Christmas dinner nails

Hi everyone!


As promised here's the second post of today with a very special manicure, featuring my nieces nails:

Picture this: a nice, quiet Tuesday evening at home: feet up, comfy blanket around my legs, book firmly grasped and tea within reach... pure bliss, right? And then... a beep from my mobile phone. Our youngest niece (almost 11 years old by now) asking if I could make her nails pretty for her Christmas dinner at school on Wednesday. Of course I have to keep up my reputation of 'bestest aunt in the world' so the book was placed on the table, the blanket was put away, the feet were lowered and the mug of tea was taken with me to my desk where I started working on Christmas-y decals I could use the next day when she came over for a visit.

I chose small images from UberChic Christmas/Holiday Spirit 01 (the reindeer) and Christmas/Holiday Spirit 02 (the candle, the gingerbread man and the ornament), painted little squares of clear polish on my mat and stamped two of each image on top using Hit the Bottle As Black As Night. My niece had told me she wanted glittery black and/or gray polish as a base so I chose all cremes plus silver and gold to color in the decals. I used:

• ornament: silver China Glaze Millennium, bright blue Cirque Colors Miami-Dade, royal blue Cirque Colors Rhapsody in Blue
• candle: red OPI Amore at the Grand Canal, gold essie Leggy Legend
• gingerbread man: brown OPI Inside the Isabellatway, purple Zoya Tina
• reindeer: brown OPI Inside the Isabellatway, nude Barry M Pink Lemonade, red OPI Amore at the Grand Canal

Once all decals were colored in and had dried sufficiently, I covered all of them with another coat of clear polish and left that to dry for the night. She also told me she would love to have ice skates on her nails (as both her, her sister and her mother love to skate) so I kept UberChic Holiday Jingle on my desk to stamp a skate with if it would fit on her nails.

The next day she came over and started searching my stash for glittery bases: the ornaments and the reindeer would have a medium gray base (KIKO 400 Steel Grey), the gingerbread men and the skates would be placed on a dark gray (a-england King Cophetua) and she wanted a dark green base for the candle. After some deliberation she picked a-england St. George for that. And of course we had to figure out what image would fit on what nail. And then... she had to sit still for what must have seemed an eternity to her, and she did great!

I painted her thumbs and pinkies with two coats of KIKO 400, her indexes and ring fingers with one coat of King Cophetua and her middle fingers with one coat of St. George. After that I peeled a decal off of the mat, placed it on her nail and covered it with Seche Vite: the ornaments on her pinkies, the candles on her middle fingers, the gingerbread men on her indexes and the reindeer on her thumbs. Last but not least I stamped the skate on her ring fingers using Hit the Bottle Snowed In and covered that with Seche Vite as well, and that was it... her nails were ready for the school's Christmas dinner and the close inspection by her friends of course ;)

I absolutely loved doing her nails and seeing her jumping up and down when her nails were finished (and showing them off to her uncle) was even better. I hope you like her guest appearance as well :)

(no bottleshot this time, there's no way I can fit 13 bottles in my light box ;)