Black and White Filigree nails

Good evening lovelies

This is one of my favourite manicures to date... even if I do say so myself! I love the contrast of white and black together but with the addition of a super bright accent nail it was even lovelier :-).

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed wearing this manicure...

I started with a polish that I want to love but the formula gives me trouble so I tend to shy away from picking this out of my stash too often. Other bloggers rave about the formula of this polish but I always need three coats and for me that is a bad thing :-(. The polish in question is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls... a very subtle grey white. In all honesty a fab base for this manicure but such a pain that it needs three coats!

My accent nail is two coats of Exposed All Nighter. This polish dries to a matt finish but a top coat of Northern Lights Hologram Gold soon fixed that. I added the black star shaped rhinestones just to finish this nail off.

Using Konad Black I stamped this gorgeous filigree pattern on all nails that had a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (MBSW). I am so into this contrast and although I like to wear bright eye catching colours it did remind me how good black and white work together, and that I should wear it more often.

How do you like this finished look? Do you have polishes that everyone else loves but you struggle to work with? Thanks for reading :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Christmas Nails: Modern Christmas Trees

Good evening lovelies!

As I mentioned earlier in the week we put our Christmas Trees up at the weekend. This year we have gone for a totally modern twist so we have black trees covered with pretty pink and silver decorations. They match perfectly with our recently decorated lounge which has some really bold feature wallpaper also in black and pink.

Using a tutorial from the brilliant Jane at Nailside for her bare Christmas Tree nail art I came up with a manicure to match our Trees :-)

I started with a base of the much loved OPI MBSW. It is a slightly off white with the smallest hint of grey which prevents it from being too stark. Then using my black striper I followed the tutorial from Jane and drew on the bare Christmas Trees.

Using my new Barry M Pink Foil and my trusty Silver Foil I dotted on baubles of various sizes. I am so excited about the Pink Foil as I have been patiently waiting for Barry M to listen to us bloggers and bring out a whole range of foils that are as perfect as the Gold and Silver ones are for stamping.

I added a few dots of Barry M Silver Glitter and a bright pink star shaped rhinestone for the necessary Christmas sparkle and voila... Nails to match our Trees!

For my thumb I used just one coat of Pink Foil and one thin layer of Silver Glitter. It looks stunning in real life!

Here is our main tree... Doesn't it match the wallpaper well?

Here is our second much smaller tree... Cute !

I just couldn't resist taking a few extra shots with some baubles (borrowed from the tree) for props...

How do you like our modern Christmas Trees? I know they wont be everyones cup of tea but we really like them and I love how my nails match so perfectly :-)

Louise xx

Animal Accent Nails

Good evening lovelies

I hope you have all had good weeks so far and are looking forward to the weekend already?

I've got a really busy weekend planned which I am really looking forward to. Its my little sisters birthday so we have lots of plans for a nice breakfast together, then a late lunch out with the girls and also a meal at our favourite place - Yo Sushi, next week. I love it when birthdays last more than one day :-).

Onto a manicure that lasted two days... yes two days I hear you gasp. I loved the look and the colours so much that I left it in place so I could appreciate it a little longer than usual.

To create this manicure I decided I would like accent nails (as I usually do) but on this occasion I went for the index and middle finger nails as I first saw worn by Marta over at ChitChatNails. I love Marta's blog and its always a great source of inspiration for my 'to do' list (follow the above link to go and browse her lovely blog).

For the accent nails I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (MBSW). I want to love this polish so much but I get such bad bald spots in it that it makes me feel I'm doing something wrong. Its the perfect shade of white/grey so I persevere with it out of stubborness :-). I painted exposed All Nighter on my other nails which is a bright magenta/deep fuschia colour. This is the first time I've used this polish as a base and it was a tad frustrating, however it is great to stamp with as can be seen here. It dries matt in super quick time so application was a little uneven.

I then stamped this lovely zebra (could also be used for tiger) print from BM 223 using Konad Black. In order to cover up a little bald spot at the base of my thumb nail I added a mini black star rhinestone and loved the look of it so much I also added them to my ring and little fingers.

I used two coats of my favourite top coat to really shine this up as All Nighter and Konad Black both dry to a matt finish. Also the top coat helps to protect the little rhinestones.

I loved this manicure and All Nighter is one of those polishes that just draws attention and compliments :-).

One final picture below because I just couldnt resist

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

A Little Bit of an Animal

When I first discovered nail stamping my absolute favourite print was zebra. I used it all the time with lots of different colour combinations and it amazes me that I have yet to debut any animal print on this blog. The more I think about it the more crazy it is!

I decided to start you off slowly with a nice simple zebra accent nail...

Barry M Block Orange



For this look I painted my nails with two coats of Barry M Block Orange and my ring finger with three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. As I sat back and looked at the orange I decided to add some sparkle by layering Barry M Tangerine over the top. Tangerine is a gorgeous orange and gold shimmer that works perfectly for this orange layered creation.

I then used Konad Black to stamp this simple but striking zebra print from Konad plate M57. It really is the easiest pattern to stamp and one that I will get lots of comments about as people cannot help but be drawn to it.

Barry M Tangerine

On the left Tangerine and on the right Block Orange

Over the next few weeks I will go all out and introduce some full on animal manicures but for today I am glad I started small with this zebra accent. I wouldn't want to scare you all away :-).

Louise xx