As someone who lives in a very, very cold climate, I can tell you that I think there's only been one Christmas in my entire life that wasn't a white Christmas. Honestly, most of them are frigidly cold and basically drowning in snow - and I sort of love it. I mean, admitttedly, having to drive around to different celebrations and gatherings in the snow and cold isn't ideal, but there's just something about that contrast between being warm inside with hot drinks and cozy sweaters and family while the snow and cold literally glisten outside is kind of... perfect. Anyway, I wanted to lean into that feeling for today's mani, which is definitely more generally wintery than straight up Christmasy. 

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So the content of this mani came together really quickly and without question pretty much as soon as I decided that I wanted to use Whats Up Nails' Welcome To Holowood as my base polish. This is actually a stamping polish, but because I don't tend to do a lot of holographic stamping I decided to try it out as a base polish and... holy cow! Like seriously, this packs a PUNCH of linear holo flash and actually performs really beautifully when used like a traditional polish. It also, I think, really evokes that vibe of the rainbow twinkles reflected from the sun on fresh snow - and anyone who's familiar with a cold climate like here on the Canadian prairies knows that a sunny day in the middle of winter is likely to be INSANELY COLD, so it was kind of perfect. 

Anyway, to start this mani, I applied two coats of Welcome to Holowood to all of my nails as my base. 

Now, for the actual nail art, I really had no question about what I wanted to do and it came together really, really quickly. I decided that instead of going with my instinct to pick up my main images in black, I would go with a dark, cool toned blue shade and pair it with white and two shades of grey to create the color story. I picked up this little bundled up character image and filled it using a dotting tool, trying to maintain a balance of the white and grey shades and I let that dry down on the stamper head until it was dry to the touch but still a little squishy.

For my outer nails, I went with this really simple full cover knit sweater pattern stamping image and though I did consider adding a snowflake or two to those nails, I ultimate decided to just keep it simple. For my center two fingers, I started with this sort of falling confetti of stars image that, to me, really feels snowy just to add some interest to the background and ground the images that I was going to center on the nails. For my middle finger, I added the text "Let It Snow", which just really felt right for the design and then I applied my reverse stamping image to my ring finger. Finally, I felt like those two middle nails needed a little teensy something extra, so I went in with my dark blue stamping polish and applied a single snowflake to each.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then followed with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

I honestly just absolutely love how this one ended up turning out. It's exactly what I had hoped that it would be and I think the combination of those really impactful holo base along with the distinctly cold color story really does exactly what I had hoped it would. Also, I'm really impressed with the performance of this stamping plate. This is the first plate I've ever tried from Lesly, which I purchased from Whats Up Nails, and I really love both the performance and the curation of it. Will definitely be trying more!