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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In December of 2020, I put together what has become one of my favorite nail art designs I've ever done. It's one that has sparked countless different versions for various holidays and themes and it's one that I've brought back a different version of every Christmas since. While I did consider it, I couldn't go and break tradition this year, so I decided to make this year's version green and not overthink it. It's just such a classic at this point - it had to be done!

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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!

I definitely went into this year's marathon of Halloween nail art with very specific intentions of doing some more minimalist designs, since I have a tendency to go full on kitchen sink when I have a theme in front of me. For this mani, specifically, I kept it really, really simple with a simple créme + flakie topper base along with one stamping image repeated across the entire hand. And I LOVE IT. Seriously, this mani definitely reminded me just how much simple can work when done right. 

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Today's mani takes a significant amount of inspiration from a mani from @hannys_manis from last Halloween season and I just fell so completely in love with the design that I had to do my own spin on it for this year's Halloween season. I have to admit, I've done a lot less reverse stamping this year thamn I did last year because I have a tendency to convince myself it's going to take forever and be exhausting or something, but it really does almost always come together really smoothly. 

Without further ado, let's get into the nails!

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When I sat down to put together today's mani, I honestly had no idea whether or not it was actually going to work out on my nails the way I imagined it in my head. Ultimately, I would say this design goes pretty firmly against a lot of what I normally do and moves very much in the opposite direction. With that said, though, I do actually really love the way that it turned out in the end. I'm on a bit of a purple tear right now, so when the idea to do a monochromatic nail in a color rather than black and white, purple was the obvious choice. 

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For pretty much as long as I've been doing Christmas nail art, I've wanted to put together a Grinch mani. Every year there's a short list of Christmas movies that I always make sure to curl up and watch and the Jim Carrey version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is definitely on that list, so I have a soft spot for the Grinchiness of it all. This year I thought ahead and ordered myself a Dr. Seuss themed stamping plate so that I would have what I needed to put together this design and I decided to keep it really simple with bold, bright colors and straightforward stamping. As a resident of the kitchen sink squad, I will go ahead and applaud my own restraint on this one. 

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When I sit down to think of inspiration for these types of themed nail art marathons that I do for Halloween and Christmas every year, I definitely look through a lot of different sources to try and spark creativity. One of those sources is my own previous work, where I feel like I can find new ways to use old ideas, if that makes sense at all outside of my head. For today's mani, I took inspiration from this mani I posted a couple of months ago and I did a pretty direct recreation of it, changing up the color scheme and some other details to bring in the holiday vibe and make it it's own thing. 

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Annnnd it is time - Marathon of Holiday/Christmas themed nails o'clock. I've resisted posting anything even wintery before this point this year, but it's December 1 and now it's on so here we go! When I'm sitting down to plan out a whole bunch of nail art designs featuring one theme, there are always going to be ones that sort of get stuck in my head and those tend to be the ones that are the first to get done. Today's mani was so stuck in my head that I had dreams about doing it on multiple occasions and I knew exactly what I was going to do and what products I was going to use to do it long before I actually sat down and put it on my nails. Honestly, it's sort of a really simple design, but I think it has a great amount of impact and is perfect for the season!

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So for today's Halloween mani, I did something a little bit different than what I normally do in an attempt to try to recreate a mani that was clearly done with gel polish - often a bit of a hit and miss endeavor, I must admit - but I think it turned out pretty cool. I'm a huge fan of @ashxmcgrath's work and I think her Halloween designs are some of her best, but I really wasn't sure how doing my own take on this gorgeous mani using traditional polish was going to go or if it would even work. Luckily, I think my take on it turned out pretty cool!

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One of the things I did while I was putting together ideas for this year's Halloween nail art was to go back and look at designs I'd done previously. I didn't want to do a straight up recreation of any of them, but I did like the idea of doing some twists on some of my favorites. One of my absolute favorites from last year was my Spooky Grunge Voodoo Doll mani that I did and I definitely felt like I could easily take the spirit of that one and do something a little darker and more gritty with it this year. In the end... I feel pretty confident that I was able to do just that. 

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I have to say, I'm feeling very excited about doing super cute Halloween nail art this year - likely in large part due to some of the absolutely adorable Halloween stamping plates I picked up for this year's designs. One thing that seems to be true every Halloween season is that you really can't go wrong with adorable ghost nails. I mean, sure, there's absolutely a ton of room for creepy, but there's also something to be said for keep it cute and playful during spooky season as well. Anyway, it was with that particular spirit that I decided to lean all the way in with this pink and cute ghost mani!

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I have to be honest... trying to plan 31 brand spankin' Halloween themed mani's every year isn't just daunting, it feels pretty much impossible. So, to fill out this year's Halloween Nail Art designs, I've definitely always planned on going back and re-imagining some of the mani's I've put together in previous years. One of the mani's that I wanted to go back and re-imagine this year was my Shifty Glow Ouija Board Nails from last year, but I did want to bump it up a little bit so I took a bit of inspiration from this mani from @ashxmcgrath. I think the intersection of those two inspirations made a very, very me mani and I'm pretty happy with it!

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS. 

I've always had a little bit of a thing for nail art that reminds me of vintage wallpaper. I don't know what it is, but particularly if it feels like it would have fit perfectly adoring the walls of a midcentury modern space, these types of wallpaper patterns just do it for me. That being said, it's really only about half the time that I'm actually shooting for that vibe and the other half of the time it sort of just... happens. Luckily, in this case, that is definitely the vibe that I was going for. From the really warm color palette that feels straight out of the 60s to the sort of trippy stamping design, this is all wallpaper all the time. And I love it!

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When I was first thinking of ideas of how to use the Manitude x Sip It Stamping Plate, today's mani didn't even occur to me. In fact, I have some other mani's coming up that will feature the designs that initially drew me to pick up this particular stamping plate. In fact, I was actually initially thinking that there was no way I would be able to make these particular designs work and then... lightbulb! Immediately this design started coming together in my mind and I just absolutely had to get it onto my nails. Cue immediate obsession!

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Is it weird that I've wanted to do today's mani for literally months, but I've been saving it for August specifically because there's just something about it that felt like it needed to be done this month? I think this might be one of those "nobody thinks like I do" kinds of moments, but I think I have a lot of those when it comes to when and how I do nail art designs. That said, one of my favorite mani's from last summer was a desert landscape design and I also saved that one for August, so... at least I'm consistent?

Anyway, before I go on any more of a ramble about why the desert is for August, let's get into the nails, shall we?

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!

It was definitely a hot weekend here in Winnipeg, so I couldn't resist leaning distinctly into the neon of it all. Honestly, there's just something about July that, for me, screams for neon nails and even as I'm typing this post I find myself looking down at my nails and just getting a charge from how much I love how this mani turned out. I really love that these sorts of blobby abstract designs are so much on trend in nail art right now because not only are they really versatile and fun, but I think that they're fairly accessible to do at home regardless of your nail art skill, which is always a plus in my opinion. 

Anyway, keep reading for more on how I did this mani!