Boosh and Lychee: Spots and Glitter

Good evening lovelies

Happy Tuesday. I had a fantastic day today - I was on a nail art course learning how to perfect some free hand designs using acrylic paints and also how to make some clever designs in gel polish before you cure it.

Unfortunately tonight I have to go away for work so will be travelling for about 2.5 hours to get to the hotel and hopefully get a good nights sleep before a couple of days of intense meetings. Luckily I have my fabulous little sister to keep me company which should distract me from how much I will miss Mr L_i_P_P and our doggies.

Onto my nail of the day...

For this eye catching manicure I started with a nice and simple Black and Nude polish combo. The glossy black is Illamasqua Boosh and the creamy Nude is Barry M Gelly in Lychee. I finally treated myself to three polishes from the latest Barry M releases.

Boosh applied like a glossy black dream and Lychee really is the perfect nude. I did two coats of each polish and was tempted to leave them looking that simple... of course the nail art bug took over :-)

Using my trusty Orly dotting tool I used Boosh to add some simple large and small dots to the two Lychee nails. It is the first time I have used different sized dots in this way and was really pleased with how effective they look.

Finally to add a bit of glitz I used Chit Chat Raspberry Glitter on just the black nails. I love black and pink together :-)

I was really pleased with this nail of the day and I am pretty sure you will see more dots like this very soon

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Illamasqua: Im Obsess(ed)

Good evening lovelies

I hope you Monday went quickly? Mine could not go quickly enough as it's the last Monday of the month... which only means one thing... Sister night at Yo Sushi! For regular visitors to my blog you will know that I love Yo Sushi and go as regularly as my budget will allow. For any new visitors then you will no doubt read about my love of the hot food menu at Yo Sushi right here, very often :-).

When Yo Sushi was first recommended to me I almost laughed... me and Sushi? No chance! However I am so glad I did give it a try and whilst I only order one cold sushi dish as my starter I cannot get enough of the hot food such as Katsu Chicken, Firecracker Noodles, Hairy Prawns, Chicken Gyoza, Spicy Pepper Squid... you get the idea!

Tonight I have my first polish from a recent (large) Illamasqua haul... you can blame the quantity I purchased on the amazing sale they were offering :-)

As you can see I started with a base of Illamasqua Obsess on all fingers except my ring finger. Obsess is the brightest fuschia pink I have ever seen. It applies a little thin and probably needs three coats for perfection.

I then added an accent nail using W7 Black and topped the whole lot off with Northern Lights Hologram Silver Top Coat. Love the sparkle, not to mention the quick drying properties it has :-)

Using what I can only think to describe as a random scribble pattern from CH 16, I stamped using Konad Black on all nails that had a base of Obsess.

Finally to tie the whole thing together I added three square rhinestones in matching fuschia pink

How do you like my first blog post using Illamasqua? This is the most eye catching shade of the bunch but there are plenty more beautiful polishes still to come :-)

Louise
@L_i_P_P

Mirrorball: Hot Stuff

Good evening lovelies

I am finally catching up on swatching some beautiful polishes that I have had for a little while. Tonight I am going to show you another 'frosting' from the Models Own Mirrorball collection. There are 5 gorgeous glitter toppers in this set, I have shown you three so far Disco Inferno, Boogie Nights and Dancing Queen so tonight I am showing you Hot Stuff.

This one was my favourite of the collection in the bottle but now its on the nail I am not as sure. What do you think?

As you can see Hot Stuff contains a real mixture of glitters and is quite top heavy on 'large shards' of glitter which look chunky but do sit flat on nail. This polish is a mix of pinks and golds with a slight holo twist.

As with the other shades from this collection I layered Hot stuff over both black and white so you could really see the difference. This one definitely looks best over black in my opinion.

Some of the larger but paler glitters look lost over the white base so the overall effect is quite subtle compared to how it looks layered over black.

Lookin' for some hot stuff baby this evenin'
I need some hot stuff baby tonight
I want some hot stuff baby this evenin'
Gotta have some hot stuff

Overall I am really pleased to have these glitter frostings in my collection - the bottles look beautiful on my shelf :-)

Louise xx

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year lovelies!

Welcome to my first post of 2013. Did you all have a wonderful New Years Eve? Mr LiPP and I decided to stay in and I am pretty glad we did - many of our neighbours had fireworks displays and our little Lily is terrified of the loud noises. We spent most of the evening making sure she was ok and trying to keep her calm.

I wanted my first manicure of 2013 to feature a special polish so there was no doubt in my mind that I would turn to Orly Miss Conduct.

I started with two coats of Orly Miss Conduct from the Naughty or Nice collection. Miss Conduct is a raspberry pink base packed with sparkly holo shimmers. The formula is amazing and this is easily going to become a firm favourite for me. Check out the beautiful swatches below.

For my finished manicure I swapped my index finger to W7 Black for a little contrast. I then added star shaped rhinestones and tiny silver studs to my index and little fingers as you can see below.

Using Barry M Silver Foil I stamped this pretty star image from Cheeky plate CH 52.

I loved the final results but in all honesty I would have worn Miss Conduct on its own with no stamping or accents and still have been 100% happy :-).

I thought I would also share with you the manicures I painted for Mr LiPP's Mum and Little Sister on New Years Eve...

Check out the matching blingy accent nails :-).

I hope you enjoyed my first post of 2013.

Wishing you all lots of love, luck and happiness

Louise xx

Christmas Nails: Jingle Bells

Good evening lovelies

After all my bright red, green and white Christmas manicures I decided to try something in my favourite classic combination of black and gold. It gave me a great opportunity to try out several unused stamps and also to make a welcome return to my hologram Gold top coat.

