Back to School

Back to School Nail Art + Tutorial!

9:00:00 AM

Hello polished world!  I'm in a great mood today because I feel like my manicure is stinking adorable.  It turned out exactly as I planned, and well when that happens, it's a great feeling.  Where I live, Labor Day weekend marks the end of summer for all of those who go to school.  Typically the Tuesday or Wednesday after Labor Day is the first day back to school.  Since I obtained my Masters Degree in May, this is the first year since, well, preschool that I'm not returning to school.  Most people would be jumping for joy over this, but for me, it's rather weird.  It's been my routine for as long as I can remember, and now this year I have to find a new routine.

Despite not returning to school, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to paint my nails with a cute back to school manicure.  I may or may not have another one planned as well.  It's kind of like Thanksgiving, you can't not do a Thanksgiving Day manicure.  Last year for my back to school manicure, I did these pencils which I received so many compliments on.  I knew for this years manicure I wanted to re-create them to see how far I have come.

I feel like I have come a long way as a nail artist and as a blogger here at The Little Canvas, so I wanted to not copy my manicure 100%.  I needed to change it up a little bit.  Then it hit me, what do you write on when using a pencil.  That's right, PAPER!  I have seen "doodle" nails all over the internet where girls make their nails look like lined paper then with a black polish draw little designs on them like I used to do on real paper when I was bored in class.  I thought, wouldn't it be cute to paint doodle nails with an accent of a pencil?!

Despite having that brilliant idea, after having the plain lined paper nails, I decided against having the doodles.  I thought the manicure looked so clean, fresh, and crisp, kind of like those brand new school supplies all us eager kiddies used to run into school with on the first day.

Enough of my babbling, let's take a look and I'll tell you how I created this cute little design :).




Colors Used
  • Pencils
    • Zoya - Darcy (pencil yellow)
    • Zoya - Thandie (orange lines)
    • Zoya - Micky (eraser)
    • Zoya - Avery (wood)
    • Zoya - Claudine (granite tip)
    • Sinful Colors - Cool Grey and Sally Hansen - Celeb City (metal around eraser)
  • Paper
    • OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
    • Sally Hansen - Blue Away
    • Zoya - Micky
How I Got the Look (Yes, I did a tutorial again!)


Pencil Tip

  1. On your naked nail, take some painters tape (or scotch tape) and create a point on your nail.
  2. Paint on a base coat, and your favorite tan/pencil wood color polish.  For my manicure, I used Zoya Avery.
  3. Remove the tape!  If you need to make the lines crisper you can always go over them with a nail art brush
  4. With a nail art brush or small dotting tool, add the graphite of the pencil.
  5. With a nail art brush, draw a little chevron design halfway down the pencil wood.  Fill in the rest of the nail with a yellow polish.  For this manicure, I used Zoya Darcy.
  6. Add some orange lines down the pencil.
Pencil Eraser
  1. Paint your nail a pencil yellow color.
  2. Add orange lines half way down the nail.
  3. On the cuticle end or tip of the nail (depending if you want a whole eraser manicure or if you want a manicure like mine) paint on an eraser pink polish.  For this manicure, I used Zoya Micky.
  4. With a gray polish, fill in the empty area to resemble the metal that holds the eraser onto the pencil.
  5. With a darker gray, or a metallic silver polish, draw on two lines on the gray area.
Lined Paper
  1. Paint your nails white.
  2. With a light blue polish, paint four lines across your nail.
  3. With a pink (or red) polish, paint a line down the nail.
Finish all the nails with a top coat, and you have yourself a fancy little back to school manicure!!!!  An alternate way of doing this manicure is by just doing pencils on your nails like I did last year, or just all paper.  It's up to you!  You can even try the little doodles I was going to do!!

If you try this manicure, please oh please tag me and the photo #thelittlecanvas so I can see!  I love seeing re-creations! :)

Well, I am off, this post has turned out to be extremely long winded.  It's been awhile though since I've done something like this though, so it's kind of nice!

