Mani Monday: Holly-day Fun!

Hello and welcome to this week's Mani Monday! Do you like the terrible pun in the title? I love puns, and the worst the better. But as the name suggests, today I'll be showing you how to do a holly manicure. This is fairly easy, just requires a steady hand and some patience.

To do this manicure you will need:

• A base color. I used this pretty champagne color by ELF cosmetics
• Red polish. Again, another ELF one
• Green Polish. This one I just picked up, a Sally Hansen Insta-Dri one called I-rush Luck
• A dotting tool, I used a toothpick, and a fine brush. I also use paper to put the polish on so I have a palette to work off of instead of dipping my brush or tool into the actual bottle.
• Clear top coat
• Nail polish remover to clean up the edges. My remover has vanished so my edges are not cleaned up.

Step one, like always, is to apply your base color. I personally like three coats, I feel that gives it the best base as far as streaks and opacity goes. Let it dry completely before you move onto the next step.

Step two is creating the holly leaves. In case you don't know what holly leaves are, they're the shiny green pokey leaves you see everywhere during the Christmas season. I achieved my leaves by painting a thin rectangle with my brush as my base, then slowly adding a sort of triangle coming out from the sides. I did two on each side of my rectangle. The repeat the whole thing on leaf number two, which shouldn't be completely mirrored to the first. Have it at just a slight angle, that will make it look better. Let dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Step three is the berries. This is pretty simple, just use your dotting tools to add three little dots of red to where the two leaves connect.

If you can still see the shape of the leaves through the dot like mine, wait till they dry then place another dot over them. Two layers should be enough to cover up the green. If not, add a third layer. Let everything dry completely before you top it with the clear top coat and clean up your edges.

I just did my accent nail (ring finger), but you can do multiple fingers if you want. I like something a bit more understated to ease me into the Christmas spirit. Also I know I showed a bottle of white nail polish in the supplies picture, I have no idea why I added it to the group, that is for next week's manicure and by time I realized my mistake I had put everything away. Sorry guys.