Purple on Purple

I really am not sure about todays manicure. I decided to push the boundaries a little and continue on my quest to use the bundle monster designs that I would not usually pick. I also decided that I would use a colour that I usually leave until last... dark purple.

Here are the results, I hope you enjoy the pictures...

I started with a base of two coats of Barry M Vivid Purple. As you will see from the swatch pictures at the bottom of this post this colour looks gorgeous on its own in full sunshine as you can really see the purple and silver sparkles that hide in this very dark purple base. In fact I may even be as bold as to say that I prefer this colour with no nail art over the top!

For the stamping I picked plate BM 322 again. I tried another design from this plate a few days ago, as seen here, but for todays manicure I opted for this quite edgy looking diamond shaped design. I had a little issue with the polish 'bleeding' over the lines of the design but if you can forgive those little blips then many of you will like this design. The colour used for stamping is Barry M Lilac Foil.

In the sunshine

In the shade

I didnt like this nail art enough to leave it on so it didnt survive a full day. However I will definately wear Vivid Purple again in the future. Maybe with just a few simple studs or rhinestones on my favoured accent nails?

Beautiful sunshine swatch

Still beautiful in the shade

What do you think? Do you like purple? Do you like these 'edgier' looking bundle monster designs or like me do you lean towards the softer floral designs?

Take care

Louise xx

Mushroom and Peach Melba

Good afternoon lovelies. I hope you are all having fantastic weekends. We have been very lucky with the weather again for the past few days so hubby and I have made the most of it and spent plenty of time out and about running errands, walking our dogs and of course sitting in the beer garden enjoying the odd glass of pinot :-).

My nails today were inspired by a colour combination I saw on a friend of mine a few weeks ago. As soon as I saw her nails I knew I would replicate them to feature on this blog. Considering how much I love these two colours together I cant believe I didnt think to try it myself.

Introducing Mushroom and Peach Melba...

To create this look I used Barry M Mushroom and Barry M Peach Melba as my base colours. I then stamped this circular design straight from BM 322 using Barry M Gold Foil.

To finish off the Peach Melba accent nail I added just three small gold studs purchased from the Born Pretty Store through eBay. I love how the studs compliment the circular design I used for stamping today.

 

Here are a couple of pictures taken in direct sunlight so you can see just how bright and sparkly the Gold Foil polish is and also how smooth both base colours are.

Here is the swatch picture I took before I started stamping. Remind you of anyone SB? :-)

I hope you all enjoyed my post today. I am off to spark up the BBQ and enjoy the late sunshine (when I say spark up the BBQ, I of course mean pour a glass of wine and watch hubby spark up the BBQ)!

Louise xx

Bonus Houndstooth

Since I posted earlier this evening I have been thinking about recreating a more feminie version of the houndstooth stamp design and once an idea is in my head I just cant leave it...

For this pretty version I used Models Own Utopia as my base colour and stamped the houndstooth design from BM 322 using Konad Psyche Pink. Utopia is a really pretty pale pinky grey which when contrasted with this ultra bright pink ends up looking almost bright white.

I am much happier with this colour version of the houndstooth design - what do you think? As always your thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

Louise xx

Houndstooth

Today I really fancied using one of the bold and quite 'hard edged' stamps that I usually steer clear of. I finally settled on the houndstooth design found on stamping plate BM 322. I think traditionally the houndstooth pattern is black and white but I decided to switch it up a little and used black and silver.

I used W7 black as the base and Barry M Silver Foil for the stamping. I have to say the results are quite eye catching and I found it hard to tell which was the base colour and which was the stamp colour.

Do you think I could make this a bit more my usual girly style by using softer colours? Maybe a white base and a nice bright pink stamp? One for the 'to do' list I think :-).

Louise xx