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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I can not even tell you how excited I was to get today's mani on my nails, I sincerely can't. As soon as I received the CjS-324 Stamping Plate, which was included in a Mystery Box, I was beyond excited to put together some version of this design. I initially planned on going with a more traditional red, green and white color story, but in the end I was in the mood for something a little more cozy. One of my favorite cozy color combos - not just for my nails - is pink and grey and I think it worked perfectly with this design. 

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Every year at Christmas, I try to put together some mani's that aren't in traditional holiday colors - red, green, white, gold, blue, silver, that is - but I'm beginning to find myself thinking that shades of lavender are also becoming a little bit festive in my head. I wouldn't say that this mani is particularly festive, but I do think it's a really fun wintery holiday mani and I'm kind of in love with it. It also utilized layered stamping, which I've always been super intimidated by, and I'm kind of wildly in love with how that aspect of the design turned out. 

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WELL. Happy Halloween, everyone! Honestly, this month has gone both incredibly fast and also felt like a bit of a marathon. My brain and my nails both desperately need a break at this point, but I'm so thrilled with how this year's raft of Halloween nails went. I didn't do quite as many as last year since I took Sunday's off this year, but 26 Halloween themed nail designs is still a LOT. So this final one is a bit of a recreation, but I love this version of it and it feels sort of right to bookend my Halloween mani's with some recreations. 

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I've gotten to the point in my collection where I will sometimes buy things I'm really excited about, but then it's either not the time or for some other reason I put it into my collection and forget about it. Over the weekend, I was reorganizing some stamping plates when I came upon the Hit The Bottle To Boldly Go Stamping Plate, which I was like... basically obsessed with getting my hands on when it was first released but didn't get a chance to use right away because of the holidays and... Well, you get it. It still had the blue plastic on it, so it was time to peel it off and put it to work.

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So initially the inspiration for this mani was a little bit different and I had planned on doing some Hocus Pocus themed nails with this background, but in the end I decided to go in a slightly different direction with a bit of a less specific witch and some bats. "It's freakin' bats... I love Halloween!" Anyway, I think the design turned out really good and brought the creepiness I was looking for at the end of the day.

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Once upon a time, I was weirdly intimidated by dotticures because something about getting them balanced and perfect seemed impossible and stressed me out. In truth, they're one of the most beginner friendly, forgiving and versatile techniques out there. Of course, I still don't think to do them very often. For this week's #CBBxManiMonday, though, I decided to try something a little bit different using a dotticure and stamping to create a very, very 80s summer look. (Anyone else still deep under the Stranger Things shadow from earlier this summer and all for 80s nostalgia? Can't just be me?)

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Some of my favorite nail art designs to do are the ones that are inspired by textiles and in my opinion some of the most beautiful fabrics are in the brocade family. As we're leading into the holiday season (by which I mean, I am fully, fully in it already with my Christmas tree up and my body basically fueled by nog at this point...) I felt like a non-Christmasy but still very seasonally appropriate rich brocade nail design was just the thing. Since this is my last nail art design before I go hard with Christmas nails starting on Tuesday, this felt like a good primer.

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Fall colors are definitely my favorites. Not only because I really think they're beautiful - and I really, really do - but also because they tend to be the colors that suit me the most. When I really think about my all time, ride or die favorite fall colour, though, I would say that it's pretty hard to beat rich burdungy and plum shades at this time of year - and, in this case, not just because I think they really suit me. In fact, I would say this type of shade suits pretty much anyone. In my opinion, anyway. So for one of my last mani's before I transition into holiday themed nail art, I went with plum!

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One thing that I saw a lot of when I was scrolling around looking for fall nail art inspiration (this month between Halloween and Christmas can definitely be a little bit tricky) I saw a lot of skittle mani's featuring gradients of warm browns and I felt pretty inspired by the idea. Browns aren't polishes that I tend to reach for often, but I knew that I had some good ones in my collection so I just had to find the right ones. I then decided to add some really simple graphic stamping with some champagne gold shimmer because... why not!

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