Week 2: Winter Nature (or: Have a Holly Jolly Christmas)

Howdy hey buddyo! I've been really excited to do these nails since the moment I ordered A Fresh Evergreen and Very Ornamental, both by I <3 NP, one of the most lovely of all pseudo-mainstream indie nail polish brands. (I also ordered Nostalgia and Princess Diaries in the same shipment. It was a really exciting package to receive, to say the least, and you'll be seeing those other shades pretty soon I'm sure.) Both of these colors are from the special seasonal collection, as indicated by their names, and so I knew that I had to incorporate them into this winter nail challenge.

Winter foliage? Plants? Red and green??? HOLLY. I love holly. It's so bright, it has weird effects on birds, and it's very festive.

Info and more pictures under the cut:


I started off this mani with a coat of Duri Rejuvacote, and then put two coats of Very Ornamental by I <3 NP, A Fresh Evergreen by I <3 NP, or Oy-Another Polish Joke! by OPI. You can guess which is which. VO and AFE are both INCREDIBLY holographic, which I attempted to catch on camera but there's no way I was able to catch as much shine as this polish deserves. After that, I broke out my brush set from the bornprettystore, and drew on the teeniest little holly leaves and berries that I could manage. Then, while cleaning off my brush by sticking it directly into my huge bottle of nail polish remover, I said to myself, "self, make sure not to drop this brush into the bottle! There's no way you'll be able to get it back out again!" To which I replied, "ok! But one thing, I just dropped that brush into the bottle, and now I can't get it out!"

It's still in there. It's staying in there.

On top of this mani is one coat of Gelous, which I've re-fallen in love with. It's so great. Nails don't chip when you use Gelous!! Amazing!

I'm also just getting the hang of my new lightbox, so here have some more pictures: