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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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've actually had today's mani in mind for a few years now - or some version of it, anyway - but it wasn't until this year that I had the perfect stamping plate to get the job done. As I've mentioned, I've been getting more into layered stamping recently and I've added several Clear Jelly Stamper plates to my collection. As soon as I saw the holly and berries design on the CjS-C33 plate, I knew that I was finally going to get to do this mani and I really, really love the way it turned out!

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When Melody Susie reached out to me to ask if I wanted to try out their gel polishes and put together a mani, I immediately knew that I wanted to put together some Christmas nails. I will admit that they did challenge me a bit with by asking me to use their nail art brushes to create a hand painted mani, but I was up for the challenge and I'm so, so glad that I went for it because I absolutely love how this design turned out and I feel pretty proud of myself for doing it entirely by hand. 

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Sometimes I will have a polish in my collection for quite a while before I get around to using it. There can be a lot of reasons for this, but oftentimes I'm just waiting for the perfect opportunity to you it. Months ago now, the people over at Born Pretty sent me this absolutely beautiful reflective holo glitter gel polish that I fell pretty in love with almost immediately, but I kept struggling to figure out how I wanted to use it until I had the lightbulb for this particular mani. It's very, very simple, but I think that's what makes it shine. 

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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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For our June #CBBxManiMonday theme, we decided to lean into the same theme we've gone with the past two years: Allyship. Not only is June Pride Month, but here in Canada it's also Indigenous History Month and considering the complicated history as well as the current situations, focusing on allyship feels as important as ever. I wanted to start with a rainbow mani because not only did our local Pride celebrations take place over this past weekend, but I think Allyship with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community is as important as it's ever been lately as that community is currently being targeted in ways that are truly devastating. 

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Sometimes when I sit down to do a mani, I have a completely different idea in mind than what I ultimately end up with and this is definitely one of those times. I had actually intended this mani to be much more of a watercolor design with some high contrast stamping, but in the end I'm actually pretty glad that I had the stumbles that I did along the way because being forced to rethink mid mani definitely changed things up and led to a mani I think is really cute. 

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Nail stickers have never really been something I've reached for all that often, but recently when I (like everyone else) got sucked in by the ads for Temu, I decided to pick up a few sheets and see how I liked them. While I don't think I'm going to switch over to being a full time nail sticker kind of girl, I do think they're handy to have in your collection for when you're in a hurry or are looking for a style that might be a little bit more tricky with stamping. Anyway, let's get to the nails, shall we?

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When I'm rushed for time or just lacking in inspiration, there are definitely a few go to nail art designs that I tend to default to and today's mani is definitely one of them. Admittedly, I left this week's #CBBxManiMonday to the very last minute and when I sat down to do my nails, I basically had nothing in the tank, so I grabbed for some gel polish since there's no dry time to deal with and a new-to-me stamping plate that I've been wanting to use for a while and I just went for the old standby.

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Hey all! I love love love dark green nail polish. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that if I had to pick a favorite type of polish, it would be a dark green. Recently, Born Pretty was kind enough to send me some products to try out and feature here on the blog and one of them was this absolutely stunning rich evergreen shade and basically as soon as I had it in hand I just needed to get it onto my nails. Admittedly, I was in a bit of a hurry when I put this together, but it's actually a pretty easy design to throw together and because it's gel polish you can really just cure it and go. 

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

I have come to terms with the fact that I am simply not a minimalism kind of girl, as my version of minimalism seems to just be excluding the kitchen sink but tossing everything else in there. That being said, I recently saw some really simple nail art designs from professional nail techs that were really simple and featured nail powders and I really wanted to do my own version of that type of design. Lucky for me, Pueen sent over their Holographic Nail Art Kit* and it seemed like the perfect time to try out a design that my by standards is very, very minimal but also just... so cool. 

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So... as I typed the word Minimalist into the title bar for this post, I really did acknowledge that this is hardly what most people would call a minimalist manicure, but I do think that as far as galaxy mani's go that would be how I would describe this one so I'm going with it. Now, I will be the first to tell you that hand painted nail art is very much not my forte, but I'm trying to get a little practice in now that I've been playing a lot more with gel nail art, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Hopefully I do get a little smoother with it sometime soon though....

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Earlier this week, I received my order of a handful more of the Born Pretty Sea Blue Cat Magnetic Gel Polishes and it seemed like an absolute sin to not pull out the pink one and use it as a base for a Valentine's Day nail art design. I am absolutely in love with these polishes and every single time I wear one (which has, admittedly, been constantly on my mysterious other hand ever since I first tried them) you can often find me just wiggling my fingers around under different types of light to see how they pop. They're just so pretty and by now I've collection a bit of a rainbow of them so they'll probably pop up here on the blog a fair bit in the coming months.  

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So I have gone entirely down a rabbit hole of cat eye gel polishes at this point, I've gotta be honest. I decided on a bit of a whim to pick up two of the Born Pretty Sea Blue Cat Magnetic Gel Polishes recently and pretty much as soon as I tried one of them out I went and ordered 5 more. Like, honestly, it was love at first cure, pretty much. I actually did do nail art with that look, but I didn't film it so I didn't both photographing it, especially since I knew there was likely going to be a LOT of nail art coming up featuring these polishes.

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Well, I can officially say that I'm down a gel polish rabbit hole at the moment and I'm having a lot of fun playing around with techniques and designs that I never really had a chance to play with because I've always used traditional polish. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still a huge fan of traditional polish, but there's definitely a brand new spark of creativity that has come with being able to try out different things using gel polish. For today's mani, I'm dipping into some gel liner polishes that I picked up recently and I'm super, super in love with how this one turned out.

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Ever since I was a teenager in my high school art classes I've been drawn to the pairing of green and purple. I think it's just an elite color combo and there are as many versions of it as there are shades of purple and green and they just so frequently work beautifully together. For today's nail art, I grabbed for a cool toned sort of lavender purple and a beautiful turquoise that's really balanced, I think, between blue and green. Some might argue that this pairing isn't really a purple and green, but I think it fits the criteria - and I also just really, really think these shades work beautifully together. 

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A few years ago when I was very first experimenting with gel nail art, I first tried out the 3D cable knit nails technique and ever since I've considering trying it out again but I've never actually gotten around to it. Finally, I decided I wanted to give it another go and see how much time and experience impacted how it all came together. It's actually a sort of interesting exercise and one I'm now considering playing around with more because I feel like I can definitely see the improvement both in my skills but also in my confidence when it came to putting together this mani.

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