12DOC: Freestyle Christmas Tartan Plaid

Hey y'all!

Today is an exciting day for two reasons!  First, it is the final prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge which has consumed this month's blogging activity for me, and the second reason is a fairly big blogging milestone.  This is my 300th post!  Who would've thought when I started this journey just over a year ago that I'd have logged 300 entries into this blog?  It's very bizarre for me.  In any event, today's final prompt for this challenge is Freestyle, leaving it completely open to each artist's interpretation.  I took inspiration from another artist's design for the Red and Green prompt and while my attempt is nowhere near as sophisticated or chic as Natasja's of Love Life Lacquer, here are my Christmas tartan/plaid nails!

I really wanted all three colors in this plaid to shimmer, which limited my choices considerably, but eventually I found my polishes, which included one of the oldest bottles in my stash.  Does anyone even remember the Street Wear line?

L-R: Sally Hansen big matte, Revlon Forest, Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar, OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby, China Glaze Fairy Dust

I began with two coats of Forest on my pinky, two coats of Love.Angel.Music.Baby. on my index, and two coats of Sugar Sugar on all the others.  I really have to give some credit to L.A.M.B., because it has definitely become one of my go-to golds for nail art this winter, and I picked it up for $2.50 in a Sally's clearance!

I think the rest of the process is fairly self explanatory, although I didn't follow any set tutorial and maybe I should have to make it look a bit less messy.  Doing this project helped me realize that I don't have a thin enough striping brush for certain, so I've already corrected that problem and should have two in my post slot sometime after New Year's.  However, it went down this way, and so I thought it couldn't hurt to Fairy Dust All The Things and then matte it for good measure.

I'm not entirely certain that either of those two final steps really helped, but it is what it is.  To check out what everyone else did for their freestyle looks, be sure to check out the inlinkz below. 

An InLinkz Link-up

So, that's it!  The 12 Days of Christmas challenge is now at a close, and Christmas is only two days away!  I will have a couple more posts before the end of the year, but this is my final nail art look for 2014.  I'm going to take the next week or so to get revved up, because starting January 1, I will be doing my first-ever 31-day challenge, which will be, unsurprisingly, 31 consecutive days of nail art.  Can't imagine a bigger way to bring in 2015, or a more challenging way!  Thank you all for joining me thus far, and I hope to continue improving my skills as I further challenge myself from here forward.

I want to wish each of you a happy holiday season, and I will see you soon!