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 :)

Tristam with a Stripey Accent

Good evening lovelies

I hope you are all well? Today is my birthday and I have had an amazing day. My little sister spoiled me rotten from morning til night. So many presents to open this morning and then a full day of eating, shopping, drinking and more eating! These are not the nails I wore for today as I'm a little behind with blogging but the colours are the same so close enough :-)

Grey stripes with an accent

Happy Monday

Last night I posted a super quick but pretty grey swatch for you to admire and tonight I am going to show you the nail art I created over the top.

Inspired By: Stripey Dress

Good evening lovelies

Hope you are all well? I have had a lovely relaxing day off today and for once the weather was on my side. The sun shone bright with barely a cloud in the sky so I reached for the sun cream and my kindle and spent a good few hours just making the most of some time on my own. Bliss.

Tonight I am going to show you some nails I did to match a new summer midi dress. Also those eagle eyed viewers will notice this is a rare appearance for my right hand which will explain the awkward hand poses!

Awkward Cinderella hand ;-)

Green and White Skittlette

Happy Good Friday lovelies!

I am in such a great mood knowing that I have all this time off work :-). To make the most of the double bank holiday I have also taken next week off so I get to enjoy a really good break away from work and spend lots of time with Mr LiPP and the pups :-).

For this skittlette I started with two coats of China Glaze For Audrey on all nails except my index finger. For Audrey is a gorgeous light turquoise creme polish and although I ended up covering most of it up with glitter and stripes it remains one of my favourite polishes.

On my little finger I applied one coat of China Glaze Atlantis over For Audrey. Atlantis has a bluey green base colour and contains so much holographic glitter that its hard to explain how sparkly it actually is!

Using Konad White and the same stripes used for my nautical accent nail earlier this week I added horizontal stripes to my ring and middle fingers. The finishing touch for these two nails was the addition of small green square rhinestones.

Finally on my index finger I painted two coats of W7 Salt n Pepper. I have only used this polish once but I really like it and it makes a great accent nail for this skittlette. Removal is a bit of a pain as the black glitters are quite gritty but I think its worth it :-).

I hope you like my nails of the day? Are you all looking forward to the Easter break? Have you got lots of lovely plans?

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

Mixing Spots and Stripes

Good evening lovelies.

How are you? I am so glad today is over with... Tuesday is my least favourite day of the week. I have a strange little logic to explain this so here goes... Monday is my busiest day at work so usually goes pretty quick, Wednesday is the middle of the week, Thursday is almost the weekend and Friday is the weekend. Tuesday is a nothing day! Too far away from the weekend to be exciting and not as busy as a Monday so doesnt quickly enough.

Anyway enough of my odd logic and onto my NOTD...

I started with two beautiful rich coats of Barry M Indigo. This is the perfect shade of Blurple for me and makes a nice change to my trusty Barry M Navy.

My stamping polish is Barry M Silver Foil. I do not own another polish in my whole collection that is as good at stamping as Silver Foil.

I picked the perfect pinstripes and cute little dots from Cheeky plate CH 6. I am so pleased to finally have stripes and spots in my collections that are wide enough for my full nail. Bundle Monster do have similar patterns but they are from the very first plate collection and the designs are teeny weeny.

How do you like the mixture of spots and stripes all in one manicure? Would you rather all nails match?

Take care

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

Black and White Stripes: Take Two

On Saturday night after tea with the girls, Mr LiPP and I had another wedding reception to attend. I decided to wear my lovely black and white dress again which meant I got a second chance to create striped nails. This time I decided to go with a black base and thin white stripes.

 

This beautiful sparkly base colour is Barry M Black Multi Glitter. It has so much glitter, in so many colours packed into a really rich black base. However, the best thing about this lovely polish is that it genuinely requires just one coat to look this amazing! It dries a little gritty but that is nothing that a nice thick slick of shiny top coat doesnt fix.

To create the stripes and spots I stamped using Konad White and the pattern taken from M65.

All of the above pictures are taken outside in direct sunlight so you can really see the pretty colours hidden in this polish. I have also included some pictures below taken in the shade. This polish does lose its edge in the shade as the glitter all looks silver and it doesnt jump out at you in the same way.

Below are a couple of swatch pictures taken in the sunshine for you to enjoy. Remember this is only one coat on each nail! Look how perfect it is :-)

Black Multi Glitter swatch in the sun

Look at the amazing multi glitter showing through

What do you think? Do you like these stripes better than my first attempt seen here? Here is a little picture of me with the blushing bride and our friend Faye so you can see (kind of) my dress and nail combo from the reception a few weeks ago.

Louise xx

Black and White stripes

You know how I like to match my nails to my outfits. Well I thought I would just post a couple of quick pictures of the nails I created to match my black and white striped dress recently purchased to wear to a wedding reception.

I was working on this late at night and although I waited more than 30 minutes to apply top coat I did still experience some smudging. Never mind - they looked better in person and were a great match for the dress.

For this look I applied three coats of OPI MBSW as a base and then stamped the stripes from plate BM 20 using W7 Black. The trouble for those of us familiar with bundle moster stamping plates is that the 'full' nail designs on the plates numbered 01-21 are so small they are only useful for children sized nails.  To get around this I stamped 3/4 of my nails with the stripe design and then filled in the gap with a black highlight.

I had every intention of adding glitter and rhinestones to prettify this mani but it got to almost midnight and I just couldnt keep my eyes open!

Lots of people asked me about this manicure whilse we were having a lovely time at the wedding reception so that made me feel a little better about the smudging caused by top coat.

Take care

Louise xx

Minty Madness

Today I would like to share with you NYC Mint Macaroon. I previously mentioned this polish as I got it for 20p as part of an awesome promotion in Superdrug. This gorgoeus minty green is an easy to apply creme that achieves full opacity with two medium coats. Here is a little shot of the minty goodness on its own...



NYC Mint Macaroon

One of my favourite colour combinations is pink and green so I could not resist stamping over the top of this lovely colour with a mani inspired by the Polished Perfectionist. I used pink and silver to achieve these striking stripes. 

You may recognise this stunning pink from my one of my previous posts, its a Konad Special polish called Psyche Pink and I wouldnt be without it in my stash. I couldnt resist adding some subtle silver highlights using Barry M Silver Foil.

The stripes were achieved using plate BM 301. I really like this look and it was so simple to achieve. This is the perfect mani for those times when you only have 5 minutes to dedicate to a quick nail art session.

I hope you enjoyed my moments of minty madness - see you soon.

Louise xx