Blue and Pink Dry Marble nails

Hey lovelies

I just realised it is about time I share my birthday nails with you (given that we are now a week past the special date). I was very lucky this year and got to celebrate my birthday over several days with some very special people. On the Saturday before my birthday, 9 of my closest friends and I went for a meal at a steak house called Middletons. We ate fantastic food and indulged in a bottle or three of Prosecco. We then moved to a wine bar where we might have got through another three bottles and I might have downed a Limoncello shot! I decided to wear a very bold blue dress so of course my nails needed to be a little something special...

The fabric of my dress is the background in all pictures

Graffiti Nails: Orange, White and Gold

Happy Tuesday lovelies

Tonight I have friends over for a mini dinner party. I have decided upon a Mexican theme and am in the middle of preparing spicy pork tacos with a salsa dressing :-). You all know that I could not leave my lovely orange swatch from yesterday alone, so this is the final look...

White and Neon Nails

I promised you I would brighten up these white nails and there was no better way to do that than break out the neon nail polishes. It seems strange to use them in winter but I wanted to see how well they would stamp and show up on such a clean white background...

Swatch: Orly Dayglow

Wow... December already!

It will soon be time for some fun and festive Christmas nail art but until then I will show you, quite possibly, the plainest nails you will ever see on this blog!

Introducing white nails...

The polish is called Dayglow and it a recent purchase of mine. I was impressed with the formula and what you see in these pictures is three thin coats with Seche Vite top coat. 

As always with me I could not leave these nails alone so check back soon to see how I 'jazzed' them up :-)

Lou xx
@L_i_P_P

Easter Nails: Eggs

Happy Easter

I wasn't really planning on doing anymore Easter related nails but as I sat staring at my pretty pastel polishes I just couldn't resist this quick but effective manicure based on everyone's favourite seasonal goodies... Easter Eggs!!

Any excuse to use these beautiful pastels is ok by me...

To create this sweet Easter treat I used the following polishes, all Barry M's:

Little finger - Blueberry Icecream

Index finger - Strawberry Icecream

Middle finger - Berry Icecream

Index finger - Peach Melba

Thumb - Mint Green

Once the pretty pastels were dry I added a quick coat of Northern Lights Silver Hologram top coat and then stamped the bow using Konad White and the design found on plate M56.

Finally using Barry M White I added lots of small randomly placed dots.

Super cute Easter manicure, done! :-)

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

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

Valentines Nails: Grapefruit and White

Good evening lovelies

How can I resist adding in another Valentine's manicure when it looks as adorable as this? I love coming up with nail art when I have a theme to stick to! All things romantic, heart shaped and love related are top of my list right now and I LOVE it!

I started with two super easy coats of Barry M Gelly in Grapefruit. I forgot how much I love to wear this as a base colour and I cannot stop looking at this colour in the office today! Too distracting :-)

I stamped using several different plates, the first being the mini grafetti hearts found on Cheeky plate CH15. I haven't used this design before and after I stamped it I did think it was a little fussy and hard to see the actual hearts but I like it none the less.

For my ring finger accent I stamped this adorable I Love You symbol from BM02. I don't use the original bundle monster plates all that much as the full nail designs are too small even for my short nails however they do have some great accent designs.

Lastly I stamped this little puckered lip design from the same plate (BM02), one in Konad White and one in Barry M Gelly in Pomegranate.

The final touch was a quick slick of fast drying top coat Hologram in Silver. If you don't own this little beauty from the Northern Lights brand I highly recommend you treat yourself. I use it loads!

I really hope you are enjoying my romantically themed nails as much as I am :-)

Keep checking back for the next installment

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Valentines Nails: Pomegranate and White

Good evening lovelies

I thought I would start early on my Valentine's nail art this year. To be fair it is less than two weeks away and I have so many beautiful colours and stamps I could use for love themed manicures that I could actually fill a whole month of blog posts with them! Dont worry I wont and I will try to limit myself to just 4 or 5 :-)

This manicure actually turned out much better than I had hoped and I was a little upset when I finally had to take it off. I hope you like it...

As you can see in the below picture I started with two lovely coats of Barry M Gelly Pomegranate and topped it off with one thin coat of Hologram Silver by Northern Lights.

Then using Konad White I stamped these two different heart themed patterns onto my nails. One a full coverage pattern and one a cute and perfect accent nail.

With flash so you can see the holo...

I am really pleased with how this turned out and think it has set the bar high for the rest of my Valentines manicures :-)

Take care

Louise xx
@L_i_P_P

Inspired By... Skulls

Not only did I have a huge nail polish splurge in TK Maxx recently but I also bought several new tops, all of which have given me inspiration for some up and coming nail art. First on my list was this striking black and white skull print top. I wore this to sunday lunch with my in-laws. It may sound strange to some that I would pick a skull print for such an occasion but my in laws are unique in that way and very into all things rock music, tattoo related and skull printed.

Close Up

Monochrome nails are always effective but with the addition of a simple skull print I really felt like these nails had a little something special. What do you think?

To create this design I turned to my tried and tested Barry M's for the base and Konad special polishes for the stamped design.

Thumb, Middle and Little - Base colour Barry M Matt White, stamped with BM 225 using Konad Black
Index and Ring - Base colour Barry M Black, stamped with BM 225 using Konad White

Really that simple! I was really pleased with how they turned out especially as I was still top coating them in the car in the way to lunch.

One of the other tops I purchased was a really pretty butterfly print with creams, lilacs and muted gold tones. Check back to see the nail art I create to match very soon.

As ever please feel free to leave comments or if you like my blog so far please sign up to follow me and tell your friends.

Louise xx