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.

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!!!!

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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!

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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!!!




Guest Post

Guest Post by Nails4Dummies! Water Marble Amazingness

11:00:00 AM

Hi everyone!  Today is the first of a few guest posts that I will be featuring on my blog.  As some of you may or may not know, I am a tad burned out when it comes to the whole blogging/nail arting thing.  I'm still painting, so I will be back, but for now I'm taking a much needed breather.  This breather was suggested by my first guest, Lindsey from Nails 4 Dummies.  Lindsey is a newer blogger, but she has made her self known in this lovely lil world.  Her blog is adorable, her nails are amazing, and she is the sweetest person ever.  I'm so happy to be featuring her on the blog today!!!!

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Hello Little Canvas peeps! I hope you don't mind if I take over Alaina's blog for a day! This is my first guest post so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't break anything. Normally you are all used to amazing freehand art since you're following this talented lady but there is no way that I could compete with her mad skillz so I decided to do something that I love and that's a water marble! I have yet to master this technique, the hardest part for me is getting a decent design in the polish. The YouTube videos that I watch on it all make it look so easy but I'm just happy if ther aren't any gaps in the color! I'm pretty happy wtih how this one turned out though and I'm happy to share it with you!

The polishes used here are China Glaze Gothic Lolita (if you don't have this color and you like purple, it is a MUST!) and Cha Cha Cha and Loreal Notting Hill Blues. For a base I used my go-to white of OPI Alpine Snow - if you don't have a decent white, get this one! If you were careful enough it's a one-coater but two coats will get you a gorgeous white canvas. For marbles though, you only need a single coat and it doesn't have to be pretty!




Thank you so much for letting me post here Alaina, I hope your readers enjoyed it as much as I did! :) Ta-ta for now!

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Can we all agree that Lindsey did a FANTASTIC water marble?  Water marbling is something I have vowed never to do again since I stink at it.  If you want to see my views on this technique, please check out my water marble rant.  Love the colors, love the photos, just love everything!  Thank you so much Lindsey and hopefully you will guest post again for me in the near future...and maybe I guest post for you??  We shall see!!!

<3

Crackle

Guest Post - A Halloween Pedi!

11:00:00 AM


Hello Polished Peeps!  Today I bring you an extra Halloween post.  This post, is not done by me, but instead my sister!  Unlike me with my crazy manicures, my sister does pedicures.  The other day when I was at her house, she was showing me her toes and asked if she could have a post on the blog.  At first, I didn't think she was serious.  Next thing I knew, she had my camera and was posing in front of Halloween decorations.


Now I hate feet.  I believe they are gross, shouldn't be touched, and are meant only to be walked on.  Only I am allowed to paint my toes and touch my feet, no one else.  Despite this lil fact, I couldn't say no.  My sister's pedicure is really pretty and perfect for Halloween.  So please, everyone welcome my sister to my blog for her first guest post, and who knows one of many more to come!

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As a busy stay-at-home mom of two young boys as well as business owner, manicures are merely impossible for me to keep up or have the time to do.  Between the repetitive washing of my hands from dirty diapers, to the constant clicking away on my keyboard, I am lucky to have a manicure last more than an hour!  That being said, I still like to be festive and join in on the nail polish fun.  Being limited for time, I kept this pedicure simple, but festive.  My four year old son told me my toes are “scary spooky.”  



Polishes used:
  • Sally Hansens Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear “Sun Kissed”
  • Pure Ice “Black Race” 
  • Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat in “Ink Splatter” 
  • Sephora by OPI’s “Only Gold for Me Top Coat”

Although I have been told crackle nail polish is “so 2010” I think it is totally fitting for this time of year and added a great effect for a Halloween pedicure.  For the solid black and orange nails I used, Sally Hansens Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear “Sun Kissed” orange.  For the black polish, I used Pure Ice “Black Race.”  I really love the Pure Ice black polish.  It went on extremely well for such a dark color and really covered thoroughly with the first coat.  

 For the large toes, I used the Sally Hansen “Sun Kissed” orange and then used Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat in “Ink Splatter.”  To add an even more festive, fun feel to the pedicure and make the nails really sparkle, I used Sephora by OPI’s “Only Gold for Me Top Coat.”  This is a great gold fleck polish and is going to be so pretty and versatile heading into the holiday season.  The pictures of my pedicure really didn’t do the gold top coat justice at all.  In person, the toes are so shimmery and bright!   

Moral of the story -- even if you can’t spend an hour or two on a complex manicure to get in the Halloween spirit (or celebrate any holiday), there are many simple and quick mani/pedi options.  This can be accomplished by combining crackle, sparkles, alternating colors, etc. and takes minimal effort!  Happy Halloween!