Next post will be September's Nail Artist of the Month!  I hope you enjoy!  I may also switch up my posting schedule too, not sure yet, so stay tuned.

Until next time, <3.

**The Zoyas were provided by Zoya for review.  All other polishes, I purchased.  Please see my disclosure policy**


Birthday

Belated Birthday Nails!

9:00:00 AM

Good morning!!!  How are you all today?  I'm bringing you a post which I meant to bring you back in the beginning of August for my birthday!  I truly meant to share the manicure, but I got kind of lazy and didn't feel like editing the photos.  Finally though, I got around to it, and ignored my zillions of other posts share today!

Last year for my birthday, I did a simple manicure with cupcake accents.  Looking back at the pictures from last year, goodness gracious I had some messy cuticles!  Kind of happy I learned to not flood them!  This year, I decided to do the same manicure, but with a different color scheme.  I recently purchase OPI Polka.com and was dying to use it, so this was the perfect opportunity!

Let's take a look!




Colors Used:

  • Base
    • Sinful Colors - Sail La Vie
    • INM Northern Lights
    • OPI - Polka.com
  • Cupcake
    • Sinful Colors - Amythyst
    • Ulta - Snow White
    • OPI - You're Such a Budapest, Can't Find my Czechbook, Suzi's Hungary Again
    • Some red polish that is escaping me
Isn't Sinful Colors Sail La Vie gorgeous?  It's seriously one of my favorite polishes.  After I painted on a base (which was a flawless two coats), I added INM Northern Lights and kind of wanted to leave it at that.  I know, shocking since I NEVER keep my nails one color.

After debating that indeed I needed to do something special for my birthday, I added OPI Polka.com to my non accent nails.  I fell in love with that as well, and started debating on whether I should actually do cupcakes. Really, would anyone be offended if I skipped nail art for my day?

The answer was yes, that I myself would be offended.  Since I did pink cupcakes last year, I decided to opt for purple cupcakes which matched the glitter.  To get the cupcake, I took my dark purple polish and painted half my nail.  When it was dry, I added the lighter purple lines like a cupcake wrapper.  With a dotting tool, I added the white cupcake frosting.  With a nail art brush, I added the colorful sprinkles, then at the very end dotted on the red cherry!

What do you think?  Love, hate?  Think it's a good birthday design?

Until next time, <3!

**I purchased all the polishes used in this post**

Nail Art Society

Blue Tribal-Ish Nails and Nail Art Society Re-Launch

9:00:00 AM

Alright, polished peeps, finally the post I said I would do days ago!  As I mentioned, I am now a Guru for the Nail Art Society.  It is such an honor to be considered a guru in this blogging community.  I never, in a million years, thought my blog would reach as many people as it has, nor did I ever consider that people would look at me as a guru.  It still hasn't fully sunk in, but I am truly thankful for this experience.

For those of you who do not know, the Nail Art Society provides monthly nail art kits to it's subscribers for $9.95 (plus shipping) a month.  For those of you who do know what NAS is and used to be a subscriber, you are aware that the business stopped sending kits for a little bit, but now they are back and better than ever with their new re-launch!

In the re-launched kit, subscribers will receive four Orly Instant Artist Water Based polishes, along with 2 packs of Cala Water Decals.  I have yet to use the water decals because my nubbins couldn't fit them on, but I will be in the near future.  For now though, I have used, and fallen in love with the the Orly Instant Artist Water Based Polishes.

For my manicure today, I decided to go a little tribal.  Originally, I wasn't planning on doing this, but as I got to working with the brushes, I continued adding and it ended up looking that way.  I kind of got lazy and decided to not apply this design on all the nails, and well I love how it turned out.  The only nails that have the Orly Instant Artists on them are the thumb and ring finger, the colors used are listed below.




