Will it be... a Boy or a Girl?

We are soon to become Auntie and Uncle for the 4th time as Craig's sister Vicky only has two weeks left until her due date. Vic and Kei decided to not find out the sex of the baby before the birth so this manicure is dedicated to our excitement of finding out when junior finally arrives! Of course we are 100% happy either way but this manicure is just a little bit of fun inspired by the bottle print on new plate BM 307.

Firstly the girl nail art. Many colours and plates were used so I will provide a quick summary and if you would like anymore detail then just drop me a note in the comment facility below.

Index - Barry M Bright Pink, stamped using Konad White with flower print on BM 224
Middle - Barry M Stawberry Icecream, stamped using Color Club Hot Like Lava with the bottle and heart print on BM 307
Ring - Barry M Pink Flamingo, stamped using Konad White with the heart design on BM 317
Little - Barry M Shocking Pink, stamped using Konad White with the teddy bear design on BM 312

Thumb - Essie Marshmallow, stamped with Color Club Hot Like Lava using the flower corner on BM 316

I love all these pretty pinks together and would definately wear a skittle mani with them as base colours again in the future. What do you think?

Now onto the boy nail art. Again this is heavily centred around my love for Barry M nail polishes. I have so many blues that I had a hard job just picking 5!

Index - Barry M Cyan Blue, stamped with Konad White using the bottle and hearts design on BM 307
Middle - Barry M Turquoise, stamped with W7 Black using the smiley faces design on BM 304
Ring - Barry M Cobalt Blue, stamped with Konad White using the hearts design on BM 317
Little - Barry M Blue Moon, stamped with Color Club Cold Metal using the star design on BM 21
Thumb - Essie (the unknown beige), stamped with Barry M Denim using the square design on BM 320

These blues look super cool together and again make a great base for a skittle mani. Look out for it in the future as I am dying to call it the Barry Blues!

Not long until baby arrives and then I will design a manicure to honour his or her name.

Good Luck Vic and Kei - cant wait for the call to tell us 'its time'!!

Louise xx

What's Not to Like?

Today I decided to trial another colour from the Barry M pastel collection - this one is called Lemon Icecream. I will admit now that I have a real dislike for the colour yellow, unless it is in the form of a sunny day, so this was a hard polish for me to want to work with. However work with it I did and this is what I came up with.

In order to make myself love this manicure I decided to add two things close to my heart - bags and shoes! Whats not to love? My nails are the colour of sunshine and not only can I see bags and shoes all day long - but they are stunning pink!


Konad Psyche Pink

This gorgeous pink is from the Konad range of special nail polishes and can only be used for stamping due to the polish being much thicker than a standard nail colour. You can purchase these polishes for around £5 each and I have to say the investment is worth it if you are a serious stamper!

Shoe design - BM 213
Handbag design - BM 307

I hope you agree that I have redeemed myself after yesterdays Blue & Silver pictures - it was honestly a great mani I just couldnt reflect it in the pictures. These yellow and pink nails could almost make me change my mind about the colour yellow - maybe its not just for the sun after all!

I have also included a little bottle shot below of the two polishes used to create this pretty mani - let me know if you think I should continue to include bottle shots or you would prefer to see only the finished manicure pictures.

Bottle shot

Thank you so much for visiting my blog - please feel free to use the links on the right hand side to follow me and of course drop me a comment in the facility below.

Louise xx

Blue & Silver

Todays nails are truly beautiful in real life but so very hard to capture on camera. Annoyingly the silver clashes with my camera and so it will be hard for you to see the prettiness of the pattern I used but I hope you still enjoy the creamy goodness of Barry M Blueberry Icecream.

Amazingly considering this is part of a pastel collection, Blueberry Icecream is almost a one coater.To be honest if I painted in thicker coats it would 100% be a one coater, but by nature I layer up with thin coats and never wear less than two.

Base colour - Barry M Blueberry Icecream
Stamping colour - Barry M Silver Foil
Stamping plate - BM 205
Top coat - Seche Vite

I am sorry I was unable to do this particular combination justice in picture but believe me when I say this is worth a try and I will definately wear these colours together again. I have kept the pictures small as it minimises the blur caused by me trying to zoom in.

As I was taking these pictures I had a little helper...

We are very lucky to have two gorgeous staffies - a handsome boy called Tuscan and this pretty little girl called Lily. Tuscan is a little camera shy but I will make sure he is featured on the blog very soon.

I have some really good manicures planned over the next week or two as my mani to do list is getting crazy long so I am going to concentrate on ticking lots off and getting lots of great pictures along the way.

Take care

Louise xx

Reversed Anniversary Nail Art

In a moment of madness I decided to take some pictures and share with you my right hand! Which just to be clear means I had to paint and stamp using my much weaker left hand so the results are never quite as pretty. Just to make it harder on myself I also decided to flip the colours so I used Barry M Gold Foil as the base and Konad Special Polish in Black for stamping.

