Since I did not want to waste a lot of my glitter polish for the intricate swirls, I decided to make the red nail my accent and my other nails gold.  Plus, have you ever tried to nail art using a glitter polish?  It's a pain in the butt....I'll get to that after the pictures.

Let's take a look!!!  Yup, that's right, these are outdoor pictures, in the sun, with a snowy background!  Love!





Colors Used:

  • Nicole by OPI - Keeping Up With Santa
  • Sally Hansen - Golden I (base of the gold nails)
  • China Glaze - I'm Not Lion (put on top of Golden I and used for accented design)
Gorgeous, right?  I'm in love with these nails, and if there are no chips, I will be wearing them tomorrow also.   They're so glittery and sparkly!!!  I'm very happy I decided to do red as an accent nail also!

For my gold nails, I started off with a base of Sally Hansen Golden I.  I did that because I did not want to waste a lot of my I'm Not Lion polish.  Reason being, this polish by China Glaze is fantastic!  It has to be my favorite glitter polish.  Technically, I could have gotten away with one coat of this glitter on a naked nail, but I really wanted the gold of this polish to pop.  I probably will be layering it on top of Golden I in the future.

For my red nails, I decided to use Nicole by OPI - Keeping Up With Santa.  This was one of the polishes I received from Nicole by OPI as a prize for being a runner up in their Halloween Contest.  If you want to see the whole amazing prize pack, you can read this post :).  Keeping Up With Santa is a perfect holiday red polish.  It completely covers the nail in one coat, but for this manicure I used two coats.  I wanted the subtle shimmer in the polish to show, and with one coat, it was kind of missing.  Plus on one of my nails there was a  naked spot since I have never used the NOPI brush before and had to get used to it.  Two coats made it even, for me, but for someone who is used to their brushes, you'll be good with one coat!

With my small nail art brush, I detailed on the swirls.  I have to say, painting this design on my nail was very easy and rather relaxing.  Whenever I'm bored at work, or when I used to go to school, I would doodle swirls similar to this on corners of papers or post it notes.  I never though had thought about actually putting it on my nail!  Once I got one line started, the rest came and I had to stop myself from adding more swirls!

What do you think?  Are you in love like I am?  I kind of think they look like ornaments or wrapping paper!!

I hope again that you all have a Happy and Blessed Christmas!  Enjoy your day and I will see you back here in three days! <3

Christmas

It's Christmas Eve!! - Christmas Dot Nails!

9:00:00 AM

So, it turns out that I did have an extra Christmas manicure!  I was originally just going to post two nails on Christmas Day, but these nails are stinky in comparison to what I have for you guys tomorrow!  Seriously, my pictures of my Christmas manicure came out perfectly!!!  They're outdoor, in the sun, with a snow background.  The glitt.....wait, why am I explaining this here....you'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Today I bring you what was originally going to be my Christmas manicure, until I realized there was in no way shape or form that I would be able to keep the same design on my nails for 6 days.  After wearing these nails for 1 day I had tip wear and had to touch them up for the photos.  Not to mention, typing all day long at work didn't help them at all, by day 3 they were done for.  Thank heavens though that the end of  the world didn't come and I was able to paint on a spectacular manicure for Christmas.

I ran out of nail art ideas, okay that's a lie.  I had an idea for trees but they turned out to be a complete disaster, therefore leaving me to run out.  I didn't know what to do, so I went to searching.  I found a manicure that was simple red and green dots and thought "hey I could do something like that!"  I put on a brave face, grabbed my dotting tool, and attempted a dot-icure....let's see what you guys think!



Colors Used:
  • Base
    • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
    • NYC Color - Vinyl Shine (a frosty white)
    • Sally Hansen - Disco Ball
  • Dots
    • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Sugar, Sugar, and HD Nails
When I did these nails, I did not want them to be just a plain white base.  They needed something different to give them some sort of depth.  After doing one coat of Snow Me White, I grabbed Disco Ball, but was not really happy with the results.  I searched my stash and found a really old bottle of New York Color Vinyl Shine.  To be honest, I'm not sure if this is the name of the polish, but according to Google, it made sense.  It is a frosted white polish which I purchased probably in the 10th grade.  It's a little thick, but still gave an awesome frosted look to my nails.  I thought that the base looked a little like snow, so I added some Disco Ball to make them extra sparkly!

