As soon as I tried Hero Below Zero* from the new Whats Up Nails Too Cold For School Collection, I knew that I would be using it as a base for a holiday mani. It's just the perfect twinkly blue that makes me think of a crisp, cold winter day with a clear sky and a fresh layer of snow. I also just knew it would look great with the Santa image and really pop that red and white.

To start, I applied 3 coats of Hero Below Zero to all of my nails and let that dry while I worked on the reverse stamped Santa decal.

Now, this is the point where my lack of preparation led to a bit of a saga. I knew that for my outer nails I wanted to apply the snow image at the tips - which I did, using white stamping polish. And I knew that I wanted Santa for my ring finger, which I also did. Once the decal was dry to the touch, I applied a thin layer of sticky base coat to my nail and let it dry down until it was tacky before transferring the decal straight from the stamper to the nail. And then came the middle nail. Initially I had planned on applying a candy cane image to bring in some more red, but it just didn't work the way I was hoping it would, so I ended up abandoning that idea. I went back and forth on several different things before I settled on snowflakes and text. Admittedly, I think it maybe could have come together a little better, but I was happy with the design upon completing it.

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

I mean - I honestly can't get over how adorable this Santa image is. It's just SO CUTE and is honestly sort of the perfect size for my nail length, which is a bit of a Christmas miracle if we're being honest. Also, I sort of really, really want to just do a full mani of the snowy design on the outer nails because I think it would be fabulous!