Blue Bows and Glitters

Good evening lovelies

Are you looking forward to your weekend? I most certainly am... its been another tough week for me but actually really productive and therefore I am feeling that I have achieved a lot and I am proud of how I have turned things around. Tonight I am having a very relaxed evening with Mr LiPP, Saturday we have a day of house related chores and Sunday we are out for lunch with a couple of friends we have not seen for a while.

Here are my nails of the day...

Perfect nails for Shopping!

Today is my almost birthday!

It has long since been a tradition in my family that we stretch our birthdays out as much as possible... one day for celebrating with family... one day with friends... at least one big meal out (or sometimes two)... you get the picture, the more chances we get to celebrate the better :-).

Today was spent with my little sister, just the two of us eating, drinking and shopping! We had an amazing day and I was totally spoiled rotten. I got lots of lovely presents from Laura this morning, including a bag I fell in love with in London back in January and had no idea I was getting, not to mention money to spend on myself in the city - and spend I did.

Here are the perfect nails to accompany my shopping spree...

I started with a base of Warhol by Color Club. This colour is from my new Poptastic collection and is the  most amazing neon raspberry pink. I LOVE it!! My camera just could not pick up how neon but still gorgeous this colour actually is.

Using Konad White I stamped the small bows from plate BM 317 on my index and ring finger, the simple heart outline on my middle finger from the same plate and then finally the shopping text on my ring finger and thumbs from plate CH 54.

A close up of my thumb... how perfect is the shopping text for my almost birthday?!

Finally I added a layer of Northern Lights top coat in Silver and while that was wet I stuck some pretty rhinestones in the centres of the bows.

I have had such a lovely day with my little sister and we really did shop until we dropped! :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Pretty Pink Bows and Hologram Heart Nails

Good evening lovelies

How has your Monday been? A hard one for me as it was my first day back in more than a week (sob!) so while I had a lot of work to keep me busy, I also had a serious case of the holiday blues.

One thing that will always cheer me up... something pretty on my nails...

I started with Miss Conduct by Orly which is one of my all time favourite polishes. It applies like a dream, looks fantastic in both natural and artificial light and contains so much holographic glitter that I never fail to be impressed. The picture above was taken in bright sunlight (gorgeous!) and the picture below under my desk lamp in the nail room.

On each of the raspberry pink Miss Conduct fingers I stamped this simple but perfectly pretty bow using Konad White and the small image found on plate BM 317.

For my accent nail I used two coats of a-England Ascalon, which is the perfect complimentary holographic grey for this look baring in mind how much I love holo and how much I love pink and grey together :-).

The heart pattern is also taken from plate BM 317, one of my most used plates!

Finally I added a clear rhinestone to the centre of each bow as a finishing touch.

I hope the rest of your week goes well... Do you have any nice plans other than work?

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Twin Post with Claire of Nuthin But A Nail Thing

Happy Sunday lovelies!

Today I am very excited to be taking part in another Twin Post. This time it is with Claire of Nuthin But A Nail Thing. I have been following Claire's blog since I stumbled across these amazing Mexican Sugar Skulls. The hard work that must have gone into creating them is almost too much to contemplate but the more I look through Claire's blog the more I realise that all her fabulous creations must be time consuming. Her attention to detail is second to none and I love the mini tutorials that Claire adds to her blog posts to assist the likes of me... that reminds me I must give the Owls and the Argyle print a go!

The feature polish for our Twin Post is Barry M Satsuma...

I decided to opt for a Skittlette style manicure so I could use this rich orange as both a base colour and a stamping polish.

The below pictures shows you how this manicure started life... my index finger is two coats of Barry M Gold Foil, my middle and ring fingers are two coats of Barry M Peach Melba and my little finger is two coats of Barry M Satsuma.

Using this cute little multi bow stamp from my new Gals plate GA36 I used Satsuma to stamp over the Peach Melba. I love that these Gelly polishes are so pigmented as it makes them perfect for stamping and a bargain at only £4 each.

The larger bow image is taken from Cheeky plate CH15 and as you can see I decided to also add a sparkly top coat of Northern Lights Hologram Gold.

Here is a picture with the flash on so you can see just how much holo is in this bottle!

The addition of these two little rhinestones as the bow centres were my finishing touch...

How do you like my Satsuma nail art? If you haven't already been over to check out Claire's take on this twin post - what are you waiting for? :-).

Thanks to Claire for agreeing to Twin Post with me!

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Nail Party!

Last night I had my first ever nail painting party with my sister Laura and our girlfriends Faye, Faye and Caz. It was the perfect start to my weekend

We started the night with chinese food and wine and ended the night with perfectly painted nails and more wine!

I couldnt have wished for better hand and nail models, we all really enjoyed the night and I was pleased that my nail painting skills are not just reserved for doing my own nails.

First up was little sis Laura. It is Laura and Ashley's 2nd Wedding Anniversary tomorrow so we designed her nails to match the lovely new dress she is wearing when her hubby takes her out for a nice meal to celebrate. As if, this time two years ago 30 of us were in the Dominican Republic for the wedding of the year!?!

We picked a base of Color Club Nomadic Nude. Quite possibly the most frustrating formula I have ever tried to work with and I am seriously considering ejecting this polish from my collection for good. That said it was a great colour to match with Lauras dress as seen in the close up of the pattern below.

I then taped off chevron tips and painted them in Barry M Cobalt Blue. To add the finishing touch I then stuck one small black flat backed pearl onto each nail.

Please excuse these pictures I took them on my iPhone and am really wishing I hadn't as the quality is not great and I can't crop them as I would normally :-(.

Next up is Faye B...

For this cute little manicure I started with a base of Barry M Navy which is such a beautiful polish and definately features in my current top 10. I then stamped the bow tips using Konad plate M56 and Konad White stamping polish. For the finishing touches I added dots using Barry M Matt White.

Then we have Faye H...

Faye is starting a new job today that does not allow her to wear nail polish (boo hiss!) so we decided to experiment with clashing colours on Faye as we knew she would have to remove them almost straight away.

This is three coats of No 7 Pinky Pure as a base and then my favourite flower print, the large roses from BM 323 stamped in Konad Red. I thought that pink and red looked really good together - they clashed but only in a good eye catching kind of way :-).

Last but by no means least is Caz...

Caz is the only other girl in this group who always wear nail polish so I decided to add an accent nail and some small embellishments to make a nice change from her everyday nail look.

I used two coats of Ciate Jelly Bean as the base. Its a really pretty pink with the perfect amount of lilac shimmer. I then stamped a pretty flower pattern in Gold Foil from plate BM 225. To create the accent nail I just added three perfect little gold studs.

So there we have it, one happy little group of polished princesses :-)

I have another nail party planned for a few weeks time with our come dine with me girlies - so I cant wait for that.

Louise xx

Cute as a Button... Damn Right

This colour is from Essie and is called Cute As a Button. It is one of those colours that I am just drawn to and although I know I have very similar shades in my collection I just had to have it. Once I realised the name of this polish is Cute As A Button it was a given that it would end up in my shopping basket as I very often say that same thing to my lovely husband :-).

 

I could not get the application of this polish as perfect as I would haved liked it so I ended up stamping with quite a full design in order to cover up more of the colour than I had first anticipated.

I cannot decide if this pattern is bows or butterflies? It is very pretty and suits this gorgeous corally pink perfectly. The pattern is taken from BM 205 and I stamped using Konad Special Polish in White.

Everything about this mani is cute so it suits the colour name perfectly. I hope you enjoyed todays post - thank you for reading.

Louise xx