I then started making the dots randomly.  I started with the white polish, followed by the green, then finally the red.  I tried to make them alternating in size, sort of like a dot gradient, but it didn't really turn out exactly how a dot gradient should.

I'm very pleased though with my dotting skills.  If I tried a manicure like this six months ago, it would have been awful.  All the dots would have bled into one another or not been circular.  Seriously, I was awful with the dotting tool.

What do you think?  Acceptable pre-Christmas manicure?  What are you all sporting on your nails this Christmas Eve??  Send me a tweet!  I love seeing different nails and nail art!!!

Hope you all have a safe Christmas Eve and I will see you back here tomorrow for my spectacular Christmas post!  <3


Christmas

Santa Claus Nail Art

11:00:00 AM

He's making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who's naught or nice....Santa Claus is coming to town!!!!  Are you all ready for the big guy to come down your chimneys?  Hopefully everyone has been good and will get lots and lots of presents :).  Christmas is now just 3 days away...can you believe it?  It feels like this month and year have just flown by!!!  These three days for me are going to be filled with cookie baking, nail painting, and just relaxing.

I can't believe I'm coming close to the end of my Christmas manicures!  Seriously, this is the second to last one before the big day!  Well, that might be a lie.  As I sit here typing this post up, I'm realizing that since my posts are at least one manicure a head of the posting, I may end up with no manicure for Christmas.  This means I might be bringing you a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day post!  For you new readers, I post to the blog every three days.  This post goes up on the 22nd (obviously), then I'd have one for the 25th, 28th, and 31st.  The manicure I'm painting for the 25th as it seems was painted on 12/19, and well lets face it, no manicure will last on me from the 19th to the 25th!  So yup, you may be in for some extra posting!!

Okay, enough of that rant, onto my nails!  What does every little child think of when they think of Christmas?  Yup, Santa Claus!  I needed to have the jolly ol' fella on my nails!  I have received so many compliments on them, and my two nephews were in love with them!  This manicure I did last year, again when I was new to blogging.  I'm going to start off by saying how much I love this years nails over last years!  I'll let you be the judge!  Please excuse my last photo with it's random colors.  It's orangier than I would have liked, but it showed the thumb art the best!





Colors Used:

  • Sally Hansen - Red Carpet
  • Sinful Colors - Black on Black and Snow Me White
  • Funky Fingers - Favorite Girl
I think out of all my Christmas manicures, this one took the least amount of time.  I started off with a base coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy Top Coat.  Some of you may or may not know, but I use this matte top coat as a base because I believe it makes my manicures live longer.  The polish also applies a lot smoother when that matte is the base!  Call me crazy, but hey it works.

When my base was dry, with a nail art brush, I took the gorgeous Red Carpet (a red almost jelly glitter polish) and drew on the hats.  I then took the white polish and painted on side burns.  I then let this dry for at least a good five minutes.  I wanted to ensure the red polish was completely dry before dotting on the fringe to Santa's hat.  Every time that I have previously put white polish over red, the red leaches into the white turning it into a nice shade of pink.  Luckily, that didn't happen this time around!!!  With my dotting tool I dotted on the hat fringe and the beard.  I then added the eyes, nose, and mouth, slapped on some Out the Door, and enjoyed my lil Santas.

This is last years attempt at Santa Clause....almost embarrassed to post them!  No clean up, short nails! ahhh.


For someone who owned NO dotting tools and NO paint brushes, this was a very good attempt.  You can see on the thumb I had some of red bleeding into the white like I mentioned earlier.  I like my eyes on this years guys also.  Since I have longer nails, I had more room to decorate, therefore, larger eyes.  Same goes for the smile.  I really think that made them!

What do you think??  Last years Santa Claus or this years?

