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?

 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

When I was perusing the internet in search of inspiration for this year's Halloween nails, a style that really jumped out at me is what I like to call "blobby abstracts" with spooky Halloween stamping. As a big fan of some blobbiness, I knew that I had to put together my own version of this style and I knew just the plate I wanted to use to create it - the Pueen Halloween Party 01 Stamping Plate! 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

I have to admit, with next week marking the beginning of October, since apparently September decided to go full on speed round this year, my brain is already fully entrenched in Halloween nail art, so for my last mani before the marathon of Halloween nails I decided to keep it really, really simple. Honestly, I'm actually finding that my taste in nails is actually starting to simmer down a bit and I'm enjoying simpler designs more and more recently, so it's not entirely a surprise that I wanted to do something simple and pretty. 

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Hey guys! So admittedly, I actually didn't realize until about 9 o'clock last night that I didn't have any nails to post today, so this one was a little bit thrown together at the last minute, but I'm actually really sort of in love with how they turned out. I absolutely love a sort of mix and match abstract stamping plate and I've been really, really loving the Whats Up Nails A026 All Lined Up Stamping Plate* ever since they kindly sent it over to me, so I decided to pull it out and just try something pretty simple overall since it was a sort of last minute, unplanned design. Honestly, this plate is just great for that!

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When I sat down to do today's nails, I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted to do with my stamping, but I wasn't entirely sure what to do for the base. I will admit that this is a problem pretty often and I think it can really make or break a design overall. In the end, I decided to go with what I tend to think of as a sort of signature mani for me with a sheer flakie pond base and holo gradient tip. For me, this really is one of the most versatile bases in my arsenal and is also deceptively easy to do - which I LOVE about it. 

So without further ado, let's get to the nails!

Every holiday season when I'm putting together my Christmas nail art designs, I always like to deviate a little from the traditional color palette we tend to associate with this time of year, and I always find that you can pretty easily make purple work for something wintery. I actually had some version of this mani in my head for weeks before I sat down to it... and then I promptly failed on what I initially had in mind and had to recalibrate, but I'm so glad that I did because I love how this one turned out!

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When I sat down to plan out my September nail art plans this year - not something I do every month, but something kind of necessary when staring down the gargantuan task of Halloween approaching - I knew that I absolutely needed to include this mani in this month's posts. Pretty much as soon as I saw the Pueen Animal Safari 01 Stamping Plate*, I was inspired to put this together and what ended up on my nails is pretty much bang on exactly what I pictured in my head, which is definitely not always the case. But I'm pretty in love with the final result and super excited to share it!

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Generally when I sit down to do my nails, I have at least some kind of loose idea of what I want to do. I mean... if I didn't, I'd spend a lot of time sitting at my nail desk wracking my brain, so it's definitely best that I do it this way. That being said, sometimes I sit down and I have no idea and I just decide to play. Admittedly, while really fun this is generally not a good way to get to great nail art, but this time around I feel like it turned out sort of great and I legitimately had no idea what I was going to do here - even right in the middle of doing it!

So just keep reading to see what I did, I guess!

After swatching the Bio Sculpture Live Life Loudly Collection* for Summer 2022, I was really excited to try and create some nail art using them. I generally try to hold off on the neons until at least June, but we're almost there and I didn't want to stifle the creativity so I just went for it. This is such a gorgeous neon collection and I suspect that it'll end up popping up here on the blog a lot in the next few months, but for the first mani I did using it, I had a very specific idea that I wasn't entirely sure I was going to love.. BUT I DID. 

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I have to admit, I'm a little all over the place with this week's #CBBxManiMonday - I suspect that I might have used up a lot of my ideas for floral nails last month and now I'm sort of struggling so I sort of recreated an old mani I've done something very similar to once before. I also had a bit of a photo issue as my macro lens broke and the replacement won't be here for a few more days, so the photos are a little bit different this week. With all of that being said, I have a gorgeous color story in this week's mani and I'm super excited to share it!

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I think sometimes I forget that I don't have to make things complicated in order to make them impactful. Sometimes it's those fairly easy to put together mani's that end up being both my and other people's favorites. That being said, I do like to be thoughtful when it comes to putting together nail art designs, especially ones that I'll be posting here on the blog, so for this one I ended up adding some visual interest with some subtle drybrushing over a gorgeous base polish as well as some thoughtful placement of my stamping and... I'm sort of obsessed!

