Wednesday 31 October 2012

Happy Halloween Nail Art

Happy Halloween lovelies!

Here are the nails I settled on for Halloween. I hope you like them.


A quick run down of the polishes used: Barry M Lime Green topped with Color Club Fly With Me, Barry M Matt White, Barry M Block Orange topped with Color Club Sparkle and Soar.


For the stamping I used Barry M Magnetic Dark Silver and I so wish I had used a rich black :-(

A variety of bundle monster plates were used for the various images not to mention the red rhinestones used as eyes.


I hope you all have a Happy Halloween Night, those of you going trick or treating, I hope your bounty is plentiful :-)

Louise xx

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Halloween Nail Art: Ghostly Goings On

Happy Halloween (almost)!

I hope you are all looking forward to some ghostly goings on...?

In all honesty I am not really one to celebrate Halloween, however it is an occasion that lends itself very nicely to some pretty awesome nail art :-).





This look is made up of many layers... For the red nails I used two coats of Barry M Bright Red, one coat of Barry M Red Glitter and one thick layer of Barry M Black Crackle. For the green nails I used two coats of Barry M Bright Green, one coat of Barry M Green Glitter and one thick layer of Barry M Black Crackle.


The ghostly stamping is done with Konad White special polish and the small image from plate BM 223.

I wouldn't normally use Crackle varnishes as I dont like the lumpy bumpy finish but for this type of nail art I think they acheive the ideal look.

Below is a couple of shots taken before the Crackle polish and stamping were applied. I love the green :-)


Enjoy your Halloween Eve my lovelies - I look forward to posting my Halloween Day nails tomorrow

Louise xx

Monday 29 October 2012

Magnetic Nails - Blue

Tonight I just have a simple and short post for you with another of the new magnetic shades from the Barry M collection. This one is Magnetic Blue Sparkle aka Neptune Sea.



As with all the magnetics I started by painting all my nails with one coat of Neptune Sea. Once that was dry I worked on each nail indivdually, adding a second coat of Neptune Sea and holding the magnet over the wet polish for 15 seconds until the star shaped image appeared.



The sparkle in this new collection is so eye catching, this blue looked really electric in certain lights.



Such a tough life... :-)

I am glad I revisited the magnetic craze as these really are good quality nail polishes and such an easy version of nail art for those nights when you just need something quick.

Louise xx

Sunday 28 October 2012

Halloween Nail Art - Frankenstein

Happy Sunday lovelies!

I hope you have had a fantastic weekend so far?

I certainly have. On Saturday I spent the day with my sis and Dad. We took him to get our names tattooed on his feet (at his request of course) and then we went for an amazing lunch at Yo Sushi. Today we have been for a fry up with our Mum and then I spent the afternoon painting my nails and watching football. Its all about good food and frustrating football draws!

I decided to try my hand at some more freehand nail art today and here are the results...



For this look I started with a base of OPI Stranger Tides. Its a really nice sage green shade but yet another frustrating OPI formula and I needed three coats.


I used my black nail art pen to draw on the hair and facial details and then topped the other three nails off with Barry M Green Glitter.



I'm really pleased with how this look turned out :)

Louise xx

Thursday 25 October 2012

Pretty Purple Nails and Filigree

Good evening lovelies

This is just a quick post to show you the nails I am wearing to go away with work for two days :(. This is traumatic for many reasons... I hate being away from Mr LiPP overnight, I will miss our puppies and of course I will have no access to nail related products! On the plus side, I get to wear these pretty nails for two days and also I will be with my little sister as we work for the same company. Road trip anyone ;) ?!



I started with a base of two coats of Barry M Indigo, which is a really rich blurple and alternates between navy and purple depending on the light source. I then added one coat of my new Color Club Total Mystery. Its a stunning blue colour containing glass flecks in pink and purple. The sparkle was a little camera shy but I will post some swatches of this next time the sun shines as it really is pretty.


For the stamping I reached for two of my all time favourites - Filigree from plate BM 201 and Butterflies from plate 307 using sparkly Barry M Silver Foil. Top coat Seche Vite as always.



By the time you read this post we will be on our Sisters Road Trip. No doubt eating as many almod croissants as we can, not to mention munching family bag size packets of crisps and listening to the new Pink album on repeat - we have tickets to see Pink next year and are so excited!!

I will be so glad to get home to Mr LiPP and the puppies.

Louise xx

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Breast Cancer Awareness Nail Art

October is officially Breast Cancer Awareness month.

In order to show my support for this international awareness campaign I decided to incorporate the pink ribbon (the recognised symbol of breast cancer awareness) into todays nail art.


I started this look with a simple skittle mani. I used W7 Sheer Pink on three nails and Models Own Utopia on the other two.


To add a little sparkle to W7 Sheer Pink I applied just one coat of Chit Chat Raspberry glitter.


For the stamping on my two accent nails I used Konad Psyche Pink special polish and the ribbon design from plate BM 321.


Finally I added a small pale pink rhinestone to the centre of each large pink ribbon.

Take care

Louise xx

Monday 22 October 2012

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

Sunday 21 October 2012

Halloween Nail Art - Mummies

I am finally getting round to my first Halloween Nail Art post...

It still feels a little too early but I am getting requests and I like to keep my followers happy :-).



I created this fun Halloween design by starting with a simple base of W7 Black. I then used Konad White special polish to stamp his curved line design from BM 209.


Finally with my Barry M Matt White and a little more W7 Black, I used two different sized dotting tools to great the googly eyes.



I already have two further Halloween posts lined up and maybe I will sneak one more in between now and then.

Be careful out there... ;-)

Louise xx

Saturday 20 October 2012

Grapefruit Gelly with Konad

Evening lovelies :-)

Tonight I have the first polish I purchased from the new Barry M Gelly range. I have been very restrained so far and only bought two out of the nine colours released, of course the other seven will eventually find their way home with me but for now let us concentrate on Grapefruit...



This is a stunning shiny coral colour that dries to a mega high shine. The Gelly collection is designed to look like the very popular Gel finish manicures that last for about 2 weeks. They have that super shiny almost plastic looking finish to them but as they aren't set by using a UV lamp they wouldnt last as long as a real 'Gel' manicure.

From reading the press release I had hoped these would be one coaters but this shade definitely needed two coats for perfect coverage. Never mind as I love the colour and enjoy painting my nails so two coats is no hassle for me.



I stamped this pretty design using my new Konad M78 plate. Some bloggers have called this a faux marble effect - it reminds me of the design you get on top of a nice cream slice from the bakery :-). I used Konad White for my stamping polish.

See what I mean..? Yummy


Just one little swatch picture of Grapefruit before I stamped over it... two coats with no top coat. Gorgeous!


This was a super quick and easy manicure but it is so eye catching and I'm really pleased with it. Do you like the look of this new Gelly collection? Does this mani remind you of a cream slice?

Louise xx