Christmas Tree Accent Nail with Bobbie Star Gazer

Nothing says Christmas quite like a pretty tree filled with lights and sparkly baubles and topped with a glittering star. Right?

I wanted to do some Christmas tree nail art this year, but I didn’t really want to have a tree on every nail so I decided to go with an accent nail instead. I started with two coats of NYC Fashion Safari on all my nails and then applied  Klean Colors Military Green with a small brush and small strokes to make the tree for the accent. I decked it out with a dotting tool and a glitter star for the topper. For the rest of the nails, I added one coat of Bobbie Star Gazer over the base. Star Gazer was so pretty in the bottle, but I have to admit I was disappointed when I tried it. By itself, it was so faintly pigmented that I’m positive I would have had VNL even after 3 or more coats. The glitter may have been dense enough to cover everything up, but choosing NYC Fashion Safari as my base gave me the color I was looking for and everything ended up alright. Being a VNL-aphobe means I don’t play with jellies very much, but I will have to experiment more to make use of the pretty jellies I do have.

Anyway, this isn’t my best work and I don’t LOVE it like I did my snowflake nails. I’m not a huge fan of nudes on my nails so, honestly, it doesn’t really stand a chance. That being said, it IS cute and I still learned something important: Elmer’s School Glue Gel (the blue stuff) works as a fantastic peel-off base for glitter polish. I squeezed some into an clean polish bottle, applied one thick coat, and let it dry well before applying my polish. I only sported this look for a day before taking it off, so I’m not sure about the wear time.

That’s it for me today. It’s been a long week for me. I hope you are having a great one. Do you use anything as a peel off base for glitter polish? What polish/es have you used recently that looked the bomb in the bottle but bombed when swatched?