So I had this idea for a holiday mani that would feature sort of... deconstructed Christmas trees using stamping. I actually tried a few different versions of this idea, but it wasn't until I decided to try out using some dots stamping images that I feel fairly confident were not necessarily intended for this particular use that it came together. It's probably the most sort of... non-traditionally holiday design I've done this month, but I think there's just something so cool about how this came together!

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

When I got my hands on the Pueen Accent Fun 01 Stamping Plate* recently, I was really, really drawn to this image that looked like a wood grain French tip with a sort of garland and rosebud motif and I knew that I really, really wanted to use it. Of course, I'm a bit of a weirdo and I tend to not be a huge fan of all of my nails being exactly the same, so I spent some time sort of marinating on how I could create a cohesive mani using that image without making all of my nails the same. It wasn't until I realized that I could use the rose image directly next to the French tip one on the plate to create a cohesive vibe that it all came together in my head and I'm super stoked at how it turned out.

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I will admit that over the past couple of years I've done quite a few different versions of today's mani, but it really is just a staple for me that never fails and it's especially good, I think, for this time of year. Fall is kind of a funny time for those of us here on the Canadian prairies because it really isn't at all uncommon for us to basically be in full on winter by Halloween, so November can feel... not really fall, if that makes sense. And, of course, I'm not ready to bust out the Christmas designs yet, so this is a great option that feels seasonally appropriate.

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Happy November, all! Anyone else feeling a little bit fatigued from the Halloween season or is that just me? Honestly, I think November is the hardest month for me to find my creativity because I'm coming off the marathon of Halloween nails and I've already got my eye on Christmas nails, so it can be a bit of a struggle to come up with new and fun ideas without a really specific theme in my head. That said, I'm really excited about this first mani out of the Halloween season because it's something I've sort of loosely had in mind for a while now but hadn't gotten around to trying out. 

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There's just... something about a craggy, spooky tree silhouette that I just absolutely love. Not even just for Halloween, I just love the look of a beautiful sky set off with that dark silhouette of a tree. All of this to say - of course I had to sneak one more creepy tree mani in here before the end of the spooky season. I mean... right? Anyway, I loved this single tree image from the Pueen Halloween Party 01 Stamping Plate so much that I decided to play around with the placement and use it on every nail!

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.    

 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.  

As soon as I started jotting down ideas for Halloween nail art, I knew that I wanted to bust the pastels back out and do something playful and light overall. Cue my favorite way of putting together a rainbow gradient that really brings the unicorn vibes - using only 3 stamping polishes! Honestly, I'm sort of obsessed with these rainbow gradients and have been reaching for these three polishes often to create various different versions of it, so it only seemed fitting to bust them out for Halloween as well. Afterall, Halloween isn't all ghouls and blood, right?

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.   

In the world of Halloween nail art, I feel like the good old Jack 'O Lantern doesn't really get enough love these days, so I decided to go all in with orange and what I'm calling a Jack 'O Lantern patch for today's nail art design. I think, for me anyway, that one of the reasons I don't really gravitate towards Jack 'O Lantern nails is actually probably because I struggle with how to make them look interesting and cool. For this mani, though, I had a pretty specific idea as far as background as well as how to use a single stamping image to create a cohesive full mani and I think it worked pretty well.

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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 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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I have to tell you, I sort of had this exact mani planned for this month for a while now, but it as also an entirely different mani than what I ended up creating just by virtue of the color story that I went with for it. That's one of the cool things about nail art, in my opinion, especially when it comes to stamping. It would be easy to assume that a mani featuring one full cover image on every nail could really only be one thing, but you can really play around with mood and intention by changing the polishes you use to put it together. All of that to say...

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Oftentimes when I first look at any given stamping plate, there are one or two images that really stand out to me and that I can't wait to get on my nails. Sometimes, though, I hold off because somehow I convince myself that I don't want to waste it - as though I can't go back and use it again. I swear, sometimes I feel like these posts when I describe my thought process are like therapy - really going into the weird and specific ways that my mind processes things. Anyway, I've been wanting to use the stamping image I used for this mani for a while now, but I really didn't want to waste it. I don't think I did!

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One thing that I definitely think tends to be true for me is that after a lot of bold, bright, intense nail art designs, my brain needs a little bit of a palette cleanser. So, of course, since I'm moving from all of the madness that is summer nail art into the more muted vibe of fall nail art, I decided to do something really neutral and subtle to fill that sort of palette cleanse need. Of course, I'm someone who is pretty much always going to do some sort of nail art, even when I want the most minimal, so for this mani I decided to add some really soft graphic stamping to a sheer, soft base. Honestly, it did exactly what I was hoping it would do!

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I have to admit that when I sat down to do today's nail art design, I just really, really wanted to use the base polish and I sort of built everything else from there. When it comes to really wanting to build something from a base polish, for me it's about not only thinking about the overall color story, but also how I want that base polish to be seen. I don't know if this is making any sense, sometimes the way my brain does things is a little.. specific, but I think that focusing on those specifics is really how some of my favorite mani's have come together.

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 THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

It seems like every summer I find myself wanting to do some sort of mermaid or fish scale nails, but I don't just want to do the same thing every time so I find myself really trying to think of different techniques and looks for the base. The trick, I think, is maintaining a texture that suits the feel of fish scales while also really doing something different with it. I actually think that the sponging technique I used to create this base might be my favorite so far when it comes to this style of mani because it gives a really beautiful, shimmering texture that I think suits the fish vibe perfectly. 

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I have to say, I'm fully back down a rabbit hole of wanting to do gradient nails, which is convenient since it's such a great base for a lot of different summer nail designs. I've also really, really been enjoying putting together gradients using stamping polishes from Pueen - they just perform and blend so beautifully together for such an effortless gradient application. When I showed this mani to my best friend, she said that her immediate first thought was Vince Neil Pants and I really, really don't know why I love that very specific 80s hair band reference, but I really, really do!

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Admittedly, I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to how I approach creating nail art to post here on the blog. I rarely feel good about posting something that doesn't have some sort of creativity on my part or some kind of technique that could be of value to someone else. This particular mani actually came about because I looked at this image from the Pueen Marble Paradise 01 Stamping Plate* and it occurred to me that it would be pretty cool to break it up and create a sort of patchwork type of design using bits of it. And, of course, one nail with the full image because I think it gives a cool effect. 

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Honestly, I'll take inspiration just about anywhere I can find it, so when I was looking through my stamping plates and I noticed the graphics on the back of the Pueen Visual Wonderland 01 Stamping Plate* and a lightbulb hit, I went with it. Earlier this year, I had the idea to create a mani pairing two different full cover stamping images on the nail to make a blocked design and I felt like the sort of graphic optical illusion type images on this plate would work perfectly to create a really simple but impactful mani. 

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I have to say that this mani was heavily influenced by the Playful Pastel Rainbow Gradient Heart Nails that I did a couple of weeks ago, though I did try to make it very much its own thing. I was just so overwhelmingly impressed with how beautifully the Pueen stamping polishes worked to create a beautiful rainbow spectrum gradient that I knew I had to try again - especially since my brain is apparently fully in a gradient type of headspace at the moment. I have to say.. I'm kind of obsessed with how beautiful it turned out. This is one of those mani's that has the potential to put me in a bit of a slump because it just went so perfectly. 

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