See you all next post! <3

Christmas

Reindeer Nail Art

11:00:00 AM

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose!!! Who doesn't love Rudolph?  It was one of my favorite movies growing up, and still is.  Last year for Christmas I purchased my nephew a light up nose Build a Bear for his gift, and well I wish I got one for myself.  Something about the movie, and Rudolph himself just screams Christmas.

What is Christmas nail art without a reindeer post?  After seeing numerous reindeer nails on Pinterest, it was my turn to have a go at them.  Of course, my first attempt turned out awful, so I found a design by Top Coat It which I copied.  So without further adieu, here comes Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and the most famous reindeer of all.....(okay maybe it's just Rudolph).

I apologize for the messy-ish edges. The brown went into attack mode, and I hit the pointer finger with the q-tip while cleaning them and it of course took off the polish.






Colors Used:
  • Ulta - Chocolate Kiss (was going to use China Glaze Mahogany Madness but that was part of the disasticure so I opted for the darker brown)
  • Zoya - Avery
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Black on Black, and Sugar Sugar
Getting the look of these nails was very simple! I first started off with two coats of Chocolate Kiss.  This polish is such a nice brown!  It has a very nice shimmer so it doesn't look like, well, you know.  It's a perfect Fall color, so I'm happy it is part of my collection.  One thing I hate about Ulta polishes is the cap.  For those of you who haven't used any Ulta polishes, they have these circular bulky caps which are the size of the bottle.  For me, it's awkward to hold and control, therefore I flooded my cuticles and got polish all over the place.

When my base was dried, I drew on the antlers with Zoya Avery.  I decided to do the antlers first so I would have enough room for them.  I tried to do the eyes first and they ended up being too far up the nail and left no room for them.  When my antlers were painted on, I took my dotting tool and added the whites of the eyes, then the black pupils looking around in different directions.

The next step was the nose.  My original plan was to do black noses and one red nose on my ring finger for Rudolph.  Since Chocolate Kiss is such a dark brown polish, the black got lost and it didn't turn out well.  If I had a lighter brown, or stuck to my plan of using Mahogany Madness I would have been able to probably get the black noses to work.  I took my bottle of Sugar, Sugar and with my dotting tool added the noses.  I kind of wish I owned a lighter red or even a cream red because I think they would have shown up better.  Either way, they still were cute and shimmered!

Have you done any Rudolphs?  Do you think these are cute?  I'm so grateful that I found TopCoatIt's design!

Only a few more days until Christmas.  Are you all ready??  What am I going to do when I don't have Christmas nails to post anymore?! 



Christmas

Christmas Lights Manicure

11:00:00 AM

Talk about a non-disasticure manicure!  I was so nervous to do these nails the other day!  When I sat down to do them, I had a clear vision in mind as to what I wanted on my nail.  Typically when I do this though, it turns out awful and then 3 manicures later I'm left with something just as bad.  This time around though, my Christmas light manicure came out perfectly and just as I imagined.

Last year I did Christmas light nails on a baby blue metallic base with an accent nail of a Christmas Tree.  I shall include that picture at the end of this post since I did it before I started blogging.  I didn't want to do the same thing.  I wanted different.  I had seen a few white background Christmas light nails but I just wasn't feeling it.

I took to the internet and found an idea I liked.  The amazing CutePolish posted a Christmas light manicure awhile back where she painted her nails with a classic french tip and then drew on the strands of lights.  This was a decent idea...the full nail wasn't totally white but it was too bare.  I then saw her tutorial for birthday nails where she sponged on the french tip.  To me, that was perfect, it had the look of falling snow.  I didnt want the top of my nail to be bare though, so I went on the perfect glitter hunt.

I already owned China Glaze Make a Spectacle, and was debating on using that, but the glitter hexes I feel would have been too big and "swallow up" the lights.  Also, it has more of a yellow tinge to the glitter, and well you aren't supposed to play or eat the yellow snow :P.  I found a bottle of Sally Hansen Disco Ball and fell in love.  It reminded me of NYC White Lights Glitter, one of my favorite glitters that dried up to the point where not even the greatest thinner could save it.  I purchased it, and well, even though you can't really see it in the pictures, it was PERFECT for this manicure!

