Simple Nails with a Glitter Accent

Hey lovelies

Sometimes it is true what they say.. simple is best. Every now and again I lose my nail art mojo a little and just stick with nice pretty colours and simple accent nail. Tonight is no exception to that...

Swatch: Barielle Blackened Bleu

Hey lovelies

This polish is just too beautiful for me to not share the full swatch pictures.

New Year nails

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had wonderful New Years Nights? Mr LiPP and I stayed in and cooked steak Japanese style and enjoyed one or two bottles of Prosecco! We also watched the first 10 episodes of Revenge season 3 and I am pleased to say it did not disappoint...!

Here are my New Year nails...

Fated Prince Skittlette nails

Happy Friday lovelies!

Mr LiPP and I (mostly Mr LiPP) are hosting a BBQ tonight for a few of his friends from work. Just a small gathering but we are really looking forward to relaxing after a long week at work with some good friends and some good food.

As I mentioned in my swatch post from yesterday I could hardly bring myself to cover over this beautiful polish, Fated Prince by a-England,  with nail art so I opted for a simple skittlette style :-)

Rose Bower Skittlette nails

Good evening lovelies

As promised tonight I am going to show you the skittlette I created to show off the true beauty of my new favourite polish... Rose Bower by a-England.

Grass Slippers with Graffiti Nail Art

Good evening lovelies

Yesterday I posted a gorgeous swatch post dedicated to Grass Slippers by Sally Hansen. Today I am going to show you how I made it a little more wearable by adding some fun nail art.

These are my graffiti line nails and I love them. I couldn't resist using bold colours for the line work as I really wanted to show that lime green can be a great base for nail art :-).

Using the criss cross lines from plate BM 316 I stamped in one direction using Barielle Berry Blue.

The flipping the plate upside down I stamped again but this time using Konad Special Polish in Psyche Pink.

I am so glad my bold colour choice paid off. I could not stop looking at my graffiti nails!

Would you wear such a bold lime green as your base colour? Do you like my bold navy and bright pink colour choices?

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Blue Paisley Nails

Good evening lovelies

Happy Sunday! I hope you have had a fantastic weekend? Ours has been busy but fun. We went out for good food (as always!), spent time with friends, enjoyed several long dog walks and still managed to relax in front of the tv :-). Unfortunately it is almost Monday again but this is my last full five day week for the next month so I cant complain really...

Onto one of my favourite manicures in a while...

For this beautiful blue manicure I started with two coats of Sky's the Limit by Barielle. It is a sapphire blue with lots of pretty blue metallic shimmers. I loved how this looked as it was drying and I was almost tempted to leave it alone, but...

Using Barry M Silver Foil I stamped this paisley design from plate BM 315. This is one of my all time favourite prints and I love this colour combo to bits!

I topped the whole thing off one coat of Northern Lights Hologram top coat in Silver. Quick drying and super sparkly... whats not to love? :-)

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday's my lovelies

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Nails for the Masquerade Ball

Hello lovelies

How has your weekend been? Ours has been busy but brilliant :-).

On Saturday during the day little sis and I went to meet the girls at the party venue so we could help set up and do some manicures. We had a really busy morning, covering tables, changing the layout (many times), arranging ostrich feathers in huge vases and just generally getting as organised as possible. Then I had just one and a half hours left to fit in as many manicures as possible. I managed to get five sets of nails painted plus some really pretty stamped accent nails for Laus and Hayley and some adorable freehand tuxedo style accents for Sammy :-).

Then it was time to go home and make a start on my own nails. I had gone for quite a bold colour choice with my dress... fuschia pink! Of course that meant I needed beautifully bright matching nails...

Excuse the rather orange looking fingers, I took these pictures when I got home at gone midnight and probably should have adjusted the light settings. However the good thing is the nail polish is totally colour accurate.

I started with Barry M Fuschia on all nails except my ring fingers. Fuschia is my absolute favourite pink for summer pedicures and as I did my toes to match my fingers for the ball I am currently rocking it on my tootsies even though it is winter!

I stamped this cute little bunch of flowers using Barry M Silver Foil and the pattern from BM 12. On all the pink nails I then added a top coat of Hologram Silver and added a sparkly pink rhinestone to the centre of the largest flower.

For my accent nails I painted one coat of Barry M Silver Foil as a base and topped them off with two coats of Barielle Starry Sky which is a clear polish with silver foil flakies (not pictured).

Here are a couple of shots of my completed nails alongside my pretty and very sparkly mask...

And finally some pictures from the night... This first one is me and the gorgeous Mr LiPP taken at home by my mum. I was so pleased with how we looked :-)

This picture was taken at the event in a pop up photo booth. The beautiful birthday girl is Hayley who is on the left in the teal mask, then we have my stunning little sister in the purple with black feathers and finally lovely Sammy who is Hayleys partner and totally rocked my freehand tuxedo nails on the night :-)

This last picture was again taken in the pop up booth on the night...

I hope you enjoyed this post... I love it when I get the chance to share a little bit about me and my loved ones as well as show case some nail art.

Happy Birthday for Monday Hayles - we love you :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Space Invader Nails

Tonight I decided to do something a little different. I recently treated myself to some new stamping plates from a company called Cheeky. I cannot wait to use more of them but as I was having the first look through the 161 designs I was drawn to this cartoon style space invaders pattern which features several funny little creatures.

