When I sat down to start planning my 12 Nails Of Christmas - this whole thing really does take forethought and planning - I knew that I wanted to do some plaid nails. I always do plaid nails at Christmastime and I just think it's a super classic and festive look. Honestly, though, I feel like I reached the peak last year when I did these Festive Green Plaid Reindeer Nails and I figured that this year I could just... make a couple of small tweaks and do basically the same mani and it would be worth it. Annnnnd I'm kind of in love with how it turned out. 

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Choosing the red polish for this mani was actually a bit of a process, but I since I had so recently swatched BIOSCULPTURE Gemini Polish in Berry Bush, it was at the front of my mind and I knew that the sort of cranberry tone of it would be perfect for this mani to create a really classic plaid nail. I applied two coats of Berry Bush and let them dry down completely before I moved on with my stamping.

Even though my nails are a little bit too long for the Harunouta L010 Stamping Plate these days, I can still make it work by applying the image at an angle and it creates exactly the plaid that I love so I still reach for it whenever I do plaid nails. For a Christmas plaid, I feel like you basically have to go with black and gold for the stitching because it just works, so I applied the larger stitching using What's Up Nails Neither Noir and the finer stitching with Born Pretty Store In Fire, which is a really, really yellow gold that I really only love at the holidays. For the accent nail, I grabbed for the Nicole Diary L10 Stamping Plate, which has this stag head image that you can either add deer or moose antlers to, so I started by applying the head image and then added the deer antlers for this reindeer nail.

I decided that I wanted this mani to be matte, so to finish I first applied a coat of water based top coat to seal in my stamping and then applied a matte top coat to take down the shine and voila!

I feel like this is just such a classic mani that I'm going to want to recreated it every year in some form or fashion. Ever since I very first started doing nail art, specifically stamping, plaid nails have been a go to winter look for me and I just think they always, always work and look festive and classic and beautiful. I love 'em!

Be sure to check back every day until Christmas Eve for new nail art designs and head over to @pblnails if you want to take a look at my video tutorials! 

Thanks for reading!