CHRISTMAS NAIL ART: Festive Holiday String Lights Nails

by - December 16, 2020


Much like my Warm & Adorable Gingerbread Man Nails from last week, I knew when I ordered the Uberchic Holiday Spirit (Christmas-01) Stamping Plate, I knew that I was going to do some version of this mani. I love Christmas lights, both in person and on my nails, and I feel like this is a design that's actually incredibly versatile. For this year, I decided to keep it really classic, much like my own Christmas tree at home. 

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I actually had an interesting dilemma with the base for this mani because I wanted a white base, but I am a staunch hater of an opaque white base and I just didn't want to mess with it while I was doing this mani. Ultimately, I decided to lean on a polish that has gotten a lot of love over the course of this Christmas nail art marathon - OPI's Robots Are Forever. It's really sheer, but ultimately I leaned into that and only applied one coat as my base. Once I had that on, I wanted to add a little bit of warmth, so I also went in with one coat of Essie's As Gold As It Gets, which is a long discontinued gold flakie topper, and I think it added a nice, very subtle warmth to that sheer base. 


For the stamping, I wanted to fill in the bulbs with really classic Christmasy colours so I decided to with shimmery red, green and gold shades. I'm a little bit anal about the sequence of the colours, so for each nail I started at one end of the image with a different colour to keep each design looking a little bit different. I also tried to plan out how the images were going to be placed on the nail for a good flow - again, because I'm kind of anal about these things. When transferring to the nails, I used the tail end of the image that was left on the stamper to add another small bit of stamping to my middle two nails because I felt like it would fill the nail up a little bit more on those two nails. 

Once I was happy with my stamping (I did have to completely redo one of my nails because I so vehemently hated how it turned out) I sealed it in with a layer of water based top coat and then followed with a quick dry glossy top coat and voila!


All Products Used
OPI - Robots Are Forever
Essie - As Gold As It Gets
Whats Up Nails - Neither Noir
Whats Up Nails Hotter Than Red
Born Pretty Store - In Fire
Sinful Colors - Queen Of Green
Suncoat Water Based Top Coat
Quo Flash Dry Top Coat
Pueen Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard
Uberchic Beauty Holiday Spirit (Christmas-01) Stamping Plate
Whats Up Nails Magnified Clear Stamper


I don't know where this sheer base thing came from this year, but I am fully on it, it would seem. Fully - particularly with this polish that was, unfortunately, very much limited edition. (Dear OPI, please put out many more polishes just like this one.) Anyway, I love this mani, I think it's a really solid one for anyone who wants to try reverse stamping but is maybe a little bit intimidated, and again I think it's super, super versatile. As an example, check out this mani that I did last Christmas that is very similar and yet entirely different. 

Be sure to check back here every day up until Christmas Eve for more holiday themed nail art and head over to @pblnails on Instagram if you're interested in seeing video tutorials for all of my manis!

Thanks for reading!

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