I usually steer clear of patterns that are cartoon cute but for some reason I really liked this one...

Firstly I started with two perfect coats of Essie Bikini So Teeny which has been on my lemming list for at least six months! I was so excited to get this beautiful periwinkle blue and also at the same time I got Essie Navigate Her which is another huge lemming of mine!

Then using Barielle Berry Blue I stamped this cute design from plate CH 32. I just love these blue on blue combinations.

More adorable little critters for my thumb...

Then finally on my last two nails I decided to add a little sparkle so I broke out my new Barry M Rose Quartz Glitter. Check out the sparkle in this bottle...!

I love this Rose Quartz glitter from the Jewel collection. I swatched it over my new dove grey as well and it looked gorgeous.

Louise xx

Blackened Bleu

Good evening lovelies

Tonight I have a sparkly little number to show you... this colour has been in my untrieds for a while as I really wanted to wear it and take pictures in some good natural light. I managed to take some lovely swatch pictures outside, but the final version complete with nail art had to be taken inside as the light had faded by then.

This sometimes black and sometimes blue polish looked gorgeous...

For the above look I used three coats of Barielle Blackened Bleu and then stamped just my ring finger using Barry M Silver Foil and the small floral pattern from plate M77. I add just two little blue rhinestones to pick out the gorgeous blue glitter hiding in the black jelly base of this polish.

These two swatch pictures were taken outside in natural daylight - the shimmer was amazing.

These two pictures were taken indoors with my daylight bulb and black background. Still amazing :-)

This colour looked really classy and was a real eye catcher, I will definitely turn it this again and again.

Louise xx

Black and White and Pink All Over

What's Black and White and Pink all over - My Nails..!

Sometimes a lack of inspiration means I come up with a manicure that is a happy little accident and I really like it :-).

I knew I wanted to use the chevron stamp from the third bundle monster stamping collection but I also really wanted to use more of my pretty little flat back pearls.

I started with a pretty pink base of No 7 Me, Me, Me. Its a really lovely colour without being too sickly sweet and actually has a really great formula. I used OPI MBSW as the base for my ring finger accent nail.

I used Konad Black and the chevron stamp from plate BM 201 for my accent nails. On each of the pink based nails I applied three little black and white pearls using a good thick coat of Seche Vite.

Finally I could not resist adding a little glitter so I reached for Barielle Starry Sky and used it just on my thumb nail.

 

I am so happy with how this turned out. I love the combination of pink, black and white - not to mention those cute little pearls. I have them in twelve different colours so you are bound to see them again soon :-).

Louise xx

Summery Butterflies

Happy Bank Holiday lovelies.

Hubby and I have had such a lovely day. We had a lazy and chilled out morning at home with our two dogs and then went out for lunch with my Mum and Sister to Yo Sushi. This has become an all time favourite restaurant of ours. Its amazing how many people are put off by the name but we only eat one thing from the sushi menu - its the hot, cooked to order section of the menu we head straight for. Yummy chicken, salmon and prawn dishes all cooked to perfection. We would recommend Yo Sushi to everyone.

Enough about food... onto my nails of the day...

I designed these summery nails to match my pretty new top, a close up of the material can be seen below.

The base colours used for this manicure are Barry M Flamingo Pink and Barry M Lemon Icecream. I then stamped my much loved butterfly design from BM 307 using Barry M Gold Foil and Barielle Coalest Day of the Year.

Sneaky right hand pic for you

If I had to pick a favourite nail polish then I am fairly sure it would be Barry M Flamingo Pink. I hope I never have to pick just one but if I did then this would be a serious contender. The colour bridges the gap between the pink and the coral colour families and is easy to apply in two effortless coats.

These are the pretty beads I accessorised with today :-).

It is a shame we didnt have great summery weather to go with my new outfit today but we still made the most of it and had a lovely day. This is my favourite bank holiday of the year as this is the weekend that hubby and I first met five years ago!

Take care

Louise xx

Five (not Fifty) Shades of Grey

As you may have heard recently there is currently a bestselling series of books sweeping the book charts called Fifty Shades. It is a trilogy of books written with women in mind and they are categorised as either 'romance' or 'adult comtemporary fiction' depending on who you talk to. The book industry is buzzing about these books and if rumours are to believed they will single handedly be responsible for a baby boom in approx 9 months time and a huge surge in 'underwear for special occasions' sales.

The jacket images of the books gave me a great idea for a quick mani and photo shoot tonight.

Using my lovely new Diamond Collection from Barielle I started with a basic skittle mani using Five (not Fifty) shades of grey.

In order to make this skittle relevant to the book series I needed to add a tie, a mask and a key to the mix. I debated trying to hand paint something onto each nail but I just knew that I wouldnt achieve the detail I was looking for. Then a wave of inspiration came over me and I grabbed a couple of props and stamping plate BM 301. I hope you like the results as much as I do.

 

I had so much fun with this tonight. I will definately be keeping my eyes peeled for props to add to future nail photo shoots. My neighbours must think I am crazy but I don't mind as its all in the name of art... well nail art anyway!

I have not read any of these books but I know plenty of people who have... will you be tempted? Let me know what you think of tonights little venture into themes and props.

Louise xx