Today's mani is another recreation of one of my personal favorite designs that I did last year - but this time around I went with a much more traditionally Christmas color story and I think it might have turned out even better than the first time. Even though I tend to convince myself that reverse stamping is going to be complicated and take a lot time, it almost never does. That said, this mani also utilized some layered stamping, which I'm still getting the hang of if I'm being honest, and that really does make the whole process go a lot more smoothly.

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I knew when I decided to do this mani that I wanted to lean all the way in the Christmasy colors - red, green and white, that is! That color story definitely did make for an interesting decision when it came to the base polish, but once I was reminded that I had Cadillacquer's Summer Rain in my collection, I knew it would be the perfect base to bring everything together. 

I started by applying two coats of Summer Rain to all of my nails and letting those dry down while I worked on my decals. 

For my decals, I used three shades from Kokie that are just absolutely perfect Christmas shades - Girl's Night is a slightly warm leaning true red, All The Envy is a forest green that sits right on the line between deep and bright, and Ski Patrol is a beautiful dense white. I used a combination of dotting tools and nail art brushes to fill in the images of both the girl drinking coffee as well as the teeny tiny coffee cup and let those dry down until they were dry to the touch but still soft.

Once I was ready to transfer my decals, I worked one nail at a time and started by applying a sticky base coat. For my outer nails, I used this layered Christmas lights image (with mixed results - still getting the hang of the layered stamping) with red stamping polish for the lights and black for the outline. On my ring finger, I applied the image of the girl. And finally, on my middle finger I applied the coffee cup image as well as the "I Run On Coffee & Christmas Cheer" text image.

Once I was happy with my design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat before finishing with a generous layer of glossy top coat to bring everything together. And voila!

Sincerely, I really, really love this design and I think the more traditionally Christmasy color story works even better than the soft purple and rose gold color story I went with last year. This one to me just really feels like Christmas Cheer!