Mani Monday: Winter Wonderland Mani

Hi you lovely folk :)

I have some rather exciting news this Mani Monday! 

- I will be blogging for Beauty Bulletin, which is one of South Africa's leading online beauty review websites. I will be writing beauty articles on a weekly basis on a variety of beauty related topics. I am joining a team of other awesome ladies, you can find me here. I am oh so excited for this new, fun project!

- I will doing my first ever guest blog post this coming Friday, 7 December 2012 over at the ever lovely Emma's blog, Subliminally Smitten.

Now, to reveal my first festive themed mani for this lovely month of December, my version of the Winter Wonderland mani.

I’ve seen these darling snowflake manis floating around, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of a white, snowy Christmas (how much do I wish we had white Christmas’s here in South Africa!)! Since my nail art skills are no where near close enough to being able to draw a snowflake freehand onto my nails…I decided to improvise! I used a pale, icy blue nail polish as a base colour with electric blue french tips and an accent nail fully decked out in electric blue nail polish with small white flower nail art stickers I had that I thought doubled quite well as snowflakes! I used Revlon Nail Care Calcium Gel Nail Hardener x1 coat as a base coat, Sally Hansen in Blue It x2 coats on the ring fingers as accent nails (x1 coat for nail art), Essence in Frozen Queen x3 coats (needs a few coats to build up the opacity) on all other nails, and Essence Studio Nails Better than Gel Nails Top Sealer as a topcoat.

You will need:

• Base coat nail polish
• Two base colour nail polishes (I chose icy pale blue and electric blue)
• French tip guides or sticky tape cut into strips
• Nail art stickers (small white flowers preferably or proper snowflake stickers, this would clearly be even better!)
• Top coat nail polish

Method:

1) Apply base coat nail polish to all nails, wait for it to dry completely 

2) Apply x2 coats of electric blue nail polish to ring nails and x3 coats of icy blue nail polish to the remaining nails, wait for it to dry completely 

3) Apply french tip guides to all nails except the ring nails (accent nails), make sure you gently but firmly press the french tip guides down onto the nail. I used french tip guides, but if you don’t have any, you can just as easily use sticky tape in place of french tip guides. Cut the sticky tape into thin strips, and apply as you would french tip guides, I have done this countless of times and have still had excellent results!

4) Paint on the electric blue nail polish onto all nails with the french tip guides and once the electric blue nail polish is painted on, wait a few seconds and then pull off the french tip guide. I find pulling the french tip guide off while the french tip nail polish is still wet is best as it leaves a cleaner line. I have tried leaving the french tip guides on till the french tips have dried completely and I have always ended up with a messy line. Complete applying electric blue nail polish to all nails with french tip guides

5) Now carefully apply the nail art stickers to your ring fingers, apply the stickers in a haphazard design as snowflakes don’t fall uniformly in one line and you are wanting to mirror that effect

6) Wait for all nail art to dry completely 

7) I know it’s the start of summer in SA and you're going to be rocking a Winter Wonderland Mani but it’s ok it’s the festive season…these things can be forgiven! 

Yes, today I totally want to jam out to some kitsch Christmas carols especially Jingle Bells…’Dashing through the snow, In a one-horse open sleigh, O'er the fields we go, Laughing all the way’…la la la…! It’s allowed, it’s finally Christmas season and please prepare yourselves for some mega festive spirit, December is my favourite month…not only is packed with Christmas…but my birthday as well :) Look out for festive themed manis for the entire month of December!

What festive manis are you sporting these holidays ?

As always, linking up to Mani Monday below, with the fabulous Heather and Heather! I will also be joining the ladies over at The Nail Files.  

Join the fun side of life and link up to Mani Monday and The Nail Files below :)