Nails: Skulls and Roses

Good evening lovelies

I hope you are all doing well? I had such an amazing weekend with my family and friends celebrating my sisters birthday. We had a garden party hosted by my dad on Friday, a full English breakfast by the river on Saturday and then a lovely meal with 8 of our best friends on the Saturday night. Samantha and I even built our own balloon tower while we were decorating the room ready for the meal - Impressed! :-)

Happy Birthday Hubby

Happy Birthday to my lovely husband aka Mr Lipp :-)

Looking forward to our fab long weekend :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Sally Hansen: Swatch Spam

Happy Sunday lovelies

Time for a little bit of Sunday swatch spam :-)

These are my new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes that I just couldn't resist showcasing as a stand alone post.

Each colour has a great formula, required two coats and dried in super quick time. I would definitely buy more colours from this collection, especially if I found them in Poundland again!

Flower Stickers Nail Art

Happy Saturday lovelies

If the weather is not going to look or behave like summer then the least I can do is fake the summery vibe by making my nails the brightest they can be :-). Tonight we are off to a BBQ so while we will be wrapped up in jumpers and jeans my nails will shine bright.

I started with three coats of China Glaze Towel Toy Boy on each nail. I wanted to love this polish so much but I just couldn't... it was so thin that the first coat was almost transparent. It dried to a matte finish which just made the streaks even more prominent and even after the third coat I could still see patches I wasn't happy with :-(. On camera this polish looks lovely but trust me in real life it was far from lovely.

The picture below taken with my forced flash on is more colour accurate. I love the colour but hate the formula.

In order to hide the thin patches I decided to add some pretty flower decals that have been kicking around my nail room forever! I carefully peeled each flower individually from the backing and simply stuck them on once my nails were dry.

Once I had the flowers positioned how I wanted them I sealed the whole lot with a good coat of Seche Vite.

This is the first time I have been disappointed with the formula of a China Glaze polish which is such a shame as the colour is so pretty. Oh well the overall manicure looked summery and bright :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Baby Shower Nails

Good evening lovelies

Have you all had fantastic weekends? We have been spoiled with glorious sunshine so Mr LiPP, the pups  and I have been out for some lovely long dog walks. We love making the most of being outdoors :-). On Saturday night I had little sis round for nails and wine and those of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen the pictures of her pretty pink gel nails. Today we have been at our friend Elly's Baby Shower which of course was my inspiration for these nails...

This was the perfect opportunity to use two new polishes from my latest TK Maxx haul. I couldn't believe my luck when I spotted the brand new only just released Kaleidoscope Summer 2013 collection for the bargain price of £7.99. The baby blue is called Evolution and the soft pink is Endless. Both have a lovely smooth formula and only needed two coats.

I then used Revlon Whimsical on just my index and little finger nails. Whimsical is not available in the UK as far as I know so I was lucky enough to have a colleague pick up a bottle for me from the States last year. It has a very pale blue milky base with lots of lovely pink and blue glitters.

On my middle finger I stamped the baby bottle and hearts image found on plate BM 317.

Finally on my ring finger using my Orly dotting tool I created two little baby feet using Barry M Matt White.

Oh how sweet are little feet? :-)

I am just home from the shower and we had a lovely time. It was held at a tea and cake place in the city were we had finger sandwiches, cup cakes, macaroons and eclairs as well as pots of tea and a glass of fizz :-).

Louise 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

Nautical Nails

Good evening lovelies

I am super glad that today is over with! I had a four hour training session this morning and then a follow up two hour meeting. Too much being talked at for my liking :-).

On the plus side I have been doing lots of lovely Orly Gel FX nails for friends and family this week, if you would like to see pictures you can follow me on Instagram by clicking the 'follow me' link down the right hand side of my blog :-).

Here are my nautical nails of the day...

I started with two easy coats of No 7 Sing the Blues. I love this colour and often overlook it in favour of my precious Barry M's but I really shouldn't. Sing the Blues sits somewhere between navy and royal blue but has a fantastic shimmer that really shows up on the nail.

On my ring finger I used two coats of NYC Times Square. This polish is a gorgeous shade of tomato red and dries in super quick time.

NYC polishes are such a bargain at only £2.79 a bottle and they are quite often on offer so you end up with two bottles for £2.99. How can you not love a polish that costs just 20p :-).

Using Barry M Gold Foil I stamped these two different nautical themed designs from my latest collection of Cheeky plates. The steering wheels from CH 49 and the anchors from CH 36.