Enough of my babbling, picture time.





Colors Used:
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Disco Ball
  • Sinful Colors - Black on Black
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Red Carpet
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue Me Away!
  • Sinful Colors - HD Nails
  • Ulta - well it's yellow and I don't feel like looking it up. <- bad blogger girl.
I started off just as cutepolish always does...with a base coat to protect my natural nail.  For those of you who watch the videos, you'll understand that lol.  Then with a make up sponge, I sponged on the white polish on the tips.  I then added 2 coats of Disco Ball to the nails.  With my nail art brush, I added the light strand and the bulbs.  Top coated and done.  Easy peasy.

These are last years nails, done with all toothpicks.  The lights were smaller and my nails nubbier.  Can't believe how short my nails were!  I clearly did not know how to take photos back then either.


I also didn't own a big collection!  See how my trunk of my tree was yellow!!!  Ohhh those were the days.  I don't even think I owned a top coat yet.  How I have grown as a nail blogger/artist.  

Which do you like better....2012's version or 2011's?  Personally I like 2012!  Glitter, gradient, nail art brushes!  2011's was a great attempt though, not going to lie!

Can you predict what I'm going to paint next?  See you next post!

Christmas

Penguin and Holly Nail Art :)

11:00:00 AM

Christmas is almost here!  Have you all busted out your red and green polishes and create any cute nail art designs?  I really hope so!!!  I have seen many bloggers in my feed participating in a 12 days of Christmas Challenge, and well I have been stalking those blogs and loving all the nail art I've been seeing.

As you all know, I'm in the midst of my own Christmas nail art spree.  So far I have posted two designs for you, which I've been receiving positive feedback from.  This design I already know is loved by many of you. I posted a sneak peak of my thumb on Instagram the other night, and instantly people were liking the photo.  That sneak peek is now my Twitter avatar....a cute little penguin snowman.  

I got the idea for this manicure from a few places.  First, was Pinterst.  I had done penguins last year, but nothing like this.  They were full nail and kind of bad.  These little guys only take up half the nail and lean into the "picture" so to speak.  When I googled Christmas penguin nail art, I found a cute Santa penguins accenting holly, Christmas trees, Santa hats, and more.  I fell in love with one design, which sadly linked back to a dead page so I can't give proper credit or post it here =(.

Anywho, here are my lil guys.  Indoor photography = ugh.




And for a treat, here is a shot of both hands!


Colors Used:

  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Celeb City and Red Carpet
  • Sinful Colors - Black on Black, Snow Me White, and HD Nails
  • Zoya - Lianne
I may have to do a tutorial for these little penguins.  They were rather simple!  First, with my nail art brush, I outlined a body shape with black polish.  Once complete, I filled it in completely with the black.  When it was completely dried, I filled in the tummy with white polish.  Then, with my dotting tool I added the white circles for the eyes.  I then painted on the red hats with my nail art brushes.  I then let them sit and dry before adding any more detail since I layered on the white kind of thick.

I moved onto the holly nails.  With my dotting tool, I added the three berries.  The leaves were added with the nail art brush.  Since HD Nails by Sinful Colors is a shimmer green, the look of leaves came out almost perfectly on top of the silver polish.

Back to the penguins now.  With my dotting tool, I added the eyes, and with the brushes I added the lil guys beak and bow tie!  Then on top of the hat, I added the white detailing with my dotting tool.  Finished with some Out the Door and called it a night.

What do you think of the little guys?  Have you done penguins yet or ever?

Next nail design to show you.....Christmas lights!!!!  Well, if my photos come out well! hahahaha.

Christmas

Gingerbread Men Nail Art

11:00:00 AM

I can't believe it's already December 10th and Christmas is fast approaching.  My OCD set in while writing this post, and I planned out the rest of my Christmas manicures.  I really hope you're going to like what I'm going to do.  My manicure I'm painting tonight is amazing in my head, so I hope it transfers well on the nail and isn't going to be a disasticure.  I'm not sure about my feelings yet on this manicure.  I kind of saw it as a disasticure but probably because it chipped rather fast.  

