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

Animal Mani

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Turkey Nail Art

10:30:00 AM

Gobble, Gobble!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!  How are you all going to spend your days??  I will be with my family eating stuffing, stuffing, and well more stuffing.  I'm not one for turkey, in fact, our family will be eating chicken.  For me, it's all about the sides....you know, the millions of carbs haha.  Oh, and of course, the pumpkin pie....how could I forget that??  Since it is the holiday, I had to give myself a festive manicure!

When I sat down, I knew what I wanted to do.  As I am a sucker for a cute animal manicure, I decided I was going to paint little turkeys on my nails!  I started searching Google for ideas and inspiration as to how to actually paint the little guys on my nails.  I first found this manicure from the tumblr Wah-Nails which is seriously amazing.  It was just so cute that I couldn't even handle it.  It was too much though for lil old me to do, and I know there would be NO WAY I could get my nails to look that cute.  I went back to searching and found another idea.  I originally copied a tutorial I saw on Adventures in Acetone, but it turned out awful on my nails.  I didn't angle the feathers enough  and I made my turkeys too big...it was just awful.  So, with one disasticure behind me, I wasn't going to give up....I went in a different direction.

Here's how they came out....






Colors Used:

  • Base
    • Sally Hansen - Golden-I
  • Glitter
    • China Glaze - Glitter Goblin
  • Turkeys
    • Sinful Colors - Nirvana 
    • Sinful Colors - Sugar, Sugar
    • Zoya - Lianne
    • Ulta - Sun Sational
    • Ulta - Chocolate Kiss
    • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and Black on Black
Oh, how I love my little turkeys!!!  Best part, they were super easy!!!!  With my nail art brush, I painted on the little bodies using Nirvana.  When they were dried, with my brushes and the feather colors, I detailed on the feathers around each of their bodies.  Since the feathers bled a little onto the bodies, I outlined the turkeys in Chocolate Kiss.  Not only did it cover up the messiness, but it made the bodies pop away from the background.  With my dotting tool, I added some googly eyes, followed by a beak with my brush, and they were done!

Originally, I was going to put turkeys on all my nails, but I thought it would be too much.  Since I seem to be purchasing more and more glitters, I figured I need to start using them, despite my fact I hate removing them. I grabbed Sinful Colors Pumpkin Spice, a dupe of Electrify by China Glaze, and painted it no my pointer nail.  Oh boy, it was awful.  Totally did not give my nails a Fall feel like I wanted.  It looked more Christmas-y with the red and gold glitter on the gold backed nail.  I then remembered my bottle of Glitter Goblin.  This is seriously the perfect Fall glitter.  It has bronze/brown glitter flecks mixed with holo pieces.  It's really quite pretty, and in many cases not something I would typically go for.  I bought it from Sally's on impulse due to the holo and definitely didn't think I would like it as much as I have.  Seriously, look at the glitter-y goodness in the blurry pic below.


Pretty, pretty, and really the pictures above kind of darken the glitter more than what it is.  I'm very happy I used it for this manicure, and with I used it more during the Fall months.  I still have some time...right?

What do you think of my lil guys?  Love them, hate them??  What about Glitter Goblin...what are your feelings?? Did you do a Thanksgiving mani?? I'd love to see so you should head on over to my Twitter or Facebook and share them!!! I would love to see!

To everyone out there reading this, I hope you have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving with your family and friends   Be safe and have a splendid day.  For those of you not celebrating today, just have a fantabulous day! <3

Tribal Print

31 Day Challenge - Day 21 - Tribal Print - Ikat nails!

11:00:00 AM

Second to last day of pre-swatched posts before I gave up on the challenge.  Oh what a failure I am as a blogger lol.  Seriously, I feel like I left my followers and the other girls who I was participating in the challenge with down.  I'm sowwy =/.  Anywho, I have to say, I didn't hate this manicure, but I also wasn't head over heals about it.

For tribal day, I wanted something different, I didn't want to go with the traditional line, dots, numerous colors, tons of effort tribal nails which everybody usually does.  Awhile back, my one friend had posted Ikat nails she did herself to her personal Facebook.  I loved the idea and it looked so tribal, in my opinion.  It reminded me of those Aztec patterns you see on old Southern throw rugs and such.  I bet no one knows what I'm talking about and I'm crunched for time so I can't insert a picture here.

I put Ikat on the back burner, and well this challenge day was the day to try them.  Let's take a look....






Colors Used:
  • Revlon - Dreamer
  • Julep - Sasha
  • Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and Black on Black
These are actually rather simple to accomplish!!  I started off with a base coat of Revlon Dreamer.  From there, I added the white polish  with the nail polish brush.  When that was dried, I added Sasha with the brush.  Finally, with a nail art brush, I messily outlined the patterns with black polish.  I forgot how pretty Sasha is as a polish, I need to start using it more.

