Merry Christmas Mani

I had no plans for posting today, but Mom got sick so Christmas dinner was called off and I found myself with some extra time.  Not to worry, we spent Christmas Eve with the whole family, as usual, with our fondue tradition.  When I was younger, we would sit on the floor in front of the fireplace and fondue, broth, oil and chocolate for dessert.  Since then, it doesn't matter where we are, together or not, we always have fondue on Christmas Eve to bring us closer to each other.  My sister-in-law's family joins us, now that they are in the same state, so there were 12 of us around the table last night.  Even exchanged gifts, so missing Christmas dinner is a bummer, but not all bad.  It gives me a chance to share my official Christmas mani!

I did this Monday night so it would be ready for Christmas Eve.  It took me a couple hours with breaks, but I think it was totally worth it!

I started with two coats of Maybelline Emerald Elegance from their Gilded in Gold Brocade collection.  If you want to see it on it's own, you can check it HERE, along with my thoughts on formula etc.  And just like I said in my original post, it did show up in December....and on the big day too!

 Next I stamped with Konad M77 and Maybelline Bold Gold (guess it was a Maybelline Mani :)  I thought about leaving it there, but it seemed a little plain to me, so I dotted one of the strands with Sally Hansen Radio Red.  Still not enough for me.  I really wanted to make it look like strands of beads wrapped around a Christmas tree, so I added some red micro beads on top of the red dots.

After adding the red beads, the gold dots looked a little lacking, so I added more micro beads in gold.  Then I wanted the "jewel" hanging to look more like an ornament, so I added some silver star sequins I had from a holiday nail wheel I bought after Christmas last year at a huge discount.  Still not blingy enough?  Well the silver didn't quite match up with everything else, so I found some little itty bitty yellow star jewels hiding out in another nail wheel.  Whew!  Finally met my exacting standards for a Christmas mani.

I swear I was ready to pull my hair out on those last few fingers with the micro beads.  They came in a little pot of both red and gold all in one that I purchased from MAU sometime last year.  Separating the colors was almost as much trouble as applying them.  All the bling was added with dots of top coat.  Problem was that I didn't want to use a fast drying top coat so I could have time to place the beads where I wanted them, but my only slow set top coat has thickened up and was pulling strands like a spun sugar mani.  Total PITA!  Totally worth it!  I topped it all off with two coats of top coat because Emerald Elegance is top coat hungry and to make sure everything stayed in its proper place.  It did!  I only lost one star the second day of wear.

 
I had to work a half day Christmas Eve, and these babies kept me smiling through it all.  This was totally out there for me as far as what I usually wear, but it is Christmas, right?  If you can't have totally blinged out nails on Christmas, when can you?  These are definitely coming off tonight, though, as the edges of the little stars keep catching on things, my hair, my sweater, even gouging a little cut on one of my photo fingers :(  Still totally worth it!

I am going to be taking a little blogging break the next few days so I may not post until the new year.  I have some more changes to the blog coming, plus I have to find time to narrow down my wish list to see what is going to be blessed with my Christmas cash!  Wish me luck!

Tina