Almost every year, I attempt to build a gingerbread house.  Last year I did one, but it took so much time that I kind of gave up half way through and never finished it.  I don't think my mom was too happy having a half decorated gingerbread house in her kitchen for the month of December, so this year I didn't bother purchasing one because I knew it probably would end up the same way.  So, instead of building a lil house, I thought why not put the little guys on my nails?  I took to google for some ideas, and found a really video tutorial where gingerbread men were on accent nails and the other nails were a stripped design.  I was lazy and decided to just do plain glitter nails.

Let's take a look. I kind of hate the photos for it.  Stupid indoor photography is not an easy thing when you do not have a light box.  Although, my next post, the pictures look kick butt for being indoors....you'll just have to wait and see.  Please forgive my blech photo skills.





Colors Used:
  • Sinful Colors - HD Nails
  • Sinful Colors - Sugar Sugar
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
  • Sinful Colors - Black on Black
  • Sinful Colors - Nirvana
  • China Glaze - Fairy Dust
I semi disliked how the thumb nail on the left hand turned out.  I wish that both my gingerbread men were standing straight instead of the one kind of falling underneath the other one.  It still was cute though, minus my mess up on the bow tie of the crooked one.  Maybe he's a drunk gingerbread man....we'll just go with that.  I used a dotting tool to make my lil guys and added the details with a toothpick.

Those who noticed the nails said that they were super cute.  When I look at these nails, all I can think about is my nephew.  Now my nephew is almost 4 years old, and he loves my nails.  Each time he sees me he goes "Alaina, what's on your nails today?"  He then will take a look and go "oh you have blah blah blah".  The kid is smart, he even knew what my monarch wings were.  When I showed him these, he said "Ohhhh! You have ginger ales on your nails!"  That's right, my lil buddy called them ginger ales.  I started laughing and said "yes, yes, ginger ales...but they really are gingerbread men!"  Later he said he wanted to build a ginger ale house, so I don't think he grasped the concept, but cute lil kid tried.

What do you think of my ginger ales....I mean gingerbread men?  Have you done any for Christmas?

<3



Christmas

Peppermint Candy Nail Art

11:00:00 AM

It was so nice taking a quick little break from blogging.  I believe I mentioned in my last post that during my time away I accumulated quite a back log of nails to post!  All the pictures are edited and they are sitting as drafts on blogger....only thing that is missing is the writing!  So here I am tonight in the midst of a mini panic attack writing out a blog post.  Panic attack you say?  Well I'm in the midst of working on a graduate project, and for those of you who have been there, you know what I'm going through.

It is December, meaning, it's time for some Christmas nails!  My list of ideas keeps growing for Christmas manicures, and with my every three day painting routine (which I will not be giving up since it is a huge stress reliever), I am sure I will get through all of them.  For my first design of the season, I wanted to do peppermint candies.  You know, those little red and white swirl candies that sit in bowls at doctors offices.  In my surprise Julep December Box, one of those candies came, so when I saw that, I knew it was the perfect time to paint them on my nails.

Enough of my babbling, let's take a look!  I didn't take as many pictures as I normally do because  well, at every angle these nails look exactly the same.  Not much detail, and after seeing other bloggers freaking out over the Blogger picture limit, I figure I might as well save space where I can.



Colors Used:

  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Red Carpet
Can I tell you how many compliments I received on these nails?  At work, customers were asking if they were the Sally Hansen stickers or which salon I got them done at.  I have to say, the look on people's faces when I say "I did them myself" is probably one of my favorites.  Some people have stopped dead and grabbed my hand saying "No way!"  It's comical to me, and well rather flattering.  

On Instagram, someone asked me if I had used tape to accomplish this.  Many of you know how much I dislike tape manicures.  Not due to how they look in the end, they look awesome, but because I fail at them. No matter how long I let the polish dry, and how much of the stickiness I remove from the tape, the polish still rips off.  It's frustrating, and well, I rather not use it.

