Did I desperately want to do one of those adorably gnome designs that you see from professional nail tech's last year? Absolutely I did. Did I try and fail miserably at hand painting them? 100%. So this year, when I saw the Clear Jelly Stamper CjS-LC-100 Stamping Plate, which also featured some really gorgeous plaid stamping images, I just had to have it. HAD TO HAVE IT. Initially, I had planned on doing this mani in red, but in the end I decided to go with blue and let the gnome shine. 

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For this mani, I ended up using three different base polishes. For my pointer, pinkie and thumb, I used Dimension Nails Ethical*, which is a really perfect cobalt blue shade that is opaque in one coat - as many of the Dimension Nails crémes are. For my middle finger, I used Starrily's Diamond Rain, which is one of the Kelli Marissa collab shades and is... literally stunning. Honestly, stunning with so much shine and twinkle. And finally, for my ring finger, I went with Jen & Berries Snowfall In Sunnydale, which is a sparkly white polish that is just... sort of perfect.

I applied one coat of Ethical, two coats of Diamon Rain, and two coats of Snowfall in Sunnydale to get started!

Describing the stamping for this mani feels like a lot, but it honestly went so quickly with the layered stamping and the fact that I had all of the elements I needed on this plate. For the nails with the blue créme base, I started by applying the buffalo plaid image in black and then added a single white star to each nail. For my middle finger, I just added two white stars at opposing corners to allow the polish to be the star but to bring everything together.

For my ring finger, which included the layered stamping, it was a bit more complicated but still so quick. I started with the beard, placing it towards the tip of my nail and then added the nose in a peachy beige stamping polish. Next, I added the hat in the stamping polish from my collection that felt closest to the shade of blue on my outer nails. Finally, I split the outline image in half, applying the bottom half of the image in black and the top half in white. 

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat. And voila!

Sincerely, I am obsessed with how this mani turned out and a little bit I wish that it had been the last one I did so that I could have just kept wearing it for as long as possible. I really, really love all of the components of this design, from the base polishes to the stamping. Obsessed!