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Hmmm, I may have been the one who said Crackle is so 2010, but my sister is right, it is fitting for this time of the year and added a great effect for her pedicure.  I remember how heated some were about Julep putting Crackle in with their Halloween boxes and Sinful re-releasing their crackle, and I didn't get it.  My mind is still blown by the effect and cannot understand how the polish does that.  I also like it more than OPI Spotted.  I think spotted looks, I don't know, too black and gross?  

Thank you to my sister for this guest post!  I hope you all enjoyed!  I agree with her moral of the story, even if you can't spend an hour on a complex mani (like me lol) then there are simple and quick ideas which can turn out just as cute!

See you all tomorrow!!!

Guest Post

nAil Art Guest post by Polish Pixelle - Glitter Gradient

6:00:00 PM



Hi ho cherry-o! Ave from Polish Pixelle here with the second installment of our nAil Art guest post series!

Alaina and I had serious blogger ADD when it came to choosing a theme for this month. We decided that we did indeed want to do a theme, and it took us about four days to actually come up with one. We also briefly entertained the concept of porno nail art.... but quickly dismissed it because we both prefer to not have R rated blogs :P

We finally came down to two ideas... glitter, and gradients. At that point we were both so flustered with indecisiveness that we decided to combine the two and call it a day. Thus the theme was born... glitter gradients! The rule being that it had to incorporate glitter and gradients, but could be interpreted in any which way.

I went with a literal glitter gradient. My weapons of choice:


- Zoya 'Wednesday'
- Dollish Polish 'Go Luigi!'

I knew I wanted to incorporate an indie, and this is one I havent featured on my blog yet (although will be soon!) and I thought it would be sweet to get it up here on TLC (The Learning Channel? No. Tender Love & Care? No. The Little Canvas!).

I love glitter gradients because they are super easy and add a bit of snazz to any mani (oh yes, I used the word snazz). I applied the glitter on top of my base color and used a toothpick to add extra glitter to the tips. Easy peasy!




So cute, so easy. Can't go wrong with that combo!

Don't forget to head over to my blog to see Alaina's interpretation of the theme!


Love and glitter,



Guest Post

nAil Art Guest Post by Polish Pixelle

6:00:00 PM



Hi ho cherry-o! Ave from Polish Pixelle here with the first of hopefully many guest posts in a series we are calling nAil Art.

For this month we chose the theme of bugs - I had initially planned on doing ladybug nails but at the last minutes decided to go with bees instead. Alaina knew from the beginning that she would be doing bee nails so I suppose the theme kinda just turned into... well, bees.

For my sky background I chose to use Avon 'Vintage Blue' which I just picked up from a flea market (random, I know) this past weekend. A perfect sky blue!






My weapons of choice:





- OPI 'Osaka-To-Me Orange' for sun accent/rays
- Julep 'Blake' for sun and bee stripes
- Sally Hansen Xtreme 'Black Out' for bee and bee trail
- Avon 'Vintage Blue' for the base/background


I have been dying to do a dotted trail bug mani for a while now - I see these often and always think they are so adorable. A really quick and easy way to have some fun nail art!






Unfortunately about a week ago one of my nails split horribly and I had to cut my nails down to nubbins. I had originally intended to do some more designs (I wanted to add 'BzzZZzzz...' somewhere!) but didn't have enough room on my pathetic nubs. So if I could change anything I wish I had been able to add that in!

I'm extremely pleased with how this came out - super fun and easy, and excellent for summer!


Don't forget to check out Alaina's version of bee nails over at my blog. If you have any suggestions for themes for our guest post series, please let us know in the comments section!

Love,

Guest Post

Are You Ready?

10:23:00 PM

Tomorrow, my lovely friend Ave, from Polish Pixelle, and I will be kicking off our Guest Post Series!!!  Each month, Ave and I will be posting to one another's blog with some lovely nail art!



I'm loving this series mainly because it forces Ave, the Queen of the Indies (notice her Nerd Lacquer nail wheel in the graphic), to do nail art.  Okay, that's not the main reason, but I had to say it was.

What I really love about Guest Posts is the fact that they exist and they occur!  Back in February when I started The Little Canvas, I never knew a "Guest Post" was a thing.  Through the awesome connections I have made through blogging, I have been able to share my designs on other blogs, as well as have some people share on mine!  It's a world of nail networking, which I am happy to be a part of.

So, I hope you all enjoy the series!  Stay tuned for Ave's post tomorrow on here, and mine over at Polish Pixelle! :)

Guest Post

Peacocks On Crack (Guest Post by Nicole from Polish Me, Please!)