Kristine from Pink and Polished tweeted me that she couldn't wait to see my Ikats.  After I asked if she had done them and she responded yes, I went and stalked her blog.  I found her first attempt at Ikats, and they were perfect!  Go take a look!!  I actually wish I used the colors she did!  For her base, she used Sinful Colors Mint Apple, which if you do not know, is my FAVORITE polish. Dreamer looks nice, but it's not Mint Apple!

What do you think?  Love or hate the ikat?  Do you also love Kristine's Mint Apple Ikats?

 I definitely will be trying these again when I'm out of my manicure funk.  I think my patterns were too large, so I think next time I'll scale them down.

In the next week (after Thanksgiving) I have some guest posts coming up from four lovely bloggers which I hope you will enjoy!!!!  I should be back to my personal regular postings in December.  I have so many Christmas/winter manicure ideas, it's insane.  I am very thankful that these girls offered because it gives me time to just calm down and not stress about the blog.  Love them for it.  Hope you enjoy and I will see you all on Thanksgiving! <3

Nicole by OPI

A Nicole by OPI Surprise!

6:57:00 PM

Two posts in one day, so unlike me, but I had to share my surprise.  Yes, a complete surprise!  Today, I came home from the store with my mom and we both noticed a package by the front door.  We both were confused because neither of us ordered anything and we figured that my dad did.  I got out of the car and looked to see that it was addressed to lil old me and the sender....OPI.  I was shocked.  I ran into the garage and ripped the box open as fast as possible...and to my surprise  there were 8 pretty bottles of polish inside for me!  I had ripped it open so fast that I missed the personalized little letter from Nicole by OPI.


Front of the letter, picture I snapped quick and threw up on Instagram.  How cute, Nicole I <3 you more than you probably <3 me! haha


On the other side of card was this personal message from the Nicole Team.  I entered a Halloween Manicure nail art contest on their Facebook page.  With 86 votes on my manicure, I made it into the top 5.  From the top 5, Nicole by OPI selected a Grand Prize winner, who received 18 bottles of Nicole by OPI of their choice.  I was featured as a runner up on their Facebook page, which to me was a prize in itself.  As runner's up, we were never told that we were going to receive any prizes, so this literally was a huge surprise.


The contents of the box, four individually packaged nail polishes.  After seeing "Krdshn Thrgh Snow" I realized that I had most likely received the Kardashian Kolor Holiday Collection :)  After opening up all the packages, sure enough all 6 polishes were mine, plus a top and a base coat!


Ahhh look at the pretties!  First up, we have Here We Come A-Karoling, a gorgeous deep purple shimmer polish.  Really excited about this shade, it is perfect for the Fall/Winter.  Next is Deck the Dolls, a pretty shimmery teal polish.  I am a sucker for blue, teal polishes, so this is something I am sure to quickly fall in love with.  Next is my mom's favorite, Keeping Up With Santa, a deep red shimmer polish.  This is perfect for this time of the year.  While I already own red polishes, this one is just perfect for some Christmas manicures I have planned :)


The glitters!  All is Glam, All is Bright is one I'm probably most excited to use.  As you can see it is a very small hexed glitter polish.  The colors remind me of candy canes, aka the perfect polish for a candy cane manicure...so stay tuned for that.  Kardashin Through the Snow is a pretty multi colored glitter.  Perfect really any time of the year.  Can't wait to see how it looks on the nail!  Then finally a glitter I never probably would purchase but am happy to have in my stash, A Gold Winter's Night.  I'm not one for gold polishes, or bar glitters, but there is just something about this polish which makes me like it.  It might be that there is a tinge of purple in it.  Whatever it is, I'm using it tonight.


Finally, I got Top Coat and Base Coat.  Probably never would have bought either of these since I just got a brand new huge bottle of OTD and I'm happy with my base, but I'm definitely going to try them!  Plus it is always great to have back ups!

I really am happy with this surprise, and completely impressed with Nicole by OPI.  I personally do not own any of their polishes since when they first were on the market they contained Formaldehyde which I'm allergic to.  I noticed that they changed the formula on these polishes and I will be able to use them.  What impressed me most was that hand written note from the OPI team.  It made the package personalized and, I don't know, it just was really nice to see a big company recognize a contestant.  I think it's also amazing how they set me up to be able to do a complete manicure from start to finish.  Obviously, I have base and top coats, but who knows if the other contestants do.

After receiving this, I will most likely be purchasing Nicole by OPI in the future.  Can't wait to test them all out and bring you some amazing nail art.  Thank you so much Nicole by OPI  and for those who voted for me in the contest :).  To be honest, this package kind of ignited my love for my polishes again. :)