Navy Lace with Silver Accent nail

Happy Sunday to you all!

Hope you have all had fantastic weekends? We have been very lucky with the weather and experienced the hottest day of the year so far today. We managed to make the most of it by being out in the garden and I certainly feel better for it. Last night us girls went for a meal at a restaurant called Prime where the steak is served on a volcanic rock heated to 360 degree so you cook it yourself to your own liking. It was fantastic fun and the steak was amazing! I had mine with garlic butter and stilton sauce! Yums :-).

Here are the nails I did to go with my all time favourite navy dress and lace jacket combo...

I started with base colours of NYC Ink Stain, the most gorgeous and rich shimmering navy blue that looked extra amazing in the sunshine. My ring and thumb accent nails have a base of Color Club On the Rocks.

Then using a-England Merlin (bottle shot above) I added one truly gorgeous cost of crushed silver sparkles to each of my accent nails. All of the a-England polishes are beautiful but to get coverage like this from such a simple looking polish is amazing (if you ask me!).

Just to really finish off my silver accent nails I then added one thin coat of Orly Holy Holo, it is ridiculously dense with large holo glitter particles and was almost blinding in the sun!

To stamp this beautiful lacy style design I returned to Color Club On the Rocks as its subtle silver shimmery goodness was the perfect finish for this manicure.

I love my new Pueen plates so very much... anything lace and love themed is always going to be a winner for me. This particular pattern can be found on plate Pueen 27.

This final picture was taken in the shade just so you could see the lace pattern a little more clearly.

I really hope your weekends have been as lovely as mine, I'm off to enjoy the evening sunshine and a BBQ with the hubs. Thanks for cooking Mr LiPP ;-).

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Yellow and Pink Roses

Happy Friday lovelies!

How is your weekend looking? I am excited about Saturday night in particular as us girlies are going out for a meal to a steak restaurant where the food is served on hot rocks, meaning the steak cooks as you eat it! I have heard fantastic things about the restaurant so am really looking forward to trying it out for myself!

In the meantime here is my nail of the day...

I started with a base of Barry M Lemon Icecream on all nails. For such a pale colour it has a really great formula and I only needed two coats.

Using Barry M Gelly in Pomegranate I then stamped one of my most favourite designs, the large roses, onto each nail. This design can be found on plate BM 323 and I honestly use it all the time for both nail art and jewellery design.

Speaking of jewellery, I could not resist making a nail polish ring to match this beautifully bright manicure. For the ring I added just one coat of Color Club Daisy Does It as the glass cabochon really brings out the beautiful yellow and gold shimmer.

Also as I fell totally in love with the yellow and pink colour combination I also make a ring featuring my new and already much used owl stamp from the new Pueen plates.

A slightly unusal combination but I love it so much :-). Last time I wore pink and yellow together my sister in law said it reminded her of my favourite retro sweets, Fruit Salads!

I hope you liked seeing my new pieces of nail polish jewellery.

Have fantastic weekends

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Inspired By: Lace Top

Good evening lovelies

Time for another Inspired By post. Any regular readers will now that from time to time I base my nail art around a new item of clothing... this time its a pretty new coral and cream lace top.

For this manicure I started with a base of Barry M Gelly in Papaya on all nails apart from my ring finger with has two coats of Barry M Gelly in Lychee.

Using the really pretty lace pattern found on plate Pueen 27 I stamped each finger using the opposite colour to the base. I was going for a subtle and quite natural result so I was really pleased with how both of these stamped.

What do you think? Is this a good match for my new top?

I love the whole Gelly collection from Barry M, I only need a couple more to make my collection complete.

Thanks for reading

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Grey and Orange nails: Unusual combo

Good evening lovelies

Tonight I would like to show you the second manicure I did with my brand new Pueen stamping plates. I would also like to show you two new polishes that were beyond a bargain!

For the base of this manicure I started with two Collection 2000 polishes that I recently picked up in Poundland. The best thing about these polishes is that they come in packs of three for £1. How can you not love a polish that costs just 33p per botlle! Crazy good bargain :-).

The colours I used are Hip Hop which is a really bright orange and Angel Wings which is a perfect dove grey.

As you can see below I used the colours differently on each hand, on my left hand orange is the main colour with grey being the accent and on my right hand I went with grey as the main colour and orange as the accent.

Using Konad White I stamped this pretty filigree style vine pattern taken from plate Pueen 33.

In the picture above you can see one of my newly made polish rings, that beyond adorable owl stamp is also from my new Pueen collection and I cannot wait to wear it as a full manicure. The owl was the main reason I was so desparate to get my hands on these stamping plates!

Isn't this just the most perfect pale grey? So glad I have three bottles in my collection :-)

Do you like my unusual combination of orange and grey? I was so happy with the way this turned out and will definitely buy more of these polishes if they crop up in Poundland!

Have wonderful weekends

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Loves Me Not with Heart Accent

Good evening lovelies

I think I may have an obsession with this colour! Literally I cannot stop looking at my nails and I could only bring myself to do the most minimal nail art on this manicure as I did not want to cover it up!

Nails of the day...

Two ridiculously perfect coats of Sally Hansen Loves Me Not... Enough said! Just look at these lovely pictures.

One very small accent heart created using Barry M Silver Foil and a design taken from plate BM 08.

This makes me realise that sometimes... simple really is best!

I could not love this colour anymore and will definitely grab back up bottles of this!

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Mint Glitter loveliness

Good evening lovelies

Sometimes you just need something simple and cute to adorn your nails. Tonight I settled on exactly that combination.