Colors Used:
  • Sinful Colors - Endless Blue
  • Sally Hansen Celeb City
  • Orly Instant Artist
    • Jet Black
    • Crisp White
    • Hot Blue
    • Platinum
The look was rather easy.  I used Orly Instant Artist in Crisp White to cover both my ring and thumb.  When that was dry, with Jet Blue, I created two lines down the nail and filled in the edges.  I then took Jet Black and created the random little design down the middle.  I wanted to incorporate Platinum, therefore I added the silver lines next to the black.  To get the white dots, I dripped a little Crisp White on a plate and used my smallest dotting tool.



Look, I did bottle shots!  Can you believe it!  I never have done this, but I thought why not for this manicure?  I wanted to show how similar the Orly's were to the blue and silver plain nails.  I didn't want use other polishes with the Orly's, but when I saw Sinful Colors Endless Blue was a dead on dupe of Hot Blue, I knew I could get away with paring them.  You can kind of see that the Orly looks a little different on the ring finger when next to the pinkie.  The silvers were a tad different too.  My middle finger has Celeb City which as more of a metallic finish than the Orly Platinum.


I am not a huge fan of striper polishes, but these Orly's are amazing.  The water based polish is similar to that of an acrylic paint, therefore you can easily fix mistakes if needed without using nail polish remover and destroying your whole manicure.  The striper is long, but not too long that it's awkward to work with.  The polish itself is perfect also.  When it applies to the nail, it's rather opaque so you don't have to trace the same line over and over again to get it stand out.

I really love the blue polish and how vibrant it was.  I'm a sucker for blue polishes, so I can see myself using that one a lot.  The black and white one I can see myself using a lot.  As a nail artist, these are two polishes that I'm constantly running out of.  I am in love with Orly Liquid Vinyl, so it is no surprise to me that Orly hit it out of the park with Jet Black.  I'm not sure when I will use the silver striper again, but since it had such a great formula, I will try to fit it into other manicures, especially around Christmas time.

What do you think?  Ever used an Orly Instant Artist Polish?

I think this is such a great kit that NAS has created this month, and will certainly make a nail artist out of anyone.  I love how easy these stripers were to use.  I especially loved that you can "erase" your mistakes, which if you have ever done nail art know is something that happens.  There have been plenty of times I made mistakes using polishes to create a design, and I have to take off the whole nail (or sometimes the whole manicure), and start all over.  It's beyond frustrating, and I believe that's probably why people give up on nail art so quickly.  Given a tool, such as this one, can create a pro out of anyone and makes nail art simple!  I think it is brilliant that NAS picked these polishes for their relaunch kit!

If you want to grab a kit, head on over to the Nail Art Society and subscribe!!

Whew, see why I wanted to postpone this post until I was more awake?  I shall stop babbling!

Until next time, <3.

**Orly Instant Artists were provided to me by the Nail Art Society.  Please see my disclosure policy**

Dot Mani

Zoya Pixie Dust Dotticure

9:00:00 AM

Good morning, polished world!  How are you today?   I'm a tired girl, therefor this post is most likely not going to be a rambling one.  Also this post is not the one I was planning.  The plan was to bring you a post I did using all the new Orly Instant Artist polishes that the Nail Art Society sent me, but as I write this post, it is 12:45am.  I want to be 100% awake when writing up that post because it has more photos than normal, and I want to talk about a few different things.  So next post, I promise!  Stay tuned for that!

No worries though, I'm bringing you a pretty manicure today!  I really enjoyed it and was so happy with how my zillions of dots turned out!  Typically when I do a dotticure, I do the dots on an accent nail instead of all 10.  Not really sure my reasoning behind this, but it's just something I've always done.  After seeing this manicure by Fashion Polish, I wanted to attempt it and see if I could possibly, just possibly, do a successful 10 nailed dotticure.  

Sadly, I do not own the gorgeous Picture Polishes' featured in Fashion Polish's post, so I opted for using some pretty Zoya Pixie Dusts.  The end result turned out rather fabulous.  Let's take a look....





