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...

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

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

Happy Birthday Hubby

Today is my husbands birthday and my present to him this year is a 3 night city break to Prague. I booked it about 2 months ago and have struggled every day since then to not tell him all about it. I am so glad I managed to keep it a surprise as this is exactly the kind of grand gesture he deserves :-).

If I have got my schedule spot on you should be reading this post on Thursday whilst we are in Prague walking around Wenceslas Square, listening to buskers and browsing market stalls on the Charles Bridge and of course indulging in the local cuisine of pork and dumplings.

I created this cute balloon manicure by using Barry M Blue Moon as a base. In all honesty this colour is a bit of a pain and would take 4 coats for full opacity if you wanted to wear it alone. Luckily for me I always add nail art of some kind but this look still required 3 coats. I then free handed the balloons on with Barry M Cobalt Blue and topped them off with Barry M Blue Glitter. The balloon strings are created with Barry M Silver Foil.

On my thumb I painted the Czech Republic flag in honour of our trip to Prague. For this I used OPI MBSW as the base and then free handed the triangle with Barry M Denim and the red section with Barry M Bright Red.

Czech Republic flag

We will be back on Sunday so I hope to tell you a little more about our trip and maybe include a couple of pictures.

Happy Birthday Craig (aka Mr LiPP, formerly known as Mr Lou is Perfectly Polished) :-)

Louise xx

Go Team GB

Tonight sees the start of the Olympics 2012 held in our very own capital city, London. There is a huge amount of excitement surronding such a massive occasion, not to mention a three hour opening ceremony that has just kicked off on TV.

In tribute to such a monumentous occasion I decided to create a mani dedicated to our very own team GB.

Of course I used red, white and blue as my colour scheme and I couldnt resist throwing in another braided accent nail for good measure :-).

My trusty Barry M polishes were perfect for this nail art and of course I also added a little stamping using BM 317. I picked the pattern for my little finger as it reminded me of fireworks and the heart pattern for my middle finger to show my LOVE for all things British.

 

Polishes used: All Barry M - Cobalt Blue, Bright Red, Matt White, Silver Foil, Gold Foil

In the above and below pictures you will see I am holding a gorgeous but limited edition glitter polish called Jewel Britannia. I ordered it online as part of quite a large haul of hard to find Barry M's which arrived this week. Of course I will be featuring them soon but couldnt resist a little teaser by ay least showing you the bottle of this glitter packed with silver, red and blue. I added just a teeny dab to my thumb Team GB nail.

I know it seems like I must only own Barry M polishes - trust me that simply isnt true - but I just love the formula and amazingly bright colours.

I'm off to watch some more of the opening ceremony. I hope you all enjoy it (especially given the millions of £'s it cost to produce).

Come on Team GB - Bring home the GOLD(s).

Louise xx

Will it be... a Boy or a Girl?

We are soon to become Auntie and Uncle for the 4th time as Craig's sister Vicky only has two weeks left until her due date. Vic and Kei decided to not find out the sex of the baby before the birth so this manicure is dedicated to our excitement of finding out when junior finally arrives! Of course we are 100% happy either way but this manicure is just a little bit of fun inspired by the bottle print on new plate BM 307.

Firstly the girl nail art. Many colours and plates were used so I will provide a quick summary and if you would like anymore detail then just drop me a note in the comment facility below.

Index - Barry M Bright Pink, stamped using Konad White with flower print on BM 224
Middle - Barry M Stawberry Icecream, stamped using Color Club Hot Like Lava with the bottle and heart print on BM 307
Ring - Barry M Pink Flamingo, stamped using Konad White with the heart design on BM 317
Little - Barry M Shocking Pink, stamped using Konad White with the teddy bear design on BM 312

Thumb - Essie Marshmallow, stamped with Color Club Hot Like Lava using the flower corner on BM 316

I love all these pretty pinks together and would definately wear a skittle mani with them as base colours again in the future. What do you think?

Now onto the boy nail art. Again this is heavily centred around my love for Barry M nail polishes. I have so many blues that I had a hard job just picking 5!

Index - Barry M Cyan Blue, stamped with Konad White using the bottle and hearts design on BM 307
Middle - Barry M Turquoise, stamped with W7 Black using the smiley faces design on BM 304
Ring - Barry M Cobalt Blue, stamped with Konad White using the hearts design on BM 317
Little - Barry M Blue Moon, stamped with Color Club Cold Metal using the star design on BM 21
Thumb - Essie (the unknown beige), stamped with Barry M Denim using the square design on BM 320

These blues look super cool together and again make a great base for a skittle mani. Look out for it in the future as I am dying to call it the Barry Blues!

Not long until baby arrives and then I will design a manicure to honour his or her name.

Good Luck Vic and Kei - cant wait for the call to tell us 'its time'!!

Louise xx