Christmas Nails: Rudolph

Oh yes you read the caption correctly... I finally started my Christmas Nails!!

This beautiful red just lends itself so nicely to Christmas Nail Art and what could be cuter than a Rudolph accent nail?

Which do you like best... Shiny or Matte?

Neutral and Texture Combination nails

Happy Monday

A quick post from me tonight as I just got back from Sister Monday at Yo Sushi and I am so full up that I need to lay down! We tried lots of new dishes tonight and we still have not found one that we dont like!

Here are my pretty but simple nails of the day...

Green and Gold Nails

Whoop whoop!

Friday at about this time is always cause for celebration... its the weekend! No more work, no more stress and no more recruitment drama. It will not long until I have a nice cold glass of Pinot in my hands and I will be sitting down to enjoy a nicely cooked meal (always better when someone else is cooking!) and as many episodes as I can handle of my favourite DVD boxset.

Onto my nails of the day (and possibly the weekend as I love them)...

Purple, Gold and Orange nails: Same Accent Nail

Happy Friday!

Tonight I am showing you the final look in my mini 'same accent nail' feature... I am so in love with these nails :-).

This shooting star look is totally inspired by one of the lovelies I follow on Instagram... @tsebian. Thank you so much :-).

Pink and Orange: Same Accent Nail

Good evening lovelies

So this was a no brainer for me... orange and pink are the perfect summer combination, in my opinion, and the pink from this NV collection is particularly gorgeous.

Navy, Gold and Orange: Same Accent Nail

Good evening lovelies

Time for a quick manicure change... apart from the accent nail. As mentioned in yesterdays post, I loved this orange studded accent nail so much that I vowed to leave it in place for the rest of the week. see how many looks I can come up with before it chips or the studs come off.. :-)

Turquoise and Orange: Same Accent Nail

Good evening lovelies

Hope you are all doing well? For the rest of this week I have decided to go with a bit of a theme for my nails. I will change my polish each day (as is usual) but I will keep my lovely accent nail just to show how wonderful and versatile it is!

Flip Flop Fantasy Tape Manicure

Good evening lovelies

Nothing says summer like a neon polish called Flip Flop Fantasy! This China Glaze beauty has been on my wishlist for a while so I was pleased to pick this up in a recent haul at our local wholesalers. The true colour was ridiculously hard to capture on camera and in real life is slightly 'peachier' than my pictures show.

I started with two coats of Flip Flop Fantasy. A neon bright coral polish which dries super quick to quite a matt finish.

Using striping tape I then added a large criss cross to each nail. I will post some pictures on Instagram later tonight of the various stages. You can follow me by searching for @l_i_P_P or clicking the Instagram panel on the right hand side of this blog page.

Working on one finger at a time I used uber sparkly I Herd That glitter and Barry M Lychee to fill in selected triangles created by the criss cross tape. I left one triangle on each nail free so that Flip Flop Fantasy was still a main colour in the design.

Before each nail was dry I carefully removed the striping tape and added a square gold stud to the centre of the design. Once everything was dry I topped the whole lot off with a nice thick layer of Seche Vite top coat.

It is no wonder that Flip Flop Fantasy is one of the best selling summer nail polish colours and I am certain this will also become a pedicure favourite of mine :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Beautiful Stormy Skies with Gold Accents

Good evening lovelies

How are we all doing? I am just back from a few days away with work. I have to say I will be glad when this need for travel is over as I hate being away from home, hubby, pups and of my course my blog :-). All the time away leaves me so short on time to paint my nails and enjoy putting posts together and it makes me sad that I only post two or three times a week. Hopefully in the not too distant future I can get back into a blogging routine that makes me happy.

I am in love with this MUA shade called Stormy Skies. It looks charcoal grey in most of this pictures but its actually grey/brown/khaki depending on the light you catch it in. The formula is amazing and they could not be better value at only £1 a bottle for these super cute Essie style minis.

For my accent nail I decided to try out my new Rimmel Metal Rush polish called Gold Save the Queen. Again this polish has a great formula and a really pretty golden shimmer that makes it more of a glitter polish than a metallic foil.

