Sparkly Trees

I had this great idea for stylized white trees on a red backdrop this week. At first, I was thinking of them on glittery red "Ruby Pumps" from China Glaze. But I'm tired of taking glitter polish off, and wanted a break (since I'll inevitably have glitter on again for New Years). So I decided on Zoya's "Alix" instead, a dark blue red that does crazy things when presented with a flash. Photos with a flash below just look garish - the ones with a yellowish cast signaling natural light show the color very close to it's true state.

I started with two coats of Alix on my nails.
Then I did the white "swish" trees with a nail art pen. Yeah - that did not turn out so well. Plan B = rhinestone trees. I started with one stone at the "top" of each tree.
Then it was just a matter of adding rows - I used three rows of stones for the triangle tree shape:
And then two stones below that for the "trunk".
Repeat on all fingers, setting the stones into a coat of top coat. I didn't get them all straight, but that's what happens when you're doing nail art at 1:30am. I'm wishing I'd snowed the tips with white glitter, but I think they turned out well, regardless. I ran out of green stones, so had to do some white (aluminum?) trees and red for my little finger.
Two more coats of top coat (which I didn't get even, unfortunately), and then clean up. Voila! Sparkly tree nails!
As I mentioned above, this is the "true color" of Alix - the bright, orange red above is the result of the flash.

What's on your tips for Christmas? Next week, a New Year's mani (my normal new years colors are blue and silver).

Happy Polishing!