NOTD: China Glaze Glittering Garland

Happy Mardi Gras y’all.

I got this gem from my SFAM for chrimmas, but I didn’t get it until after chrimmas. 😉  Instead of making you guys wait a year, I thought this would be an appropriate green for Mardi Gras this year. 😀

Ooh Ahh

Glittering Garland is a delicious green jelly packed with gold & green microglitter… and it looks like it has those China Glaze-famous glass flecks.

This is three coats without a topcoat.

I really really like this green (and I’m not much of a green lover).

Hubs and I are heading to the parades all day. I will try to tweet as many pictures as possible. 😉

Be careful out there if you go party. Have a D.D. And that doesn’t mean Designated Decoy. 😀

Enjoy!

NOTD: China Glaze Grape Pop + Sinful Colors Frenzy

So if you’ve been around a minute, you know that the hubs and I are big on the whole Mardi Gras hoopla. Today is Mardi Gras, and we’ll be downtown all day long. But, I’m not going to leave you guys empty-handed. Here’s my bead-catching, MoonPie-chomping, doubloon-snagging, cup-grabbing mani:

This is two coats of China Glaze Grape Pop (Up & Away collection, Spring 2010) topped with Sinful Colors Frenzy. Frenzy is purple and teal glitter in a clear base. I was reading the Once Bitten Blog the other day, and got the inspiration to do a glitter gradient. I’m pretty pleased with it for not having a clue about how to do it. And it’s all cemented down with two coats of Seche Vite. This puppy’s not going anywhere.

And for those of you who just want to see Grape Pop by itself:

So there you go. Also, here are some slides from the various parades we’ve been partaking in this past week. So enjoy… I know we did.

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P.S. Getting banged in the face with big chunks of beads at 100 mph is not fun. Just a little FYI.

Swatch: China Glaze Lemon Fizz + Mardi Marble

You won’t normally catch me wearing a yellow mani.

There are many reasons. Mostly, it’s because yellow and yellow accessories don’t look good with my skin tone. In fact, the only reason I typically buy a yellow polish is for nail art.

In this instance, there’s a reason I have this swatch going on. I was making a Mardi Gras water marble (more on that in a moment), and I needed a light enough base coat to hide any bald spots when I screwed up. Enter China Glaze Lemon Fizz.

Yellows are notorious for being streaky and generally a pain in the nuts–this one is no exception. To cut down on the streak-fest, I waited for each coat to be completely dry before applying the next coat. Even then, I still had horrible cuticle drag and bald spots. Anywho, this is 4 coats. I suggest layering it over white if you’re wanting to wear this as an actual mani.

Now, under the Mardi Gras water marble, I only have one coat. But it wasn’t there for opacity–it’s there to hide screw ups.  😀

And boy… am I bad at this whole water marble thing. It’s the drawing of designs and dunking the fingers in said designs where I screw up the most. Take my latest entry:

ChG Paper Chasing, Grape Pop & Hard Candy Splendid

This is 3/4 OK and 1/4 fail. I’ll let you guess the fail nail, and then I’ll confirm in a moment.

I began with the index finger. I got all of my drops of polish in and pulled the design. Then, I thought, “Crap, better dunk a nail before you screw this up again.” So I dunked. And it wound up OK.

Knowing I would fail horribly at duplicating the pattern, I tried on my middle finger. Pattern was a little loose. Maybe I didn’t do as many drops of polish or whatever. Still wound up OK.

Now… the ring finger. I don’t know what I was doing, but apparently it wasn’t what I thought I was doing. I doubt I had enough polish drops and I really really doubt I pulled enough pattern in. I probably didn’t dunk my finger in at the right spot either. So… yeah…

Pinky nail? Pretty good. I like it at least. If you’re not looking for a pattern, that is.

Overall, too much yellow in the mani as a whole. Just for my taste.

Oh, and I apologize for the blurry pic. Apparently, my camera wanted to throw up and couldn’t focus properly. It’s probably better this way.  Ha!

Nail Art: More Mardi Gras!

Ok, so I couldn’t leave it at one set of designs. When I went to the Order of Inca parade last Friday night, I got inspired to do two more designs.

Moon pies and doubloons. Oh yeah.

Well, at least my interpretations (ha!)

I used a dotting tool with several different China Glaze polishes to create the “doubloons tossed from a float” look (sorry about the tip-wear).

I am not the world’s best fingernail artist, but there you go. And an interesting bit of trivia–I am right now noshing on a Double-Decker chocolate Moon Pie. Yum!

And for your enjoyment, a slideshow from the Order of Inca parade:

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Nail Art: Mardi Gras style

I’m super excited to show you two of the designs that were swirling around my brain this week.

As you probably know, we’re in the midst of the Mardi Gras parade season where I live (with Mardi Gras being on March 8 this year). What you may not know is that even though Mobile’s Mardi Gras parades are not as well known as New Orleans’, they came first.

You heard correctly. Mobile began celebrating Mardi Gras in 1703, before New Orleans was founded. And between you and me, I like Mobile’s parades better. New Orleans’ parades are better left to the tourists… and to the drunk college kids who feel the need to wave their respective junk around to get beads (or molested).

But I digress.

I have for you today a mask and beads design layered over Purple Nurple from yesterday’s post.

I started out painting the mask (ring finger) with various nail polishes and a striper brush. I didn’t like the way it was turning out, so I whipped out the little bullion beads that I had ordered from the Born Pretty Store. I should have started out with using them, but hey… you live and learn.

Then, I was tinkering with the idea of using a dotting tool to make the beads that are often thrown from the floats (index finger). But then, I decided to use the bullion beads once again (because they’re nifty). The square rhinestones came from Sally’s.

Sorry for the blurriness

So there you have it.

P.S. I have included a few pictures from this past weekend’s Krewe de Vieux parade in New Orleans–after the jump… because it’s just not work appropriate.