Last but not least I added some horizontal stripes using Konad White. The stripes are actually vertical on the plate but as my nails are short I can flip it around and use them horizontally. I added a row of small gold studs to replicate a Captains uniform.

Nice and nautical!

How do you like these nails? My sister in law Vicky will just love them and now I have a shortcut to getting perfect stripes everytime I will definitely replicate this manicure on her :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Flowers with a Yellow Accent Nail

Good evening lovelies

We are now more than half way through the working week - thank goodness! I feel like all I ever do is wish my life away when I am at work - isn't that awful? I can't be the only one though :-)

I decided to push my self a little tonight and have an accent nail in one of my least favourite colours. I loved how it looked and this manicure made me feel seriously ready for some spring weather...

I started with a base of Outdoor Girl Blue on all nails except my ring finger. OG Blue is a pretty ice blue/silver foil effect polish which dries really quickly and is perfect in two thin coats. Even better was that I purchased this polish for just £1. On my ring finger is three coats of Barry M Yellow.

In all honesty this yellow was not as bad as I had imagined and I ended up really liking how bright and happy it looked :-)

I stamped this simple flower design from Cheeky plate CH 44 using Konad White.

Finally I added yellow to the centre of each flower using my smallest dotting tool. That final touch really tied this whole manicure together and made me think that my mum might like this for her Mothers Day nails in March :-)

Have a good rest of your working weeks lovelies :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Orly Angel Eyes: Seeing Stars

Good evening lovelies

Tonight I am going to show you this beautiful blue glitter which has been sitting on my shelf for way to long. I treated myself to three polishes from the Orly Naughty or Nice collection towards the end of last year. I have already shown you the stunning Miss Conduct several times, tonight is the turn of Angel Eyes and I am saving Halo for something special :-).

In the below picture you will see I am holding the bottle I used as a base colour for this manicure. Sally Hansen Brisk Blue is a really bright one coater and perfect for use in this manicure as the glitter in Angel Eyes is set in a very light blue almost clear base.

Once the base was dry I applied two gorgeous coats of Angel Eyes, which is made up of micro, small and medium glitters in blue and silver.

I then used Barry M Silver Foil to stamp the star designs from Cheeky plate CH5.

With the flash on...

Same picture with the flash off...

How do you like Angel Eyes? I love it. The colour is bright and the glitters are so shiny, it really was eye catching all day long. I will definitely be using the tin foil technique to remove this tomorrow :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

BYS Two Blues

Good evening lovelies!

So now it seems the big freeze is going to set it. We have had a week of snow related issues but now with temperatures dropping that will turn to ice related issues. Weather forecasts predict it will be minus 12 degrees over night so I imagine it could be a difficult journey to work tomorrow. The joys of winter!

I decided to try out another of the more geometric design plates and as they are not my most favourite of patterns I thought a skittlette mani would keep the experiment easy

I used two of my new BYS blues to create this look. On my little and index fingers is BYS Love Boat and on my ring and middle fingers is BYS Pastel Kung Fu Blue. Love Boat was by far a better colour and formula which made the decision about which nails to stamp on very easy :-).

Using Barry M Navy I stamped this geometric design from my new Cheeky plates and also painted my thumb nail to tie the stamping back in for a cohesive look.

I couldn't resist adding plenty of sprakly square rhinestones to make the whole manicure geometric.

How do you like the finished look? It is certainly not one of my favourites but it was good to try something a little different and I did get to use two new polishes :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Twin Post with Jamie of Polish, Please!

Good evening lovelies!

Tonight it is time for the twin post I mentioned on Friday night. I am super excited to be teaming up with the lovely Jamie of Polish, Please!. Jamie has been following and commenting on my blog for a while now so I was honoured when she contacted me over the Christmas break and asked me to work with her on a twin post.

If you have not visited Jamie's blog before then you must go and do so by clicking here. Jamie posts some lovely swatches of polishes that make me very jealous like the pretty Zoya Blaze the Color Club Halo Hues series (massive lemmings for me). Jamie also dabbles in nail art, stamping and accent nails. All the things I love!

For our twin post we decided on an Ombre style manicure. Each nail needs to be a different shade of the same colour. I reached for my beautiful Barry M blues...

Little finger: Barry M Blue Moon

Ring finger: Barry M Blueberry Icecream

Middle finger: Barry M Cyan Blue

Index finger: Barry M Cobalt Blue

Thumb: Barry M Navy

This bottle is Blue Moon

This bottle is Cobalt Blue

So how do you like my first Ombre manicure?

Thank you to Jamie for asking me to take part in this twin post. I loved it :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P