Halloween Nails: Spiders and Webs

Happy Halloween Eve!

I hope you are looking forward to Halloween? I have never really celebrated it before but this time my sis and I are off to a fancy dress party and have decided to go all out on our costume and make up. I even have a half day off work tomorrow so that I can spend the afternoon firstly walking the dogs and then enjoying getting ready without the stress of time restrictions.

Only Double Stamping Will Do

Hey lovelies

Tonight I am going to show you my finished nails using Barry M Chai as a base. Also this is one of very few occasions that I double stamped each nail and I absolutely love how the finished look came out :)

Skittlette: Flowers and Glitter

Happy Friday

Time for funtime Friday nail art! This idea has been going round and round in my head for a while, I just love turquoise and pink as a colour combo but with the addition of the dark silver glitter I was over the moon with how these turned out.

Happy Fathers Day: England Football nails

Happy Sunday loves

Today is Fathers Day and my little sis and I are very excited to be spending quality time with our Dad. The three of us are going for a drink followed by lunch. Today my nails are football related for two reasons. The first being that unless you really are living in a cave you cannot fail to know that World Cup 2014 has just started, I am a huge football fan and get very swept up in the whole England craze. Secondly, football is mine and Dads thing. We talk about it, text about it, laugh and cry about it. Its our Dad/Daughter bond :).

Happy Easter: Easter Nails

Happy Easter!

Did you have chocolate for breakfast? :-)

I have a busy day today as I have my sisters two dogs over to play with my two dogs. It is very distracting having four beautiful dogs to run around and play outside with so my list of jobs to be done around the house will just have to wait!

Here are my Easter nails...

Buried Treasure Flowers

Happy Friday!

As this post goes live we will be on our way to the airport! Tomorrow morning we fly to Bulgaria for a week of celebrations with friends and loved ones. I have scheduled just a few posts to keep my much treasured blog going whilst I am away :-). Here is how I 'dressed up' the beautiful swatch of Buried Treasure.

Red Devil and Fishnets

Happy Friday

Yes the pictures of this finished look are as awful as the name suggests. I am not really sure what I was thinking... I struggle so much with reds. Its like I sit at my nail desk and every good idea I have ever had escapes from my mind. That I am afraid to say means I come up with things like this...

Vintage Cream and Black Roses

Good evening lovelies

How was your first day of the working week? Have you got lots planned to keep you busy? Its a pretty quiet one for me however I do have a girls meal out on Friday to look forward to :-).

Tonight I am showing you how I wore Vintage Cream, the nude I showed you in last nights post

Attention Seeking Black Flowers

Good evening lovelies

I hope your day went well? I am not a fan of Tuesdays but wearing nails this bright and beautiful certainly helped :-)

Owl Nail Art

Happy Sunday everyone!

Yesterday I showed you just the swatches of these pretty Orly colours. Today I am sharing with you the finished version of this nail art. I used one of the polish names... Nite Owl... to completely inspire my choices and props :-)

Halloween Nails: R.I.P Neon

Good evening lovelies

Today my little sis and I were on our usual road trip to work out of our second office. We are not long back and I am about to rush out the door again so this is a quick post to show you my third set of Halloween nails...

Halloween Nails: Purple and Pumpkins

Happy Saturday lovelies

Ok so now I made a start on the Halloween theme I cant stop! What is it with me a theme? I just get carried away :-). Yesterday I thought it was to soon, today I could not wait to stamp pumpkins!

Halloween Nails: Orange and Black

Good morning lovelies

Is it too early for Halloween posts? It feels like it is to me, especially as these pictures were taken in full on sunshine. We had a really sunny and warm day yesterday so I took full advantage of the chance to take outdoor pictures!

Pomegranate Filigree Nails

Good evening lovelies

Did you have a lovely weekend? We certainly did. Had such a lovely family day with my sister in law and niece on Saturday. On Sunday I was in the city and could not resist picking up all 5 of the new Barry M Gelly's and I cant wait to show some nail art using them as the colours are bold and fabulous. We did break out the BBQ as planned but the weather was disappointing and we had to eat inside :-(.

Onto my nail of the weekend...

I started with just one coat of Barry M Gelly in Pomegranate. This is an all time favourite of mine and I love that I could get away with just one coat as I only had 20 minutes to do my nails before we started our road trip to Clacton. Pomegranate dries super quick and super glossy.

Then using Konad White and Konad Black on alternative nails I stamped using this really eye catching filigree pattern from plate Pueen 26.

I was incredibly lucky to receive the gorgeous Love Lace Pueen plates from Carolina of Colores de Carol fame. Carolina read a comment I left pining after these beautiful new plates and offered to post them to me from the States. Of course I jumped at her very kind offer and just three weeks later I had the full beautiful collection arrive as the best Nail Mail ever. Carolina also gifted me one of the beautiful new colours from her very own Summer Collection which I will swatch for you very soon.