Colors Used:

  • OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
  • Zoya - Arabella, Destiny, and Beatrix
I started off with a base coat of OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  I feel I must repeat myself hear and say that this polish is my favorite white polish.  It's white, but not so white that it takes away from the manicure.  I think that if I never said what the base was, no one would know that this isn't a true white polish.

When that was dry, I followed Fashion Polish's tutorial which is part of the original post above.  I began dotting the darkest color first, which is Arabella.  Arabella is a Pixie from the new Fall Pixie Dust polish collection.  It's a rather gorgeous shade.  I then did the same thing using Destiny and Beatrix, both polishes from the Summer Pixie Dust collection.  When my "main" dots were on, I went back through and filled in the empty spaces with smaller dots.  I added a top coat because I wanted the Pixies to pop, and boy did they.  This was one sparkly manicure!  I loved it!

What do you think?  Have you used the Pixies for dots or nail art yet?  I'm hooked.

Well dear readers, I am off.  Until next time, <3.

**The Zoya Pixie Dusts were provided by Zoya for promotional purposes.  I purchased MBSW.  All opinions expressed are my own.  Please see my disclosure policy**



Gradient Mani

Funky Gradient Nails

9:00:00 AM

Happy Sunday!  Let me start off by saying that these past few weeks have been a blur!  There really isn't much going on in my personal life other than work and well, more work.  Here on the blog though, it's been quite exciting.  If you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you are probably unaware that I am now a Guru for the Nail Art Society!  I seriously couldn't be happier and never thought that I would be considered a nail art guru.  You should check out the guru page that NAS created for me, as well as the other amazing gurus!

The best way for me to explain the Nail Art Society is that they are the Julep of the nail art world.  For $9.95 a month, NAS sends subscribers kits which contain tools for you to create your own unique manicures.  In the re-launch kit, subscribers will be receiving four Orly Instant Artist Water Based Polishes.  The colors are Hot Blue, Jet Black, Crisp White, and Platinum.  There also will be some water decals which I have yet to play around with.
  
I will be talking more about NAS and the re-launch in my next post since this manicure wasn't what I originally was planning on doing when I got the polishes.  I had the greatest idea using Jet Black and Crisp White, but it crashed and burned when I tried to translate it onto my nails.  Reason being, I'm not accustomed to using striper polishes, which these Instant Artist polishes are.  Typically when doing thin lines, I use my nail art brushes, so this was a whole new experience.  

When my idea failed, I opted for a trusty gradient with a unique design to get used to the brush.  Let's take a look at the manicure!




Colors Used:
  • China Glaze - I'm With the Lifeguard, Splish Splash, Sun Kissed, Hang Ten Toes, Flip Flop Fantasy
  • Funky Fingers - Riot!
  • INM - Northern Lights
  • Orly Instant Artist - Jet Black
To get the look, I started off with a base coat of a thin white polish.  When it was dried, I did a make up sponge gradient using the six neons listed above.  I dabbed the sponge on a couple of times to get the colors to really pop.  Before I talk about the Instant Artist polish, I must tell you my genius idea!  Before I did the gradient, I took painters tape and taped off my cuticles and all around my nails!  This way, when I sponged the polish on my nail, it went only on the nail and not on my skin!!  It quickly peeled off and I had little to no clean up!  For as much as I do gradients, I'm shocked I never thought of this before!  Since I was new to doing this, you can still see some white on the edges, but now I know where to put the tape that hopefully next time I get full gradient coverage.

After I got the colors popping just enough, I added a quick thin coat of INM Northern Lights to make them sparkly.  Loving that holo glitter.  Then came striper polish time, the nerve racking striper time.  I started by making three lines down the nail.  I was shocked with how easy the brush was to work with in comparison to other artist polishes I've used.  Typically they're long and awkward which makes it nearly impossible to create a decent design.  I added a few more random lines to play around with different angles using the brush.  It may look a little overboard, but it was well worth it in the end!

What do you think?  Fan of striper polishes?  Ever used an Orly Instant Artist?