These nails were rather simple.  After painting on two coats of Snow Me White, I took one of my nail art brushes and started to trace the swirl pattern with Red Carpet.  Once my outlines were completed, with the brush I filled in each little section.  Added some Out the Door and was done!  

For those of you who do not own Red Carpet, you need to go out and find a bottle.  This is by far one of my favorite red polishes.  It is kind of jelly consistency, but more opaque.  Within the red polish are very fine red glitters...it's so pretty.

What do you think?  Love, hate?  Have you attempted swirled nails before?

I will be doing this design again in the future with different colors.  It was so quick and left me with a really cute and fun manicure.  Now after staring at these pictures while writing the post, I want to do my candy cane design.  I believe today is a nail painting day, so maybe I will....hmmmmm.

See you next time!! <3

Swatches

A Simple Mani with It's a Trap-Eze!

11:00:00 AM

Welcome to my return to the world of blogging!!! I have had such a nice week or so off from the stresses of taking pictures, editing, and posting. I guess it really wasn't stress as much as a hassle, especially since I was hating all my manicures. I want to say a special thank you to Lindsey, Kat, and Jessie for the amazing guest posts they provided during my absence! I hope that I can return the favor in the near future!

During my time off, I continued painting my nails. I really spent a lot of time trying not to flood my cuticles, which I think I'm finally getting the hang of. I became slightly obsessed with glitter.  I have a slightly large glitter stash, but I rarely use my glitter polishes since I never can find a need for them when doing nail art.  I have learned during my hiatus, that you can still nail art and use glitter with the all amazing glitter accent nail.


In this manicure, I went simple 100%. I purchased China Glaze It's a Trap-eze! from the Cirque du Soleil collection.  I wasn't going to purchase anything from the collection until I saw swatches of this polish online!  It was so unique compared to other name brand polishes on the market, I just had to have it.  I decided to pair it with Sinful Colors Mint Apple with some extra glitter.  

Let's take a look!  Boo to the blurry indoor pictures!  It's going to be a looong winter! 



Colors Used:

  • Sinful Colors - Mint Apple
  • China Glaze - Fairy Dust
  • China Glaze - It's a Trap-eze!
Mint Apple is my favorite Sinful nail polish.  I believe that this polish was the first Sinful I ever purchased.  It's not as light as your average mint polish.  It has such a gorgeous shimmer, that in the past I have never paired it with a glitter such as Fairy Dust.  When I did, it made my favorite polish even more spectacular!  The application is very smooth, and with two coats I have full coverage.  My original bottle I remember being a tad streaker, but as Sinful has grown as a company, I believe their formulas have gotten a lot better.

It's a Trap-eze! is an amazing polish!  If you love glitter, you will love this polish.  Literally, it is beyond jam packed with glitter!  The multi colored glitter, including some white flecks, are set in a milky off white, kind of lavender, base.  With this manicure, I used 3 coats, and with these three coats, I had an amazing jelly sandwich.  Seriously, this polish is a jelly sandwich in a bottle!  Some reviews I read online said it was very difficult to work with and dried bumpy, but I did not have this issue at all.  Three coats gave me full coverage and dried practically smooth.  I have other glitters that dried bumpier.  I didn't feel a need to layer it with top coat to smooth it out, just a normal one coat.

In my time away, I have found a love for the simple manicure which I once hated since I always messed them up.  Don't worry though, loyal followers, I still will be bringing you tons of nail art, but do not be surprised if there is some simple mixed in!

What do you think?  Do you have either polish??  Are you glitter obsessed?

Now it is time to do all my Christmas Manicures!  So excited!  I have pre-swatched two and they are so cute!  Hope you think so as well! 

Guest Post

Nailed it NZ guest post - landscape nail art!

9:00:00 AM

Hi everyone, I'm Jessie from Nailed it NZ! It's great to be guest posting on The Little Canvas today - thanks for having me Alaina!
When it comes to nail art, I'm one of the crazy ones. I rarely do the same manicure twice and I will try absolutely anything, just for the challenge. Because of this I have a folder in my computer that has several failed designs that will never make it to the internet!

These nails are a good example of my inner-crazy. I was looking around for inspiration and thought the painting on my wall would be something different! 