I give you... Jingle Bells...

I started with a base of W7 Black. Its such a godd quality polish for such a cheap brand and I am almost at the stage where I need to go and buy a back up bottle!

Once the Black was dry I then added a good layer of Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat in Gold. Last time I used it I just could not get good pictures but with my lovely new Lumix camera it was much easier. Just check out the shimmery beautifulness in these pictures!

For the various bell images I used Barry M Gold Foil as my stamping colour and the following plates: BM 302, BM 14 and my Christmas plate B 35.

Lastly I could not resist adding some festive holy to my thumb nail

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh 

Do you like my black and gold Christmas nails or would you prefer to see more traditional colours like red and green?

Louise xx

Christmas Nails: Penguin

Good evening lovelies!

Can you believe how close to Christmas we are now? Even with our Christmas Trees being up, the lights being on and all our presents wrapped beautifully and waiting to be handed out it doesn't feel real. Maybe I need to wait for work to finally be over before I can feel truly festive. On the plus side all of this does not prevent me from creating yet more Christmas nails... tonight it is time to introduce Percy...

Don't you just love this little fella! I was inspired by another picture I saw at PolishPedia and just could not help but recreate this adorable accent nail. I decided to call him Percy the Penguin?!

I started with one easy coat of Revlon Hazy (my perfect light grey) and then added just one thin coat of Barry M Silver Pink Glitter. It looks perfect with the grey base showing through and under my office lights had an almost holo shine hidden in the fine glitter particles.

Using black, red and white I added various size dots to all nails except my ring finger which I reserved especially for Percy.

Percy was free handed on with my favourite nail art brush and a dotting tool for his eyes and the row of white fur on his santa hat.

I loved this look so much I wore it for two days which is just unheard of when I still have so many manicures I want to squeeze in pre Christmas Day :-)

Take care

Louise xx

Roses and Bling Baby

Hope you are all having fantastic weekends?

Our meal at Loch Fyne last night was gorgeous :-). We had good food, fine wine and great company! The restaurant was beautifully decorated for Christmas with a huge tree at the main entrance, pretty decorations around the room and crackers at our place settings. It was the perfect background for our festive gathering.

I just couldn't decide what to do with my nails and as time was getting away from me I painted ten black canvases and waited for the creativity to take over, here is what I ended up with...

I have wanted to create a pure bling accent nail for a little while now but just need the right occasion... what could be a better occasion than our first Christmas meal of the year :-).

I stamped all my other nails with the large rose design from plate BM323 using Barry M Silver Foil. I thought it would make a nice change to use Black and Silver together as I usually lean toward Black and Gold.

Finally I repainted my ring finger with one coat of Barry M Silver Foil as I thought the black base would show through too much. While the Silver Foil was still wet I placed each rhinestone individually. I worked quite quickly but had prepared in advance by tipping all the rhinestones out onto a placemate, turning them all right way up and keeping them in a neat line that I could just work along.

I was so pleased with the results and 24 hours later every single gem is still in place and they feel as secure as they did when I first applied them last night.

Enjoy the rest of your weekends lovelies

Louise xx

Black & Gold Skittlette

Happy Friday lovelies!

I love the weekends! Tonight we are having our first of several Christmas meals. We will be dining at Loch Fyne with six of our close friends and I cant wait. We booked it several months ago and have already picked our food so all that is left to do is drink fine wine and enjoy ourselves!

Saturday we will be wrapping our Christmas presents and drinking a large amount of Baileys as is traditional in our house! Then on Sunday we are meeting up with lots more of our friends to go for a roast dinner to celebrate Tasha's birthday. Busy but fun.

Onto my NOTD... Black and Gold is such a great combo

For my little finger and thumb nails I used Barry M Gold Mine Glitter. It is the first time I have used this and I love it. Easy to apply and very effective.

 For my ring finger I painted the base with two coats of W7 Black and then stamped this gorgeous and detailed lily flower design using Barry M Gold Foil. The design is from plate BM 314.

Now here is where I admit to a nail fail :-(. I originally painted my index and middle fingers with three coats of OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons and then stamped the below filigree scroll design using Konad Black. Unfortunately even though I left it to dry for 35 minutes and ran both nails under cold water to 'set' the design they still smudged terribly. Why does Seche Vite hate Konad polish so much?



I couldn't leave it looking all sad and smudgey like that so I quickly removed those two nails and returned to my trusty W7 Black and simple gold studs for added detail.


So how do you like my black and gold skittlette? I think it looks classy :-)

I will return to that beautiful filigree scroll design in the near future

Have fantastic weekends everyone

Louise xx

Love for Lava Flow

Happy Friday to everyone!

I am so looking forward to the weekend... chilling out, eating good (naughty) food, drinking some nicely chilled wine and spending quality time with my loved ones. Perfect!

Here is my Friday Feeling manicure... a skittlette using my newly purchased W7 Lava Flow.

I started by painting three nails with two coats of W7 Lava Flow. As you will see this is basically Salt n Pepper but with added red sparkly bits! Easy to apply and dries quickly - two slicks of top coat made this glossy and smooth to the touch (no nitty gritty)

Using W7 Black and W7 Red I created two different but complimenting accent nails.

Finally I added some square rhinestones to the accent nails - the perfect finishing touch, dont you think?

Which one is you favourite - Salt n Pepper or Lava Flow?

Another sneaky peek of Salt n Pepper

Hope you have fantastic weekends - what are you up to?

Louise xx