Again, thank you NAS for naming me as one of your gurus.  I'm still beyond honored!  Next post (or maybe the one after depending on how fast I get the photos up), I will show you the other colors and a nail art design I created using all of them!  Just a disclaimer, the only polish in this post from the NAS kit is Orly Instant Artist Jet Black, which is the black outlining.  You would have to purchase your own polishes for a gradient if you like this look and want to recreate. :)

Until next time, <3.



**Orly Instant Artist was provided to me by the Nail Art Society for promotional purposes.  All other polishes I purchased.  Please see my Disclosure Policy**

Animal Print

Fall Zoya Pixie Dust Leopard Print Collaboration

9:00:00 AM

Hello polished world!  I'm so excited for today's post!  Reason being, it is a collaboration with my first ever Nail Artist of the Month, CaseyLane Loves Polish!  Miss Casey is one of the nicest girls out there, and I'm so happy that we have become friends!  Since both of us are slightly obsessed with nail polish, many of our conversations revolve around nail art and new ideas.

This manicure we are about to bring you today in our collaboration post was Casey's idea.  The other day, Casey sent me an e-mail with a photo of her nail art wheel with a gorgeous Zoya Pixie Dust leopard print.  She had yet to see another blogger do a Pixie leopard print, and neither had I.  As soon as I saw the picture, I responded with the idea of a collaboration since I was so in love with the look and I wanted it on my nails too.  Seriously, it's so pretty. 

Originally, we were going to do two colors, but then after I played around with my Fall colors, I suggested that we use all of the Pixies.  I'm LOVING how they turned out.  Let's take a look!




Colors Used:

  • Zoya - Tomoko, Carter, Sunshine, Chita, Arabella, Dhara
  • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
Cute, right?  To get the look, I started off with 2 coats of Tomoko.  When it was dried, I added the colored dots using a dotting tool and the other Zoya polishes.  After that was dried, I outlined the spots with a nail art brush.  In the blank spots, I added the extra dots.  I decided to add a top coat, which was the best decision in my life.  It made the manicure sparkle beyond belief!  I couldn't stop looking at my nails in the sunshine!

Now, let's take a look at Casey's manicure side by side with mine!


Instead of using a cream black polish to outline the dots, Casey used another Pixie Dust.  Head on over to her blog to check out her post!!!!

What do you think?  Loving the Pixie leopard print?

Casey, you were brilliant for coming up with this idea!!  Thank you so much for allowing me to copy it and do a collaborative post!

Until next time, <3.

Animal Mani

Under the Sea Nail Art - Take 2

9:00:00 AM

Happy Monday, Polished World!!  How are you today??  Hopefully it is nice and sunny where you are.  It has been a fantablous few days here, but a little too cool.  Seriously, it's August but it feels like September.  I'm never happy when it comes to the weather, because let's face it, if it were 90 degrees with awful humidity, I'd be complaining as well.

Today's manicure though screams warm weather to me since it surrounds around the ocean and the cute little critters that dwell within.  When I think of those lil animals under the sea, I think of the Caribbean where people go to scuba to see them.  Is it ever 35 degrees when someone is scubaing in the reefs?  I think not.

Last year I did similar under the sea nails after seeing a pin on Pinterest.  I can't seem to find the pin on my board anymore to link where that pin came from to post here to show my original inspiration.  I wanted to attempt these nail again now that I have actual nail art supplies instead of just tooth picks.  I pulled up the old blog post as a blueprint, grabbed all my supplies, and started painting.  I feel like it's been forever since I've done in depth nail art such as this!

I'm so pleased with how they turned out!  I switched them up a bit and didn't do all the nails identical as last years.  Let's take a look!



