THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

Whenever I'm doing multiple mani's in the same theme - in this case, Valentine's Day! - I tend to find myself wanting to do something that suits the theme, but is maybe a bit non-traditional. For today's mani, that translated into eschewing all of the traditional pink and red vibes and instead going with a black and white look. In the end, I think this could also be a good vibe for your Galentine's Day or anti-Valentine's Day vibes, if you know what I mean. 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

For today's mani, I was very much in the mood for something adorable. While I'm not generally much of a pink and adorable kind of girl, there's something about Valentine's Day that just makes me go all in, so I grabbed a super bright pink polish and a bubbly hearts stamping image and I just went for it!

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I'm not gonna lie - my brain is absolutely LOVING having a theme again. As soon as I transitioned into thinking about doing Valentine's Day nails, my brain immediately had about a million ideas and a lot of energy and desire to get them done. I just love a theme - it gives my brain something to latch onto. For this mani I also used a new-to-me stamping plate from Hit The Bottle that I've been dying to use since I got it months ago and a super pretty new gel polish from Born Pretty. All in all, I'm super excited about this mani!

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Being that my creativity has been feeling a bit sapped recently, I've been a little less active here on the blog, but I'm hoping that with the days getting longer I'll be feeling a bit more inspired and start posting a bit more frequently again. For today's mani, I kept it pretty simple with a style of mani that I personally really, really love. I paired some super exciting new gel polish with monochromatic abstract stamping and I love it!

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I must say, I'm still pretty neck deep in a bit of a January fog and definitely lacking in both energy and inspiration just in general, not just with my nails. That being said, I got some new PR goodies from Born Pretty last week and there were definitely some items that I was really excited to play around with. For today's mani, I used two of those new products to create a really quick and easy gel mani that is incredibly beginner friendly - and cute, to boot!

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I have to admit, I'm currently in my annual nail art inspo slump. It always happens after the holiday season when I'm sapped both from all of the life living that happens at this time of year but also from having put so much of my creative energy into cranking out holiday mani's. I will admit to a few distinctly failed designs before I landed on this one, which was sort of like a lightbulb and has definitely ignited some fresh inspiration in me!

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When it comes to Christmasy nails, I feel like it's really easy to go all in with your traditional Christmas designs and colors, but I always like to also do some more modern designs as well. Today's mani was actually inspired by a set of nail wraps I saw listed somewhere online. I apologise - I can't remember the site. In the end, I decided to go with a speckled green base rather than the nude base that the inspiration design had, and I personally think it makes for a beautiful, very modern take on Christmas nails. 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

When I started plotting out my ideas for this year's marathon of Christmas nail art, a lot of the designs I was drawn to were the more abstract designs that have become so popular in the last couple of years. As much as I love the more on-the-nose Christmas designs, I think there's definitely something to be said for a more blobby abstract design at this time of year as well. For this mani, I decided to grab for the Pueen Accent Fun 01 Stamping Plate a really bold holiday color palette!

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

While I'm not generally one for following trends when it comes to my nail art, I am also not entirely immune. Even though I think cherry red nails are a total classic and always in style at least to some degree, they've really been having a moment trendwise this fall and I've really been wanting to do a mani in red. When I saw someone do their version of this trend in an aura style, I knew that I wanted to do my own spin on that style and that's really what drove me to do this mani. 

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Recently on a bit of a whim, I picked up a couple of magnetic polishes from the Chinese brand Xeijayi. As soon as I swatched them out, I knew that I wanted to put together some version of this mani. I really, really love the way that cat eye gel polishes look when you mattify them, it gives them a really unique velvety look, so that's definitely what I was going for with this particular mani. 

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THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS

After nearly four years of managing to avoid it, I have finally ended up with Covid, so for today's mani I decided to keep it super simple with one of my favorite techniques and some simple black stamping. There really is nothing to say that you can't sit down and do your nails while you're sick - and while I am currently unable to smell anything, I can certainly still appreciate some pretty nails. 

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Being that it's the Monday before American Thanksgiving and I've already very much got Christmas nails on the brain, I decided today would be my last distinctly fall mani. And, of course, by fall I mean the pumpkin spice white girl version of fall. When I picked up the Uberchic Sweater Weather Stamping Plate, I knew I wanted to do some version of today's mani but I had actually intended on making it a little more intricate before deciding to keep it pretty simple. Simple, for me, can be pretty difficult to maintain, but I think I managed!

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

I might be a bit of a broken record here, but November is such a weird month for nail art. Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, it can be hard to find inspiration. That being said, the idea for this one sort of struck out of nowhere and I am OBSESSED with how it came together in the end. I feel like fall is a perfect time for a smoosh - though I couldn't actually tell you why that just feels like a given to me - and adding some really strong black stamping on top of it creates a beautiful fall design. 

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I have to say, when I sat down to do my nails last night for this post, I was lacking in both energy and inspiration until I remembered that I really wanted to use the layered mushrooms image from the Uberchic Sweater Weather stamping plate rather badly. Layered stamping images have always stressed me out a bit, but I've been playing with them a bit more lately and it really is amazing just how quickly they make a really complicated design come together. In the end, this particular mani came together really smoothly and I love the final result. 

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When I sat down to do today's mani, I was in the mood for something pretty simple - simple by my metrics, anyway, which I fully understand don't entirely mesh with other people's version of simple. I think the trickiest thing when it comes to keeping nail art simple is finding that balance between simplicity and impact. I like even my simple designs to still have visual interest. 

With that in mind, let's get to the nails, shall we?

After the marathon that was Halloween nail art, I took a bit of a break from doing my nails and now I'm back with a pretty minimal (for me) nail design to transition away from the spooky season theme to hang out in fall vibes until it's time to move on to Christmas. November really is always a strange time for nails for me. Our #CBBxManiMonday theme this month is... really no theme at all. We decided to go with a Free For All theme and that is very much going to work for me since I can't really wrap my brain around another theme right now. 

Without further rambling, let's get to the nails!

Sometimes I have an idea that I absolutely love in my head, but can't quite get the execution right. It has never been more true than with this design, which I did three distinctly different versions of before I got it right enough that I was willing to post it here on the blog. The first two times were hand painted, but they just... didn't get it done for me, so on the third I did a combination of hand painting and stamping and it came together much more to my personal taste. 

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I almost resisted this year, but in the end there was just no ignoring the call of an all over bat mani. I just really couldn't seem to help myself. "It's frickin' bats - I love Halloween!" You know? Anyway, as always, I tried to change up the base for the design a bit and I ended up using two different bat images for this design, which ends up being pretty subtle overall but really does, I think, add a bit of visual interest. 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

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Like a great many people of my generation, I watch Scream and generally the entire original trilogy every Halloween season and I always feel inclined to do some Ghostface nails to go along with my mini marathon. I've done some hand painted ones once before (I will be the first to tell you that my hand painting skills are mid at best) but it was only this year that I finally got a stamping plate that featured a Ghostface image, so of course I had to do them. There was literally no choice. 

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