Hello Winter!

It's December! Here in Chicago, that means one big thing: it's cold. Really cold. But hey I love the cold so no biggie. This cold is just ushering in Eggnog And Hot Beverage Season, one of my favorite times of all. In an attempt to capture the warmth of this chilly season, I painted my nails using Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Red Velvet.  I got this lovely shade from a clearance bin, and boy am I glad I picked it up!! It's a very rich burgundy berry shade, and it's quite festive. The sugar coat texture is really nice, and reminds me of the way that Zoya Pixie Dust polishes look in the way that it sparkles. It covered really well in one coat, but I did two for added depth. Although it was really pretty on its own, I couldn't resist stamping it with some of the winter stamps that I've been chomping at the bit to use for months!!

I used Winstonia plate W120 for both the sweater pattern and big snowflake. The sweater pattern was really hard to get straight (so I kind of butchered it a little), and wasn't big enough to cover my whole thumbnail (the bummers of big thumbs). Other than that though, I really love Winstonia plates. They're really high quality and all of the designs transfer over to my nails nicely and easily. I stamped using Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Hard to Get. For my middle finger, I dotted on white to make snowfall, and then topped each dot with a teeny dot of China Glaze Pixie Dust to make the snow sparkle a bit. For my pinkie, I dabbed on a gradient of OPI Oy Not Another Polish Joke, which is my very favorite solid gold glitter polish.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how these all came out. For some reason, these particular designs were really hard to photograph, and my camera was just really not into capturing both the texture of the polish and the design on top of it. I had to take way more sets of photos than I usually do, and even then I wasn't able to get anything that I was super happy with. :( Regardless, I look forward to doing more winter art soon!

And since I couldn't resist, here are the swatch shots I took of Red Velvet before I put anything on it. These capture the color much much better.