A Little Christmas for your Nails!

Yes, those are my chubby little short fingers in the photograph! Everyone wants to look a bit special during the Christmas season. Sometimes special elegant and glistening, while other times it means looking campy and fun. For just a little bit of that campy and fun look, whether you just going Christmas shopping by yourself or out for a fun lunch with friends, little bit of fingernail fun can be something extraordinary!

Need a little bit of equipment to get these nails done right. The first thing as some red nail polish, some nail art white polish, some basecoat, and a nice shiny topcoat. You can get relatively inexpensive little fingernail jewels and the nail art polish on websites like Amazon or eBay. It’s always good to have an emery board, and of course you’re taking a picture of that for a blog you do want to make sure it looks like it’s been used (yikes!).

Finally, a small brush that you will never use for anything other than doing nails, because once you use it for this process the bristles will no longer be good for much else other than using them for nails again. Finally, what you see in that picture with the green and clear acrylic handle is a tool used for picking up the small stones that you will be placing on your nails. In addition, you are going to want some polish and cotton balls.

Candy Cane Striped Nails

1. Apply base coat, let dry, then paint the nail red. Make sure to coat enough so that it is solid.

2. Wet a cotton ball with fingernail polish and gently wipe off the tip of the nail to create a gradient effect. This works best if done immediately after painting the nail red. No, it won’t look good at this point and it will look unfinished. Also, only wipe off the tip. This can also be done with a brush, but I found it to be less effective.

3. Let dry – don’t be impatient, or the next step will turn out pink!

4. Use the white nail art polish to make diagonal stripes on top of the red.

5. Let dry – see previous warning about turning it all pink!

6. Cover with top coat.

7. While the top coat is still wet, place a stone as desired.

8. Cover again with a second coat of topcoat.

Santa Fingers

1. Apply base coat, then paint the nail red.

2. Let dry – yes, once again, the pink rule is the caution.

3. Take white nail polish – this does not have to be nail art, but can be regular nail polish. The difference is in the brush, not in the product. Roughly apply the polish to the tip of the nail to resemble fur. This may require using the separate art brush to lightly feather the white to give it that fur look.

4. Let Dry (yeah, pink is still a potential problem if you don’t let them dry!)

5. Apply a top coat.

6. While still wet apply two small black nail art stones to the red portion of the nail.

7. Yep, Let dry.

8. Apply a second coat of topcoat.

Viola! You have fun, Christmas nails good for any ugly sweater party or solo shopping trip!