I hope you enjoy my pretty like a mermaid nails of the day... :-)

For this manicure I started out with two coats of Rimmel Peppermint (a present from my bro in law!). Peppermint is a lovely mint green polish that leans slightly aqua green after two coats. I love it!

I decided to top this pretty green with one coat of No 7 Paradise Love. I believe this colour is quite new to the No 7 collection and I got it during a recent voucher promotion. Whilst surfing the nail blogosphere I noticed that others where saying this is a dupe for Deborah Lippman Mermaids Dream. If that is true then this was a bargain as any of the DL polishes are out of my budget! :-)

I really enjoyed this simple look and used this combination of colours to create a really pretty nail polish ring which I will post up on Instagram soon (follow l_i_p_p).

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Spice It Up: Sparkly Brown Nails

Good evening lovelies

Just a quick and surprising post from me tonight. Surprising because it features the colour... Brown!

I am not sure why I have such a dislike for brown nail polish. I don't dislike it when I see it on others but the thought of painting it onto my own nails leaves me a little cold. That said I picked up this sparkly little number recently so decided it was only fair to give it my best effort.

Here are my nails of the day...

As you can see I started with two very easy coats of Revlon Spice It Up. In all honesty I would not have purchased this colour however I spotted it in Poundland and decided I really had nothing to lose (other than a pound coin - obviously!).

Spice It Up really surprised me. Just look at the rich colour and gorgeous golden particles that really shimmer and bring this to life.

To highlight the golden shimmers I used Barry M Gold Foil to add this simple leaf print to each nail. The design is taken from the first bundle monster collection, plate number BM 03.

I really liked this so much more than I thought. Maybe if it wasnt such an amazingly bright day I would not have seen so many shimmers and I would not have liked it so much, but lucky for Spice It Up the sun shone bright! Have you tried any colours recently that surprised you? Do you have a colour you avoid at all costs? :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Love Themed Accent Nails

Good evening lovelies

I can't believe I am only now getting around to posting these nails. For those of you who follow me on Instagram you will have seen a sneaky peek a few weeks back when I wore this manicure to match a black and white dress that has the word LOVE printed all over it in different styles, fonts and sizes. I rushed out of the house before I could take a picture of my nails and typically when I looked at them the next morning I had a chip on my index finger. Here is how I fixed it... ;-)

On my little finger and ring finger I have two coats of Illamasqua Boosh, which is a lovely and shiny jet black polish. I also own Illamasqua Scorn which is the matte version but I'm yet to try it. I cannot wait until Illamasqua have another big online sale as I bagged 17 of their lovely polishes last time around :-).

I stamped over each of the black nails with Konad White and this text stamp which contains nice romantic words such as Heart, Kiss, Sweet and Perfect :-).

On my middle and index fingers I used two coats of the absolutely gorgeous Fuchsia Fanatic from China Glaze. I have been looking for a bright raspberry pink polish like this for a while and I am not all disappointed with Fuchsia Fanatic.

Finally I topped the pink nails off with one coat of Chalk Dust by Maybelline. I am loving this black and white glitter polish and have already used it to make some beautiful nail polish rings.

How do you like this look? I love the pink, black and white combination :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Flower Stickers Nail Art

Happy Saturday lovelies

If the weather is not going to look or behave like summer then the least I can do is fake the summery vibe by making my nails the brightest they can be :-). Tonight we are off to a BBQ so while we will be wrapped up in jumpers and jeans my nails will shine bright.

I started with three coats of China Glaze Towel Toy Boy on each nail. I wanted to love this polish so much but I just couldn't... it was so thin that the first coat was almost transparent. It dried to a matte finish which just made the streaks even more prominent and even after the third coat I could still see patches I wasn't happy with :-(. On camera this polish looks lovely but trust me in real life it was far from lovely.

The picture below taken with my forced flash on is more colour accurate. I love the colour but hate the formula.

In order to hide the thin patches I decided to add some pretty flower decals that have been kicking around my nail room forever! I carefully peeled each flower individually from the backing and simply stuck them on once my nails were dry.

Once I had the flowers positioned how I wanted them I sealed the whole lot with a good coat of Seche Vite.

This is the first time I have been disappointed with the formula of a China Glaze polish which is such a shame as the colour is so pretty. Oh well the overall manicure looked summery and bright :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Inspired By: Bird Print Cami Top

Good Friday lovelies

Although I am really into contrasting nail art, every so often I am more than happy to completely co-ordinate my nails and my outfit. There is something cute about 'matchy' nails so when I wore a new bird print cami top this week I just had to design my nails to match (sort of)...

I started with a gorgeous base of Barry M Lychee on all nails. This colour is part of the Gelly range, so it is highly opaque, dries super quick and super glossy. Lychee is a very rich cream coloured nude and the perfect base for lots of nail art styles.

Using the small flying bird design from plate BM 315 I then stamped each nail several times, in several colours at several angles! The bottle shot above is Beths Blue by Models Own which stamped very well but very lightly. It looks almost lilac in these pictures.

Some of the other colours I used are Konad Psyche Pink (bottle above), Konad Red, Sally Hansen Grass Slippers and H&M Blue My Mind.

Below is a close up of my top so you can see the pretty bird print for yourselves :-).

How do you like this matchy nail art? Do you prefer to wear nails that contrast and really stand out or would you co-ordinate your outfit of the day to your nails of the day?

Have fantastic weekends

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P