Gelish Chinese New Year Mani | Red, Gold, and Dragons

The first month of this year has started off a bit rough. I have friends and family facing health and financial problems, so I felt like I was in need of some good luck to kick off the year. I decided to go with some reds and golds and stamping for Chinese New Year (is that PC? Is Lunar New Year better?).
I gave the gold Konad stamping polish another shot, and I was again disappointed. It's just not very visible, which is a shame because the images from MoYou Suki 01 and 07 plates are gooorgeous. The middle finger stamp is a Japanese fan and on the thumb is the face of a Chinese dragon. I should also mention I had a HELL of a time getting the fan image to transfer with the Konad gold polish. I got my left hand stamped in a couple of tries, but even after 20 minutes I could NOT get the fan image to transfer onto my Konad stamper again so I could stamp the right hand. I even tried using a different polish to see if it was the stamper or the plate... the other polish was fine, it was just that Konad gold that wouldn't transfer. I ended up stamping a bamboo image on my right hand just to be done with it.

On the ring finger I used Kim from Ten Little Canvasses' tutorial on making gems with Gelish structure. I put a little gold glitter in the circle frame, but I wish I had used gold polish instead. I think it would've had a nicer effect. The index finger is a layer of Allure, All That Glitters Is Gold, some loose gold glitter, then another layer of All That Glitters.

I used 2 coats of Hot Rod Red for the red nails - really feels like the PEFECT red for Chinese New Year. I know Gelish came out with a Year of the Snake set last year and a Year of the Horse set this year, and while I still really want Meet The King, I think I'll skip on the other colors (at least until the collector's bug bites me). ;)

On the pinky and ring finger I used 2 coats of Allure over one coat of Arctic Freeze. I had thought that, since Allure was a bit sheer, I should lay down a layer of white. I did this on my left hand but on my right hand I did 3 coats of Allure with no white base coat. I really feel like the 3 coats of Allure looks much better than 2 coats over white. I also used Hot Rod Red to paint (what the internet tells me is) the year of the horse symbol.