From back when I was very first getting into nail art, I've loved designs featuring Christmas lights and I always try to put together at least one mani featuring them each this. This year I used my all time favorite Christmas lights stamping image from the Uberchic Holiday Spirit Stamping plate. It's a really simple image, just one straight line of string lights with a loop towards the center, but it's absolutely amazing how versatile this particular image has been for me. This year, I decided to sort of merge the inspiration of a few different string lights designs I've done in previous years with a little bit of the text stamping that I've fallen so in love with this year. 

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When it came to the color story for this mani, I knew I wanted to fill the lights with really bold jewel toned holo polishes, so I knew I needed to start with a base that would work well with those polishes. There really was no question what polish I was going to reach for because Dam Nail Polish's Opal** is just... pretty much a perfect base to use with jewel toned holos and is one I've used in the past in this way. For the lightbulbs I went for three polishes in a sort of teal leaning blue, a bright magenta, and a really rich purple - all, of course, from Color Club's Halo Holographic range. These have been my go to linear holo polishes for years and I don't seen them being challenged for supremacy any time soon. 

So to start, I applied two thin coats of Opal to all of my nails and let those dry down while I moved on to work on my reverse stamping. This didn't quite give me full opacity, but because I needed a sticky base for my reverse stamping I went in with my third coat later for coverage and tackiness. 

For the stamping, I actually tried to do it all at the same time using multiple stampers, which I think saves both a lot of time and a lot of polish. One of the reasons I love this stamping image so much is that these light bulbs are so incredible easy to fill with polish and have nice thick lines that make it much more difficult (but not impossible) to color outside the lines. I just use my smallest dotting tool and pick up some of the polish and then just sort of dab it in there and it's a no brainer. Once my images were filled and had had a few minutes to dry, I went in with my third coat of my base polish and let that dry down until it was just a little bit tacky to the touch before transferring directly to the nails from the stamper. For my finger finger, I actually started by applying the text in the center and then used one stamping image to apply lights at opposing corners.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed it in using a nail art top coat and let everything dry down completely before applying a glitter smoothing top coat to try and deal with some of the lumps from the stamping. Finally, once that was dry, I finished with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat for shine and volume and voila!

I am absolutely obsessed with how these turned out - they're exactly my taste and what I was hoping for them to look like at the outset. I honestly can't get enough of how these string lights twinkle - they're just so gorgeous and playful. And I also really like the addition of the text, which really feels like it fits - both in messaging and in font, if we're being honest.