Christmas Nails: Candy Canes

Can I get a whoop whoop!! :-)

I just love Fridays. What could be better than knowing you have a whole weekend of spending quality time with your loved ones? This weekend I have lots of lovely things planned... hubby is taking me for breakfast and a spot of retail therapy tomorrow, then we are going to put up our Christmas tree and enjoy a quiet night in. On Sunday I am with my sister and some of our best friends for a Christmas meal and a few drinkies. I cant wait to catch up on all the girly gossip.

As you can see I made a return to the Christmas Nails already... tonights installment is Candy Canes...

I started with a base of Barry M Matt White. I have to say with the benefit of hindsight I might have chosen to do this manicure the other way around and start with a base of red and then stamp in white... maybe one for next week?

I have been very keen to use Konad Red in one of my Christmas manicures so this simple little Candy Cane idea was the perfect excuse. It was a little messy and did leave a pinky stain to my fingers but I still love it and will definitely use it again (carefully).

I am so glad I purchased this Christmas stamping plate for the bargain price of £1.85! It has proved most useful in my series of Christmas Nails!

Of course this manicure would not be complete without glitter of some kind. I added a hologram top coat of Northern Lights Silver which as with previous manicures did not photograph as magically as it looks in real life.

How do you like my Candy Canes? Are they good enought to eat? :-)

I hope you all have fantastic weekends - have you got lots of lovely plans?

Louise xx

Autumn Leaf nails

Happy Saturday!

We had a lovely walk with the dogs this morning, the sun is shining brighter than it has all summer but there is a real nip in the air that alerts us to the change in seasons. As we were walking across the field I noticed lots of lovely coloured leaves on the ground and nail inspiration was born...

I started with an Essie base, I'm afraid I don't know the name as it wasn't labelled in TK Maxx, but it's a really nice neutral colour. I then selected a nice mixture of autumnal colours to use for the stamping.

Using a design on plate BM 04 I then used Konad Red, Barry M Block Orange and Barry M Yellow to create these pretty three toned leaves. I wanted each nail to be a little different so I used different colour combinations for each print and also laid the pattern down at different angles, just to keep it interesting :-).

I'm really pleased with the results and using this many colours for stamping was not as hard as I had expected.  The Konad Red is such a fantastic colour and just goes to show that the investment in proper stamping polishes is worth it. Maybe the Konad Orange and Yellow polishes will find their way into my shopping basket soon.

We will shortly be off to a dinner party at our friends house so I hope you have enjoyed my post today and hope you all have fabulous Saturday evenings.

Louise xx

Nail Party!

Last night I had my first ever nail painting party with my sister Laura and our girlfriends Faye, Faye and Caz. It was the perfect start to my weekend

We started the night with chinese food and wine and ended the night with perfectly painted nails and more wine!

I couldnt have wished for better hand and nail models, we all really enjoyed the night and I was pleased that my nail painting skills are not just reserved for doing my own nails.

First up was little sis Laura. It is Laura and Ashley's 2nd Wedding Anniversary tomorrow so we designed her nails to match the lovely new dress she is wearing when her hubby takes her out for a nice meal to celebrate. As if, this time two years ago 30 of us were in the Dominican Republic for the wedding of the year!?!

We picked a base of Color Club Nomadic Nude. Quite possibly the most frustrating formula I have ever tried to work with and I am seriously considering ejecting this polish from my collection for good. That said it was a great colour to match with Lauras dress as seen in the close up of the pattern below.

I then taped off chevron tips and painted them in Barry M Cobalt Blue. To add the finishing touch I then stuck one small black flat backed pearl onto each nail.

Please excuse these pictures I took them on my iPhone and am really wishing I hadn't as the quality is not great and I can't crop them as I would normally :-(.

Next up is Faye B...

For this cute little manicure I started with a base of Barry M Navy which is such a beautiful polish and definately features in my current top 10. I then stamped the bow tips using Konad plate M56 and Konad White stamping polish. For the finishing touches I added dots using Barry M Matt White.

Then we have Faye H...

Faye is starting a new job today that does not allow her to wear nail polish (boo hiss!) so we decided to experiment with clashing colours on Faye as we knew she would have to remove them almost straight away.

This is three coats of No 7 Pinky Pure as a base and then my favourite flower print, the large roses from BM 323 stamped in Konad Red. I thought that pink and red looked really good together - they clashed but only in a good eye catching kind of way :-).

Last but by no means least is Caz...

Caz is the only other girl in this group who always wear nail polish so I decided to add an accent nail and some small embellishments to make a nice change from her everyday nail look.

I used two coats of Ciate Jelly Bean as the base. Its a really pretty pink with the perfect amount of lilac shimmer. I then stamped a pretty flower pattern in Gold Foil from plate BM 225. To create the accent nail I just added three perfect little gold studs.

So there we have it, one happy little group of polished princesses :-)

I have another nail party planned for a few weeks time with our come dine with me girlies - so I cant wait for that.

Louise xx