Before & After: Carnival/Carnivale!

Hello!

I am so happy about today's manicure, woo hoo!! Today's challenge in CNTs was 'Carnival'. Well, I like carnivals alright...but I love Carnival (or, as some spell it, Carnivale). I wasn't sure if that was acceptable under the challenge theme, but I decided to go for it because it's similar in spirit, and hey, I can if I want, neener-neener-boo-boo! (wow, that was incredibly mature...but hey, who wants to be mature?!)

Anyway, I am excited about it because it uses a couple of things from my birthday nail haul, which I'll be posting about shortly, and so of course I've been dying to use those things...and on top of it, I actually like the way it came out. :)

To start off, I wanted a nice, carnival/carnivale sort of color. Something bright and fun...Sitting in my untrieds was Zoya's Myrta, and it just screamed out to me. So, I put it on yesterday in anticipation of today (as you can tell by the tipwear, lol):

Zoya Myrta

Zoya Myrta closer up

 Myrta is a dark tangerine orange color with a glass-fleck finish that shimmers in orangy-gold. As with most other Zoyas I've tried, it applies like a dream and covers completely in two coats. :)

To go even further with the happy colors and feel, I decided to use the saran-wrap technique to put a little yellow texture (Sally Hansen Lightning) on the nail (that is going to be one of my favorite techniques, I warn you now, I LOVE it), and then on all nails except the accent nail, I put one coat of Lush Lacquer's Fuzzy Peaches (Indie Alert!!!), to give it a sparkly, fun, confetti look. Then, on the accent nail, I stamped a Carnival mask using Wet n Wild's Ebony Hates Chris and plate w217, for a stark contrast:

I love this so much. When time for Mardi Gras comes around, I'm going to do this in orange, green and purple colors, but I really love how these colors work together, and plan to do this again without the mask, just for general use. Something about the colors and fun glitter just make me happy looking at it.

Thanks for reading! Please check out the other carnival manicures by my fellow CNTs. :)

M.