I will admit that some of the nail art designs I've done and will be doing for this marathon of Christmas nail art are much more laborious than others and sometimes you really can't tell by looking at them which are which. For today's Christmas nail art design, I feel like it might look like one of the ones that took more time and effort, but the truth is that it came together so smoothly and easily that I actually surprised myself in the process. I will say, a huge part of that is the products that I used for this one, which is just a rundown of ride or die favorites for me and you'll probably be familiar with them if you're a regular reader of this blog!

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I feel a little bit guilty every time I use Jen & Berries' He Forced Me To Ruin My Dress, because it was a PPU shade and isn't available anymore, but it's just such an amazing base polish for nail art and I love it so much that I just can't resist. This milky white crelly polish has white shimmer, black and white hex glitters of various sizes, and red flakes and it's just... chef's kiss! You know? If you're interested in this type of polish, she does have a few that look to be somewhat similar listed on her website, so I would suggest checking those out!

For this mani, I applied two coats of He Forced Me To Ruin My Dress to all of my nails and let them dry down completely.

Essentially this design idea came entirely from this ice skates and mittens image that I used for the accent nail and sort of flowed out from there. I decided that I wanted to apply two sort of more delicate designs to my middle two nails and then keep it simple with this sort of Nordic Star Fair Isle sweater image for the rest of my nails. I also really wanted to keep a mostly black and white vibe with a subtle pop of red, which I think references that base polish really well. For the accent nail, I filled in the images with a super pale shimmery grey for the skates and a shimmery cherry red for the mittens using a dotting tool and let that dry on the stamper head. To transfer it to the nail, I first applied a thin layer of sticky base coat and then let it dry down until it was tacky before transferring the image. For my middle finger, I first applied the smaller snowflakes image in white and then followed with the three larger snowflakes in black. Finally, for the rest of my nails, I simply applied the sweater image in black stamping polish.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat. For the accent nail, I followed with a glitter smoothing top coat to smooth out the lumps caused by the reverse stamping. Finally, I finished with a generous layer of quick dry glossy top coat and voila!

I have to say, I'm so thrilled with how this one turned out and I'm still kind of surprised just how much. Like so many of these nail designs I'm doing, they're not on the nose "Christmas-y", like there's nothing that specifically references the holiday itself, but it definitely still has that cozy, festive, wintery vibe that I think makes the best holiday nails - and is great for all of the Solstice adjacent holidays that are celebrated by different communities. For me, that's a big part of this exercise for me. We don't all celebrate Christmas, but there are so many different holidays at this time of year and wintery nail art works for so many of them.

Be sure to keep an eye out here on the blog and over on @pblnails on Instagram for more holiday themed nail art every day in December leading up to Christmas Eve! Also, if you're not already following me on Instagram, be sure to follow to see tutorials for all of the nail art designs I post here on the blog!

Don't forget to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK for more Holiday themed nails for the first #CBBxManiMonday of the month!

Thanks for reading!