In my usual style I could not just leave it at that so I then added one beautiful coat of a-England She Walks in Beauty. This polish is a pale gold shimmer with the perfect addition of rose gold glitters.

Finally to highlight the beautiful gold shimmers found deep within all of the polishes I used for this manicure I added some square gold studs from Born Pretty.

I love this simple look and I loved the added benefit of being able to take these pictures outside whilst the sun was shining :-)

Friday tomorrow...!

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Roses with Stormy Skies

Good evening lovelies

I hope your Monday went quickly and peacefully at work? I am currently recruiting for a new role in my team so spent most of the day going through CV's and writing response letters. At least it kept me busy :-). Tonight I am going food shopping as it is my turn to host our girls meal tomorrow night... My current thinking is I will cook using a recipe card I picked up recently for Jersey Royals & asparagus creamy Lancashire melt. Yum!

My regular readers may notice that my freehand rose accent nail is indeed 'leftover' from my weekend manicure. As it had no chips and was a labour of love I couldn't stand to remove it so I thought why not mix it up?

On all nails except my ring finger I used two super easy coats of MUA Stormy Skies. This pretty polish was a birthday present that I could not wait to try out. I was really impressed with the formula and I love these recently redesigned mini bottles.

Stormy Skies is quite unusual colour that goes from brown to khaki to grey depending on the light. However what really makes this polish special is the gorgeous gold shimmer that translates really well from bottle to nail. I couldn't resist adding these simple gold studs to really bring out the gold shimmer.

How do you like my 'recycled' accent nail? I really liked this manicure both as the original girly Cath Kidston style (see previous post) and also with this above edgier look, I can't resist a gold stud or two :-).

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

Dont Pretzel My Buttons and Stripes

I would like to introduce my first polish from the OPI Germany collection - Don't Pretzel My Buttons.

This is one of twelve shades recently released and I have at least five others from this collection on my wish list.

OPI describe Don't Pretzel My Buttons as a haute honey-beige that can always make you smile. I will leave it to you to see if you think that is accurate and true...

This manicure started with three coats of OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons. It takes a little patience to build this colour as it is very creamy which means it drags easily if you don't let each layer dry completely before starting the next. It is a very pretty nude though and a great base for nail art.

Using strips of tape I then sectioned off my nails and painted a thick coat of Barry M Pink Flamingo down the centre of each nail. As Flamingo Pink was drying I gently removed the strips of tape using tweezers.

Finally to complete this look I added some cute little gold square studs from the Born Pretty Store.

Flamingo Pink turned out to be the perfect accompanying colour to Don't Pretzel My Buttons and I was really pleased with how this look turned out. Having stripes down the centre of each nail made my nails look much longer and really eye catching all day at work.

Do you like this new shade from the OPI Germany collection? Do you own any of the other shades?

Louise xx

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

Mushroom and Peach Melba

Good afternoon lovelies. I hope you are all having fantastic weekends. We have been very lucky with the weather again for the past few days so hubby and I have made the most of it and spent plenty of time out and about running errands, walking our dogs and of course sitting in the beer garden enjoying the odd glass of pinot :-).

My nails today were inspired by a colour combination I saw on a friend of mine a few weeks ago. As soon as I saw her nails I knew I would replicate them to feature on this blog. Considering how much I love these two colours together I cant believe I didnt think to try it myself.

Introducing Mushroom and Peach Melba...

To create this look I used Barry M Mushroom and Barry M Peach Melba as my base colours. I then stamped this circular design straight from BM 322 using Barry M Gold Foil.

To finish off the Peach Melba accent nail I added just three small gold studs purchased from the Born Pretty Store through eBay. I love how the studs compliment the circular design I used for stamping today.

 

Here are a couple of pictures taken in direct sunlight so you can see just how bright and sparkly the Gold Foil polish is and also how smooth both base colours are.

Here is the swatch picture I took before I started stamping. Remind you of anyone SB? :-)

I hope you all enjoyed my post today. I am off to spark up the BBQ and enjoy the late sunshine (when I say spark up the BBQ, I of course mean pour a glass of wine and watch hubby spark up the BBQ)!

Louise xx