Colors Used (Be Prepared, it's a lot)
  • Base
    • Sally Hansen - Blue Away! to Sinful Colors Endless Blue
  • Fishies
    • Zoya - Darcy and Mickey
  • Squid
    • Zoya - Thandie
  • Starfish
    • Zoya - Bobbi
  • Shark
    • Pure Ice - Kiss Me Here
  • Shell
    • Sally Hansen - Fuschia Flare and Pink Blink
  • Ocean Floor Details
    • Sand
      • Zoya - Avery
    • Seaweed
      • Orly - Coachella Dweller
    • Rocks
      • Sinful Colors - Cool Grey and Pure Ice - Kiss Me Here
  • Black and White
    • Orly - Liquid Vinyl
    • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White

I started off with a thin white base coat of white polish.  I was going to do a plain blue base, until I remembered that he ocean gets darker the deeper it gets.  Since my tips were going to be sand, like the bottom of the ocean, I decided to gradient the ocean depth.  Once the gradient was on, with Zoya Avery, I used a nail art brush and drew on the uneven ocean floor.  Avery is such a perfect nude which gave a great sand look to the manicure!  As the sand tips dried, I began detailing the fish, squid, and shark, followed by the starfish and shell.  As everything was drying, I painted on all the seaweed, little rocks, and eyes.

It was quite a tedious process, but I love the outcome!!!!  It took about 2 hours to complete both hands.  Yes, my right hand had this exact design on it as well.  I'm kind of crazy like that!

What do you think?  Missed my complex crazy nail art?   Ideas for more?

Until next time, <3.

Gradient Mani

Zoya Pixie Dust Star Nail Art

9:00:00 AM

Hello polished world!  I feel like it's been forever since I posted to my own blog.  First post of the month was dedicated to my amazing Nail Artist of the Month, BecNation Nails, and last post was my guest post over at Tuxarina.  I was kind of here, but not really.  I sat and painted my nails and edited photo after photo, and was itching to post them!  I was really DYING to post this manicure.  I have a back log of manicures at the moment, but this one jumped to the front of the line.  I'm sorry old manicures, I really love you all, but this one is the cherry on top of a delicious ice cream sundae.

I'm pretty sure this is my all time favorite manicure, which is comprised of not only the lovely OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, but my newest favorite polishes, the Zoya Pixie Dusts.  I really thought I was going to hate textured polishes, but after receiving the summer, and now fall collections, I'm addicted to their sparkly, textured polished goodness.  I literally had both the summer and fall Pixies lined up on the top of my Melmer for about a week in a rainbow.  I wanted to gradient them, I just had to.

What better way to gradient them then by using something cool, like I don't know, a star hole punch.  After seeing Chalkboard Nails use the Sally Hansen Sugar Coats and create textured stars on her nails, I was dying to do it myself.  I'm so happy I finally did, and with the Pixies, and with a gradient!  Ahh, enough babbling, let's look!




Colors Used:

  • Base - OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
  • Thumb
    • Zoya - Tomoko to Solange
  • Pointer 
    • Zoya - Beatrix to Dhara
  • Middle
    • Zoya - Miranda to Arabella
  • Ring
    • Zoya - Stevie to Carter
  • Pinkie
    • Zoya - Liberty to Sunshine
Gorgeous, right?!?!  I did this manicure over a period of 18 hours.  Starting at 10pm one night, I painted on a base coat of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, you know the perfect off white polish that isn't so in your face white that it takes away from your nail art.  I added a top coat of Out the Door, and let the nails completely dry over night.  

Around 11pm, when they were dried, I started punching out my star patterns on painters tape.  I cut out pieces of parchment paper and stuck finger sized pieces all over.  On each piece, I punched out nine stars.  I then annoyingly stuck all the pieces of tape to the edge of my end table and went to sleep.

The next day, I got back to work when I knew the nails were 100% dry.  I put painters tape on all my nails so that there was one star exactly in the middle.  I made sure the tape was really on there tight and pushed down all corners and edges so none of the polish would sneak under and the stars would come out perfect.  On a make up sponge, I painted on my two color gradients and began sponging on over the tape.  I did this twice so the colors really came through and were super sparkly and textured.  When I was done, I quickly removed the tape and looked in awe at my pretty, pretty nail.

