Fun and Easy Personalised Gift Ribbon

Early this month, I was invited to a 1st birthday party. As per usual, my friend gives out her invites with very short notice (if I remember correctly, for her wedding, I got the invite about 3 weeks out!) With all the other stuff going on in my life, clearly I was not going to be able to organise an amazingly thoughtful and unique gift. But I didn't want to just go over with a stuffed toy, so I re-purposed some white ribbon I had into a cute birthday greeting/decoration using the fabric markers I had from my Ikea curtains project. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this. 

As you can see, the colours spread really quickly on the material. I had to develop a technique of writing a letter and then quickly ironing the letter to set it to stop it from running too much.

And here's how the gift looked. It is a very cute toy, with a nice big head and narrow neck, perfect for a cheeky 1 year old to grab on. When I arrived, he was having a little cry about something, but when I pulled out the toy, he kinda looked at it and went, "Oh, for me?"

As you can see, it was a very cute dinosaur, and I was tempted to keep him for myself!

A very lady-like two-toned pastel colour block manicure

I wanted something that looked a bit interesting and matched my outfit, but didn't have the time to go all out. Then I saw this manicure tutorial on the Lulu blog and realised I could adapt it for my outfit.I had a lovely lavender purple that I wanted to try out. It's a Napoleon polish, but I have a feeling it may only come as a limited edition with this clutch bag set (white swan). I'd gotten it for my sister as a birthday present, because I knew she'd like the purple, but the ungrateful b***h didn't like the bag and didn't even bother looking inside. SO IT'S ALL MINE NOW.

What do you think? It's not quite as neat, but I did paint this just before going to bed and I was more concerned about time then perfection. Plus adding the UV topcoat, made it even thicker. Next time, I will definitely wait a bit longer between layers and do thinner coats.

I was worried the lavender would be hard to get opaque, but it actually goes on really well. I am very happy with it and it's the only light purple in my whole collection.

Btw, the mint is my trusty Sally Hansen and the gold is the only polish I have that comes with a stripper brush. I picked that up in either Germany or Austria last year.