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Full disclosure - as I write this post, I'm subsisting on 3 hours of sleep and the laziest determination of life after being kept up most of the night by my dog who is very, very itchy at the moment because of her allergies. Anyway, for this week's Floral themed #CBBxManiMonday, I tried something sort of silly but I think it actually worked sort of beautifully - much more so than I was expecting, if we're being honest. I called this design "Blobby" because that is literally what it is - blobs of polish on a sheer base with some high contrast stamping. And I kind of love it!

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More often than I might like to admit, the mani you see here on the blog is my second try at the design. What happens sometimes is that I finish a mani, take pictures, and then realize that I should have done something differently and it just... isn't what it could be. Now, I could probably be less of a perfectionist, but there have been so many times where the second attempt was in a completely different league from the first that I generally just go again and hope for the best. Today's mani is one of these instances. I tried it the first time and it was... fine. It was good, even, probably, but I sort of couldn't help seeing all of the things that I wished I had done differently every time I looked at it, so I just had to give it another go and I'm entirely in love with how it turned out. Let this be the lesson - sometimes good enough is worth improving if you have the time and energy to give it a go.

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Sometimes when I've been doing a lot of nails that are really busy or deep in a theme or whatever, I just need a bit of a palette cleanse. Sometimes that means I just want to choose a nude or muted polish and not do any nail art, but other times I still want to do nail art... I just want to keep it fairly simple and soft. That's definitely where I was at when I sat down to do this mani. I actually had something much more involved planned but I just couldn't get into it and ultimately decided to do something really soft and light and a little bit delicate feeling - and I'm kind of obsessed with it. 

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During my inspiration slump recently, I went a little bit mad with power ordering new stamping plates to sort of revitalize my creativity and they've almost all arrived within the last week - which, admittedly, feels like a lot. That said, it has definitely done what I had hoped and has kickstarted some creativity and excitement on my end. The plate I used for this mani is definitely one that I've had my eye on for a while now and the design is something I've really been wanting to try. This type of abstract is really popular at the moment and I think this plate really provides an amazing amount of versatility for different mani's and designs. 

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I have to admit that when I sat down to do this week's Green themed #CBBxManiMonday nails, I found myself looking for ways to get around the theme because green was just not inspiring me, but you would honestly never know that based on how much I'm completely in love with this mani. Honestly, I'm over here tooting my own horn like an insane person at this point. I stepped away from revisiting old favorite stamping images for this mani because I've gotten a BUNCH of new plates lately and... basically I'm a crow? Anyway, I'm obsessed with how this mani turned out and I'm so excited to share it!

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The first time I used the main stamping image that I used for this mani, I had been dying to do the mani that I did ever since I first saw the plate so I didn't even consider doing anything else with it. Now, as I'm leaning into some old favorite stamping images and trying to use them in a different way, I wanted to be sure that I did something that was top to bottom different with it this time around. Honestly, looking at the two of them I really think that I managed to do that and if I didn't know they used the same image it wouldn't immediately occur to me. 

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After my last mani from Monday's post, I couldn't resist grabbing for the sister to the polish I used for my base on that one. Of course, when I say sister I do tend to mean it in a within-my-collection sort of way since both of these polishes were from months apart in entirely different indie collabs... but still, they are definitely very much in the same vibe for me. I'm also very, very much ready for spring. In fact, I would argue that there has possibly never been a winter in my entire life when I was so, so ready for spring at this point in the year. So... lavender!

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I'm not generally someone who will tell anyone that they HAVE TO have something - especially that they have to buy something. In all of the years that I've had this blog, I've stuck to that and have really only wanted to encourage people to buy things that are right for their needs or just exciting to them. All of this to say... If you're into nail stamping and you don't own the Whats Up Nails A020 Floralize Your Texture Stamping Plate, you probably pretty much need to get it. It's just one of those plates that you can do so much with and it's a really great supplementary plate if you're looking to add interest and detail to other mani's. As I'm continuing with my focus on my most loved stamping images this month, I knew that this plate was one I was going to be reaching for - though I definitely used more than just one image on this one. 

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A couple of days ago I decided that I'm going to lean into an idea I had to create new manis using some of my favorite stamping images that I've used before. Not only does this whip me into some much needed excitement at getting to use these images that I love again, but it challenges me to do something different than what I did before. And honestly, it has pretty much immediately bumped me back into being excited to create new nail art. For today's mani, I grabbed for a collaboration plate from Maniology that has several really great images on it and some of my favorite holo polishes for a fun and playful design that has me wanting to constantly stand underneath that light in my hallway that is magic for holo.

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