After all ten nails were done, I decided I wanted my design to last a long while and sometimes my Pixies wear away at the tips, I put on a thick coat of INM Out the Door.  I was kind of sad I was losing the matte look, but soooooooooooooo happy I did because it made the stars so unbelievably sparkly.  Since the Pixies weren't 100% mattified either when I added my top coat, they remained very textured despite the topper.

What do you think?  Love, hate?  Fan of the Pixies?

As stated, I am in LOVE with these polishes and do not have a single complaint.  I can't wait to play around with them more, especially some of the new colors.  They're great nail art polishes, and now that I have learned I can gradient with them, watch out! Lol.  Zoya really hit a home run with Pixie Dust line.  I hope they make a winter collection!

Until next time, <3

**The Zoya Pixie Dusts were provided to me by Zoya for Promotional Purposes.  Opinions expressed are my own.  Please see my disclosure policy**

Guest Post on Tuxarina!

9:00:00 AM

Hey everyone!  How are you today??  Did you enjoy the August Nail Artist of the Month post?  Thank you again, Rebecca!!!

Today, I have taken over my June Nail Artist of the Month, Tuxarina's blog for the day!  Kelly contacted me a few weeks ago asking to be a guest blogger since she was going to be out of town this week.  How could I say no after she created so an amazing post over here!  I looked at her post here in June, and took some inspiration from it and tried some nail art I never thought I could do!

Head on over to Tuxarina to see the full post and what colors I used to get these awesome galaxy drip nails!


Until next time, <3.

Nail Artist of the Month

August Nail Artist of the Month - BecNation Nails!

9:00:00 AM

Happy August, polished peeps!  You all know what the first post of the month means; a new Nail Artist of  the Month!  I'm so happy I decided to start this feature for so many reasons.  The main reason, I'm discovering all these talented artists!!!!


This month, I am featuring Rebecca from BecNation Nails on Instagram (@becnation___nails).  I found Rebecca's IG a few months ago and have been in awe ever since.  Her nails are always gorgeous!  I wish I could do the beautiful floral designs she does!  Especially something like she did for this post!  Enough of my babbling though, it's Rebecca's turn to take over the blog!!!!
________________________________________

To start off, I want to say thank you to Alaina for reaching out to me, I am absolutely delighted to be featured on her blog! I'm always inspired and impressed with blogs people put together and Alaina's is certainly one of them. I thought putting together and maintaining an Instagram account was commendable. Maybe I should challenge myself to put together a blog...

My name is Becca, I'm 22, and I really only started my nail art addiction this past January. After I graduated from Iowa State in December, I needed a new hobby to replace writing research papers. From then on, I don't think I've gone more than a day without my nails being polished and decorated. I'm still new to the wonderful "nail art world" but I love being creative and learning new and fun things to do with my nails! (My family and friends have yet to understand my joy/dedication to nail art... but oh well, I love it!)

For this post, I wanted to combine a few of my favorite things: fun colors, flowers and glitter. 




The base color is Sinful Colors, Endless Blue. The glitter placement is Sephora by OPI, To the Glitter End! For the flowers, I used ten different polishes that I kind of just chose at random. 


Sometimes, I may find palette inspiration from clothing I own or patterns I see, otherwise I just grab what looks good. To create the flowers, I used a small dotting tool. I find myself using that tool for the majority of my nail art. For my base coat, I used OPI Nail Envy and for my top coat, I used Seche Vite. 

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy the pictures :)
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Don't you all agree that Rebecca should start a blog? This post is amazing! Loving the pictures, including the colors used photo!!!! I should start doing something like that!!! It's so pretty seeing all the polishes lined up!
If you have an Instagram, then head over right now to Rebecca's Instagram by CLICKING HERE to follow! Seriously, you will not be sorry!!!!

Thank you so much for this post, Rebecca!! Cannot wait to continue to see what you do with your work, and I do hope that one day you start a blog! If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask :)

Until next time, dear followers, have a good one! <3