I was a little impatient and added the top coat a few minutes too early so there is a little bit of visible drag in the black Konad polish however I honestly dont think I did a bad job. Even taking the pictures using my left hand to operate the camera was much harder than I imagined but I am glad I decided to share with you.

Everytime my nails catch my eye they make me smile! I just know that I will feel sad when I take them off. However maybe the 10 new polishes I bought today will make me feel better! Seriously its an addiction!!

Here are a couple of swatches of the two Barry M polishes I used to create the full manicure.

Barry M Black



Barry M Gold Foil Effect

 Until next time

Louise xx

Anniversary Nail Art

Proudly presenting my gorgeous (even if I do say so myself) 4th Anniversary nail art. Black and gold is an all time favourite combination of mine so I felt it appropriate to use my favourite colours for one of my favourite occasions. I tried something new and something different on each nail and I absolutley LOVE the results.

I started with a base of Barry M Black. This is a super glossy black that applies perfectly and only needs two thin coats to look this good. I cannot get enough of Barry M nail polishes and have 55 in my current collection! The stamping for each nail was done using Barry M Gold Foil Effects, this is not a colour I would wear alone but it is perfection in a bottle when it comes to stamping.

Index Finger - Kissing Mouth print from BM 303
Middle Finger - Double Lily print from BM 318
Ring Finger - Love Message from BM 311
Little Finger - Heart Print from BM 317

My reasons for these choices are mostly self explanatory given the theme of this manicure is love, but I will just add that I chose the double lily print as we had calla lillies as our wedding flowers, I have a very similar design tattooed on my ribs as a tribute to husband and wife and Craig always buys me huge bunches of lillies for anniversaries and birthdays.

For my thumb nail I used a beautiful scroll design turned on its side from BM 314 and added a number 4 taken from a very small part of a design on BM 311. Here is a close up...

We had such a fantastic day - shopping, eating at Yo Sushi and drinking lots of wine (for me) and whisky (for Craig) and I cant wait to see what the rest of our time off together brings.

I hope you like this nail art as much as I do - any questions or comments I would love to hear from you via the comment facility below.

Louise xx

Polish Haul continued...

I feel like a neglective polish owner...

I also purchased today the most gorgeous collection from Barielle called Diamonds Are Forever. I love grey in all shades so this collection really hits the nail on the head for me. The colours range from steele grey to pale silver shimmer to clear jelly with silver flakies. Perfection in a collection... Behold...

Diamonds Are Forever

Barielle is another new range for me so I am beyond excited to get on with trying all these new colours out.

Louise xx

Anniversary Nail Polish Haul!

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary! We have taken the rest of the week off work to spend some real quality time together and I'm loving every second. Our story is one of true love at first sight. We were engaged after 3 weeks, we had booked our wedding after 6 weeks and we were married by the time we had been together 10 months. Happy to report we are still as crazy about each other 4 years later.

I will get around to posting pics of the mani I designed to celebrate our anniversary today but until then I thought I would share some pictures of the massive nail polish haul I got today! I would have stopped at just one color club collection but hubby insisted I buy more as he thought I would regret it if not! He is such a bad influence when I'm shopping.

These are my first Color Club nail polishes as it is an American brand and not readily available in the UK. TK Maxx saves the day! The collections sell for the seriously cheap price of £7.99 for 6 colours and 1 top or base coat. An absolute bargain when you realise that eBay sellers are charging £7.25 for just one Color Club polish in the UK.

This is the Back to Boho collection A. The contents in order of the picture are Nomadic in Nude, Earthy Angel, New Bohemian, Shabby Drab, Rad Nomad, Red-ical Gypsey and Stuck On You Basecoat. I cannot wait to try these out and am sure I will feature at least a few of these very soon.

Back to Boho A

Please meet the Color Club Foiled collection. My main reason for buying these is that a foil polish has never let me down when it comes to stamping but I currently only use gold and silver from Barry M Foil Effects range. This Color Club collection includes a gorgeous green, a bold blue and an in your face fuschia pink. Colours in order of the picture are: Antiquated, Hot Like Lava, Cold Metal, Foil Me Once, Perfect Mol-ten, Lumin-Icecent and Top Coat.

Foiled

Next up... Essie. Only recently made available in the UK, they retail at £8 each so although my wishlist grows, my actual collection was 2 until today. These colours were purchased in a pack for only £9.99 but I am afraid I only know the official names for two of them. Beige - Unknown, Green - Sew Psyched. Orange/Red - Alligator Purse. I will definately be back at TK Maxx looking for more Essie's in the future as these are used in all American salons as the equivalent of OPI in the UK salons.

Just a couple of W7 nail polishes to add to my existing collection of bold neons and particle packed glitters. I have heard great things about W7 black so looking forward to giving that a try.


Pillar Box Red & Black

Lastly (about time I hear you cry). The Art Club Primaries striper collection. These polishes have a precision-pointed striping brush for use in free hand nail art. I have never used stripers but they have many uses and are well regarded in the nail art world.


Primaries

I hope you dont mind this lengthy post but I just couldnt wait to share my latest purchases with you.

Take care

Louise xx