How do you like my alternative stamping? Would you prefer to see all one colour?

Thanks for reading

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Gingerbread Men nail art

Good evening lovelies

Happy Saturday everyone :-). Hope you have all had a good day? I have no idea where time disappeared to... I haven't achieved a great deal today but have still had a really nice day. My first package from Fragrance Direct arrived with four Sally Hansen polishes included. As the sun was still dancing around in the sky I decided I had to use this gorgeous shimmery copper...

This is Shiny Penny by Sally Hansen. It is a copper orange polish with a really pretty bronze glass shimmer running through. I used two coats and loved the finished look. It dried quickly to an almost streak free finish and looked beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine.

Here is a swatch of Shiny Penny...

Using Konad Black I decided to stamp these fun little gingerbread men all over my nails... Gingerbread men for ginger nails :-).

The design is taken from Gals plate GA 41.

Simple yet effective and cute!

What plans do you have for the rest of the weekend? It's a special one for me as my birthday is fast approaching and I have a few days off work :-). Cant wait!

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Black and White Filigree nails

Good evening lovelies

This is one of my favourite manicures to date... even if I do say so myself! I love the contrast of white and black together but with the addition of a super bright accent nail it was even lovelier :-).

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed wearing this manicure...

I started with a polish that I want to love but the formula gives me trouble so I tend to shy away from picking this out of my stash too often. Other bloggers rave about the formula of this polish but I always need three coats and for me that is a bad thing :-(. The polish in question is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls... a very subtle grey white. In all honesty a fab base for this manicure but such a pain that it needs three coats!

My accent nail is two coats of Exposed All Nighter. This polish dries to a matt finish but a top coat of Northern Lights Hologram Gold soon fixed that. I added the black star shaped rhinestones just to finish this nail off.

Using Konad Black I stamped this gorgeous filigree pattern on all nails that had a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (MBSW). I am so into this contrast and although I like to wear bright eye catching colours it did remind me how good black and white work together, and that I should wear it more often.

How do you like this finished look? Do you have polishes that everyone else loves but you struggle to work with? Thanks for reading :-)

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

Delicate Lace Tips

Time for something a little delicate. I was in the mood to try out this pretty little lace and bow design...

To start with I used two coats of No 7 Iced Mocha. This is one of my oldest nail polishes from back in the day when if it wasnt pale and neutral it wasnt going on my finger nails...! How times change :-)

I then used Konad Black to stamp this delicate little strip of lace across my tips and this pretty little bow to my ring and thumb nails

I really like this simple little look - I think a version using a pale colour for the stamping would make great bridal nails (Faye H - just an idea).

Take care

Louise xx

Black and White and Pink All Over

What's Black and White and Pink all over - My Nails..!

Sometimes a lack of inspiration means I come up with a manicure that is a happy little accident and I really like it :-).

I knew I wanted to use the chevron stamp from the third bundle monster stamping collection but I also really wanted to use more of my pretty little flat back pearls.

I started with a pretty pink base of No 7 Me, Me, Me. Its a really lovely colour without being too sickly sweet and actually has a really great formula. I used OPI MBSW as the base for my ring finger accent nail.

I used Konad Black and the chevron stamp from plate BM 201 for my accent nails. On each of the pink based nails I applied three little black and white pearls using a good thick coat of Seche Vite.

Finally I could not resist adding a little glitter so I reached for Barielle Starry Sky and used it just on my thumb nail.

 

I am so happy with how this turned out. I love the combination of pink, black and white - not to mention those cute little pearls. I have them in twelve different colours so you are bound to see them again soon :-).

Louise xx

Leopard print nails

Today karma is restored, I had a much better day. No tripping over, no being late, no accidents with superglue and I got a space on the car park at work.

Also I am loving my animal print nails. I wore them for a business meeting that I was not looking forward to as I knew if I was having a bad few moments I could just glance down at my hands for an instant lift. It worked a treat :-).

To create thhis look I started by painting alternative nails with Barry M Turquoise and Barry M Limited Edition Boots. Both polishes needed three coats which is a little unusual for Barry M and a little frustrating for me. Also although this is called Turquoise and is a beautiful colour it is very blue and not very turquoise like.

To create the leopard print I used Konad Black and plate BM 221. As always I experienced a little smudging when I applied my top coat. I waited 30 minutes and also dipped my nails in cold water to help set the stamping but they dragged anyways!

Finally I added a few dots of Barry M Flamingo Pink to the centres of the leopard spots - just to keep it extra interesting :-).

I hope you like these nails

Louise xx