9:00:00 AM

Hey There Polished People, it's Nicole from Polish Me, Please! :)

First off, let me tell you that I'm super-hyped to be doing a guest post for Alaina. She is one of my favorite nail polish friends and we are always giving each other a hard time (playfully of course) about something. You may remember my name from her "crazy gnome lady" post a little while back.... yup! That's ME! ;) I could go on about how she's scared of her own cuticles (which you probably already know) or how she's a closet gnome lover, OR how she enjoys a good red neck drive in once in a while, but instead I think I'll just get to the nails. ;)

Being the "stamping queen" and all, I knew I had to do some stamped nails. :) The colors for these were inspired by Gabi, our resident mani inspector. I showed her the nails I was going to do for the guest post (you can see them here and here) and asked her to pick one of the two. Well, she was like, "Nope, not bright enough!!" and suggested neon peacock colors. So naturally, when I hear a good idea I go with it and that is how the Peacocks on Crack nails were born. :D Have a peek and let me know what you think!

Peacocks on Crack Nails



How To Get These Nails

  1. Apply base coat. I use SH Hard As Nails.
  2. Paint your nails with your favorite white polish, I like my old, thickened up OPI Alpine Snow. You want to paint your nails white first to make sure your neon nails pop ;)
  3. Apply 2-3 coats of ChG I'm With The Lifeguard.
  4. Apply 1 coat of Seche Vite, allow your nails to dry thoroughly. If you're not confident in your stamping ability, double up on the top coat here. That way, if you mess up on the stamp you can use a saturated cotton ball and lightly swipe it over your nail, removing the stamp but leaving your base color. This is soooo much better than having to start from scratch! Trust. Me.
  5. When your nails are totally dry and hard, use SH Brisk Blue and stamping plate BM212 to stamp the peacock feather-ish design on your nails.
  6. Use a toothpick or a dotting tool and OPI Alpine Snow to dot a tiny white circle in the middle of each of the shapes that make up the design.
  7. When you're done with the white dots, repeat step number 6 but instead of white, dot Color Club Mrs. Robinson (neon magenta) over the white dots. Make sure you cover all the white. 
  8. Give the dots plenty of time to dry and then top coat those bad boys. ;) 
  9. Impress your friends ;)
 One thing I have to tell you is that these nails were BRIGHT!!! Holy moly people, these were like retina-searing, catch-everyone's-attention-and-get-arrested-by-the-TSA-for-distracting-pilots-on-international-flights bright!! The pictures don't quite do them justice. I wore these nails for 3 days and got tons of compliments. Everyone loved them. And- I hope you do, too!!

Are these nails too bright for you? Are you on the neon color bandwagon or are you more of a classic color lover? Let me know what you think about these nails in the comments below! :D Feel free to check out my blog, Polish Me, Please! for more fun nails. ;) Thank you everyone for reading, and till next time- Happy Polishing!! :D

Guest Post

Guest Post on Polish Pixelle

6:00:00 PM

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!!!


<3

Guest Post

"...for you have become a Butterfly"

1:57:00 PM

Hey there y'all! Ryan here from the blog Dream A Little Dream Of Polish (Now Nail'd in the South)!!! I am so honored to be doing a guest post here for Alaina and her amazing nail art blog! I hope I don't let her and you, her readers, down!  I've been wanting to try butterfly wing nail art ever since 1st seeing it on Pinterest.  And even more special and exciting for me to do my 1st really intricate nail art attempt as a guest post for my AARM sister! **inside joke** between some other good blogger girlfriends & I who are about to do a 7 day challenge together.  Anywho, here's some of the original pics I pinned that inspired me:

                          



I loved both of the colors these nail artists used and especially loved the gradual ombre gradient of colors on the right: from pink to purple.  For my butterfly wings nails, I chose to use Orly "Lollipop" & Zoya "Charisma" for the ombre base colors and Revlon ColorStay "Stiletto" for the black lines & OPI "Alpine Snow for the white dots.  I'm not super happy with the results...I don't have precision artist painting skills, so mine don't like anything these others :( I tried my very best to make good clean fine lines, but it's no joke you need hands of a brain surgeon to do these.  They were also extremely time-consuming! They took about 3.5 hours while watching some True Blood Season 4...this was also my first time to use my new dotting tool! So without further ado, on with the show!

 I'm a little disappointed with the application/formula of Zoya "Charisma" and it dried a lot darker than the bottle.  I am really sad about that because in the bottle it looks like a neon magenta.







"Butterfly", by Mariah Carey
One of the anthems of my pre-teen years in the 90's (1997)

This is really not my best mani and maybe I should give up on intricate freehand nail art....proof that i need some stamping plates already & maybe just stick with stuff like that ;D Anyways, I can't thank the lovely sweet Alaina for letting me do a guest post on her awesome blog! What do y'all think of this? Do you think you would want to try nail art like this??  If you're a neurosurgeon, I say GO FOR IT! :D Thanks for checking it out! Follow me on my blog, on My Pinterest, on Instagram: RyCoBra and also on Twitter!  Until next time! Stay classy....