Before & After: Holiday Seriotype! (Or, nobody expects the white poinsettia)

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Hello!

Today's theme in the Crumpet Nail Tart's challenge is simply 'Christmas', so I thought I'd take the simple theme and go the extra mile by giving you several looks.

I started with a holiday seriotype featuring Zoya Aspen, Zoya Amal, Zoya Honor, and Zoya Sue, all from their 2015 Matte Velvet collection (full review here)--I've been using these like crazy this season because I just adore the holiday colors, and mattes are so great to work with for nail art.

If you've never done a seriotype, I highly recommend them--they are super easy, you just sponge your polishes one at a time over your nails randomly until you get a look you like. I suggest using latex around your cuticles to ease clean-up, because they can be messy.

Here's how mine turned out, first in matte form:

Holiday seriotype featuring Zoya Aspen, Zoya Amal, Zoya Honor, and Zoya Sue

Holiday seriotype featuring Zoya Aspen, Zoya Amal, Zoya Honor, and Zoya Sue

For my first look, I went all out. I wanted to do a baroque sort of look, and I wanted to include the poinsettia from UberChic Beauty's Christmas 01. But, I wanted to do something a little different and special, so I decided to go with the oft-ignored white poinsettia instead of the typical red one. So I made a poinsettia decal with Zoya Honor and Sally Hansen White On; then I stamped scrollwork using UberChic Beauty 6-01 with Barry M Gold Foil and Sally Hansen White On:

Here's how it turned out:

Nobody expects the white poinsettia

Nobody expects the white poinsettia

There are things I like about this mani--I love how the layered scroll work in white and gold go well together and create an old-fashioned Christmas look. However, I can't decide if I like the poinsettia--the white feels a bit stark, and I'm not sure if that's because I'm just not used to white poinsettias, or because it's just too stark. Overall, I'm happy with how it came out.

For my second look, I decided to go a little simpler. I used two complementary images from the upper right of UberChic Beauty 6-02; this is one of the features I love about UberChic's plates, the images designed to play well together:

I stamped the full image on most of the nails, and the inset on the accent nails:

Serious swirls

Serious swirls

This second look has more of a whimsical look to it, and lets the underlying seriotype shine through.

I love both of them--do you have a favorite?

Happy stamping!
M.

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