I have to admit something - I literally bought a two pack of WhatsUpNails stamping plates almost entirely because I wanted to do this mani.... and I feel no shame for that. This mani was firmly, firmly inspired by this one by Hannys_Manis, whose nail art is always, always inspiring to me. I put my own spin on it, but I had to give a firm nod to where the idea and determination to do this mani came from. I'm not gonna lie though - I'm kind of in love with how this turned out and feeling pretty good about myself right now. 

Keep reading to check it out!

Last week when I posted my Classic & Simple Stamped Sweater Nails, I warned that it wasn't the last time you were going to see me use OPI's Robots Are Forever over the course of this marathon of Christmas nails and here it is again. I went back and forth on what I wanted to use for a base for this mani - something sheer like this or a more opaque almost-white shade - but this won out and I'm so, so glad that it did because the effect in the end is exactly what I was looking for. For this mani I did two coats of Robots Are Forever as my base and you can see it's still fairly sheer and clearly shows visible nail line. I'm generally not big on sheer nails, but I feel like it works for this one.

For the stamping, I used the WhatsUpNails B035 Icy Wonderland Stamping Plate - which, again, I bought almost entirely to do this mani. I first went in with the small, scattered snowflake image in white on all of my nails, alternating the direction that I applied the image to get a little bit of variation on the nails. Next, I picked up the bird image in black and used black, white and a cranberry red to fill it in. I also used a second stamper to pick up the image again, this time using my lint roller to remove the bird before filling it in. Once the images were dry to the touch but still flexible, I applied a sticky base coat to my first and ring fingers and waited about a minute for it to dry down and get tacky before transferring the images to the nails. For the image on my first finger, I tried to position it differently on the nail so that it wasn't quite so obviously the same image. 

Once I was finished cleaning up my cuticles, I first sealed in my stamping with a layer of water based top coat and then followed with a matte top coat to take down the shine and voila!

I'm so obsessed with this mani that it's sort of ridiculous - I'm calling it now, I think it'll definitely be in my top 5 at the end of this marathon of nail art that I've thrown myself into this holiday season. I just... love so much and it absolutely made picking up this stamping plate worth it - even if it was the only mani I ever did with it, which it is not. 

Be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK today to check out their #CBBxManiMonday Christmas themed nail art this week. And, of course, check back here every day up until Christmas Eve for more Holiday/Winter themed nails. If you're interested in seeing video tutorials of how I do my nail art, head over to @pblnails and follow me there to check them out!

Thanks for reading!