I have to admit that I've been picking up and stashing holiday stamping plates over the past year pretty determinedly. Not only were there a bunch that I just really, really wanted in my collection, but I knew that I wanted to have options come time to get down to holiday nail business. One of the plates that I absolutely had to have in my collection was the Maniology M038 Kawaii Christmas: Warm & Fuzzy plate. It's just... so insanely cute that I can barely stand it. So I grabbed it over the summer and have been waiting (rather impatiently) to get the chance to use it. Of course, I wanted to go all in with the happy little adorable hot drinks and I'm obsessed with it.

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When I tell you I struggled when it came to choosing a base polish for this mani - I STRUGGLED. I actually considered more color stories for this mani than I can count before I finally settled on keeping it warm, neutral and muted overall. Then it came to choosing the base and I struggled again. Ultimately, I decided to go with a really pale neutral beige, which I knew would serve as a great base to pop the muted design while still maintaining just a hint of coziness in the color. 

Nails Inc's Silhouette is new to my collection and this was my first chance to use it. It's... really beautiful. At first, I wasn't quite sure I was going to like the formula, but I went for it and it just applied like an absolute dream. I did need three coats to get to full opacity, but they were really easy, smooth coats that dried quickly and really smoothly. LOVE. 

For the stamping, I decided to only do my middle finger in a full coverage image and then single, imags on the rest of my nails. For my ring finger I grabbed one of the larger single images from the plate and then for the rest of my nails I used single images from the full coverage design I used on my middle finger.  I decided for the fill I would go with three sort of muted neutral shades - an ashy lavender taupe, a soft grey taupe, and a richer sort of milk chocolate brown - because I felt like they really leaned into that soft vibe. I also filled in the marshmallows and whipped cream in the images with a white polish. I did both a dotting tool as well as two different nail art brushes to fill in this design, just to make sure I got nice, crisp edges. To transfer, I applied a thin layer of sticky base coat and let it dry down to tacky and then transferred directly from my stamper to the nail.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed it all in with a water based top coat before following with a matte top coat to take down the shine and amp up the comfy. And voila!

I'm so obsessed with this design - LOOK AT THEIR LITTLE FACES!! - and really, really want to get my hands on more of the Kawaii plates from Maniology. I mean, how can you not want to put this adorableness all over your nails? Keep an eye out from some more cuteness from the Kawaii Christmas plates to come!

Also, be sure to check back here on the blog as well as over at @pblnails on Instagram every day in December up until Christmas Eve for more holiday themed nail art! Also, if you didn't know, I do post video tutorials for all of my nail art over on Instagram, so be sure to follow me there for that!

Thanks for reading!