Brrrr! Boy, is it cold! Good thing I have sweater on my nails. Hah! Seriously though, this is the only kind of knitting that I can do. I am in awe by those folks who are able to take two long, pointy things to create wearable magic using yarn. A lot of ladies in my family are quite talented knitters, including my sister (who's made me very cozy socks) and my aunt whose recently made holiday decorations inspired these nails.
Isn't that ball of yarn on my thumb adorable? I hope you read on to find out more about not only these nails, but also to see the cutest holiday gnome, ever!
Here's me holding the holiday gnome. He comes with a tiny jingle bell on the top of his flexible little hat (which I bent to fit in the picture). Doesn't he look ready for this COLD weather that most of us in the U.S. are experiencing?
For the nail design: I used a really pretty light grey cream polish as the base color for all of my nails. It has an airy look to it - which reminded me of soft cashmere. This is two thin coats, if I wasn't planning to cover it up, I'd have used three.
Then using a Vivid Lacquer stamping plate, I added the sweater pattern to my four fingertips and the ball of yarn to my thumbs.
This was my first time using a VL plate - and WOW! The plate scraped and cleaned-up so nice; it is perfectly etched. The imperfections in my stamping are 100% user caused. I've seen this particular stamped image (the knitted pattern) on a few other blogs done absolutely flawless. My issues were being a bit out of practice and rushing because I was using two colors that dried quickly (and I'm still a bit slow even when I'm rushing).
Polish Palette
Barielle - U-Concrete Me
a-England - Perceval
Zoya - Claudine
Vivid Lacquer - Plate VL 0004
Sandy Paws Crafts - Gnome for the Holidays!
These colors were quite enjoyable. I liked using the metallic finishes over the cream, it made my nails glow a little in certain light. Viewing them at arm's length, I felt I had racing stripes on my nails. And, it was nice to do some stamping again. However, I will resume with the challenge prompts with my next design which will not be stamping.
How about ending with a solo pic of the cute little holiday gnome?
Kimett