Pink Feather Nails

Good evening lovelies

I hope you have all had fantastic weekends. Here in the UK it is a Bank Holiday today which means we got to enjoy a three day weekend and by some miracle... the sun was shining! Mr LiPP and I managed to get the balance right between relaxing and having fun and also getting some bits done to the house and garden that we had previously put off. All in all it has been a wonderful break.

Onto my nails of the day...

I started with a base of Barry M Strawberry Icecream on all nails. This polish has a thin formula so needs three coats for full opacity. It is a beautiful pale pink colour so luckily the extra patience needed for a third coat is worth it :-).

Using Barry M Silver Foil I stamped the feather design from Konad plate M77 on all nails except my ring finger. Then using Barry M Pink Foil I placed the same feather designs at differing angles so that each nail featured several pretty feathers.

On my middle finger I used Barry M Lilac Foil instead of the Pink Foil in the above picture.

On my ring finger I added just one coat of the extremely blinged out W7 Multi Dazzle glitter polish. Just about every colour you can imagine can be found in this glitter and I had no need for dabbing or clever placement, I simply painted it on.

The inspiration for these nails were taken from a ring I made a few weeks ago with white feathers and the same Multi Dazzle glitter on a pale pink base. I love this ring :-).

Sadly it is back to work tomorrow and I have to work out of our second office which is two hours away. It will be the first time I have been on a 'road trip' to that office without my little sis *sob*. Laus has some time off work as her hubby is back from Afghan on two weeks RnR :-).

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Purple Mix Up

Good evening ladies. Did you all having fantastic weekends?

I got a very exciting delivery on Saturday morning - one that I had somehow managed to forget I was expecting... 24 bottles of polish from a collection called London Girl!

So tonight I am showing you my first choice polish from this collection which unusually for me is purple.

This is two coats of London Girl Purple with an accent nail of one coat of Barry M Lilac Foil on my ring finger. I used the butterfly stamp from BM 205 for my first two fingers and then some co-ordinating square rhinestones for the next two.

I cannot tell you how amazing this looked in real life - the purple was so camera shy that I just could not do it justice. It actually has a really pretty metallic shimmer that reminds me of the purple quality street chocolate :-).

Louise xx

Movember Nail Art

As we are now more than half way through Movember I thought it about time I show my support as the wife of a Mo Bro to all those men out there who are busily styling moustaches and raising money for a fantastic cause.  The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer. For more information please visit Movember UK.
Mr LiPP is sporting a rather impressive moustache and has raised a fantastic £300 so far! Whilst facial hair is not my cup of tea, I do support my husbands decision to be involved in this charitable month and I am proud of him for raising so much money.

For this manicure I started with three thin coats of NYC Lavendar Cupcake. A really pretty lilac that I had forgotten how much I liked until I used it tonight.

Using my black nail art pen I free handed the moustaches onto my ring finger and thumb. Considering free hand is not my thing I am pleased with how they turned out - Cute!!

Then using Barry M Lilac Foil I added these wood effect stripes using BM 309 to just my index and middle fingers... still loving the Skittlette mani :-)

Purple heart rhinestones were the perfect addition to these two nails and it finished them off nicely

Finally for my little finger I decided to keep it simple and add a layer of Barry M Lavender Hex. It contains lots of very reflective lilac square glitters not to mention the millions of lilac micro glitters that are set into the clear base. Super pretty!

Congratulations to all you money raising men out there - great job for a truly worthy cause.

Louise xx

Purple on Purple

I really am not sure about todays manicure. I decided to push the boundaries a little and continue on my quest to use the bundle monster designs that I would not usually pick. I also decided that I would use a colour that I usually leave until last... dark purple.

Here are the results, I hope you enjoy the pictures...

I started with a base of two coats of Barry M Vivid Purple. As you will see from the swatch pictures at the bottom of this post this colour looks gorgeous on its own in full sunshine as you can really see the purple and silver sparkles that hide in this very dark purple base. In fact I may even be as bold as to say that I prefer this colour with no nail art over the top!

For the stamping I picked plate BM 322 again. I tried another design from this plate a few days ago, as seen here, but for todays manicure I opted for this quite edgy looking diamond shaped design. I had a little issue with the polish 'bleeding' over the lines of the design but if you can forgive those little blips then many of you will like this design. The colour used for stamping is Barry M Lilac Foil.

In the sunshine

In the shade

I didnt like this nail art enough to leave it on so it didnt survive a full day. However I will definately wear Vivid Purple again in the future. Maybe with just a few simple studs or rhinestones on my favoured accent nails?

Beautiful sunshine swatch

Still beautiful in the shade

What do you think? Do you like purple? Do you like these 'edgier' looking bundle monster designs or like me do you lean towards the softer floral designs?

Take care

Louise xx

Purple Fan

Are you a fan of purple?

This question will make more sense when you see the pretty little fan pattern that I have stamped onto my lilac nails for todays manicure :-).

This lovely base colour was a new purchase last weekend. Its from NYC and is a pale lilac called Lavendar Cupcake. It did need a third coat to cover up a small number of brush strokess but to be honest for £1.99 I can live with that :-).

I stamped this delicate little fan design using Barry M Lilac Foil. This has limited edition printed on the lid so I am unsure if it is still available but as its a foil it is great for stamping. This is the first time I have used it and I love how subtle the contrast is against the base colour. Sorry about the reflective pictures obscuring the pattern but I hope you can still see the effect I was going for.

I hope you like my choice of manicure today, as always thanks for reading.

Louise xx

A Mani of Firsts

As I was looking back over my posts to date I realised that I haven't featured purple as a colour so I decided to put that right by featuring five different shades in one mani. I also decided to try a technique that is new to me although I understand it has been a favourite of many established nail bloggers long before now - the braided accent nail.

This was my first attempt at a braided manicure and I have to say I am loving the results. It was easy (if a little time consuming) to do and I managed to get the design to stay in a central line running down my nail. I picked three shades of purple to complete the design but next time I would try three totally contrasting colours for a much bolder result

The colours used to create this mani are from the Barry M range (surprise I hear you yell) and are as follows:
Little finger - Vivid Purple
Ring finger - Braided with Lilac Foil, Vivid Purple and Bright Purple
Middle finger - Boots Limited Edition (no colour name)
Index - Bright Purple
Thumb - Berry Icecream

I also added a few accents using my stamping plates:
Index finger - BM 05 and rhinestone from eBay
Thumb - BM 309 (fast becoming my favourite plate)

Another fun little one day mani that I will remove tomorrow as I plan something special for our girls trip to the Polo Festival on Saturday. Take care.

Louise xx