The painting below was done by my husband's great grandmother, who, as you can see was a very talented artist! We were gifted the painting for our wedding earlier this year, and it's been hanging proudly on our wall ever since! I decided to take inspiration from bits of the painting - my thumbs were the tree in the foreground, my pointer and middle fingers were the trees and the ring and pinky fingers were just hills.


Pack'a'Punch Polish recently made these awesome nail art doodle sheets, which I found very useful for this! Unfortunately messy me destroyed this sheet of paper in just one manicure - I'll have to be tidier next time! I have a book around somewhere that I doodle my more complicated manis in sometimes, but it disappeared a while ago so it's good to have something to use again :).


 Nature and I are friends. I love how beautifully imperfect it is; it has such a calming effect on me. As you can see, these nails are far from being perfect, but I'm okay with that! 


 Here's a picture of both hands, so you can see that I did the same design on both.


The only part that kind of annoys me is on the pointer finger, where the trees shadow runs into the river. It wasn't meant to happen that way, I just painted it on wrong. Oh well...


By the way, I painted it all on with a liner brush. It was actually very messy and not very precise - but as I said before, so is nature! I cleaned up around my cuticles with a thin brush I have.


Here's a better look at my thumbs...



And here's the mess I made of the nail art doodle sheet! Oops!


Thanks for reading, and if you like my nail art pop by Nailed it NZ and say hi!

Guest Post

Guest Post from Kat at Hooked on Polish!

11:00:00 AM

Today I have an awesome guest post from Kat over at Hooked on Polish!  Kat is such a sweet heart and I love her blog, but alas, I'm a horrible nail blogger and forget to post comments.  Hope she will forgive me :).  The other night when I was complaining how uninspired I was and needed guest post assistance, Kat was there, feeling the same way I was!  We both were uninspired and burnt out from a challenge.  Thankfully though, Kat found some inspiration and came up with this post!  Let's see what she came up with!!!!

______________________________

Hey all!

I'm Kat and I blabber a lot on my blog Hooked On Polish! Alaina and I started blogging pretty much at the same time and we met on twitter a little while after that. Since then, I've gotten to know her and can honestly say she's one of the sweetest people in the blogging world so I was very excited with the prospect of helping her out with this guest post!

I know Alaina's style is usually more freehand nail art but that can get really draining and exhausting (trust me, I've been pretty uninspired after the 31 Day Challenge myself) so I tried to do something still special but with a simpler execution.

I started with a base of OPI Dutch Ya' Just Love OPI and Milani Purple Gleam for my accent nails. On top of that, I layered Essie Stroke of Brilliance and Cover Band Sticks 'N Stones. Then, a layer of Milani Rad Purple and one of Nail Pattern Boldness Boop Oop a Dupe. Gelous, topcoat and I'm done with this beast of a jelly sandwich! :P 






My poor camera freaked out with this mani, she had no idea what to focus on and most of the pictures came out blurry, which is good since it made me cut down on the number of pics. I just couldn't capture how much this shimmered, it looks like my nails are lit from within. I also have to say how happy I am that I finally have a Clarins/Fantasy Fire dupe!

What do you all think? Is this something you would try if you're burned out on more complex nail art?

A big thank you to Alaina for having me and I hope you all enjoyed my post!

______________________________

This jelly sandwich is gorgeous!!!! I'm sure every single one of my readers can agree!!!  I have done one jelly sandwich which looked nothing like this!  I'm so happy Kat picked this for the guest post because it's something I rarely feature.  Plus, purple is my FAVORITE color!!!! I think that's why I love this so much...in conjunction with all the different sized glitters.  What does everyone else think?

Kat, thank you so much for the kind words.  I am beyond thrilled with this post, and happy you were able to help despite being burned out as well!  I swear, you read my mind though with the perfect manicure, especially since it's purple.  I always forget we started blogging at the same time, probably because your pictures are more professional looking then mine!  You may need to tell me your photographing secrets!  Thank you so much for this post....I am truly grateful and hopefully one day will get the pleasure to post on your blog!!!