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!

World Cup Nails - Team Australia!

I love me some World Cup football. It's the only time I really watch soccer or become patriotic. Another time I  become a rabid green and gold Aussie fan is probably when I am travelling and I am feeling a touch homesick. That doesn't happen often.

Sadly, we're already bundled out of the tournament, which the third and last game against Spain being a dead rubber. But here is the mani I had before the dream ended.

I used Ulta3 Inten-city on thumb and index. On index I coated with Picture Polish Aurora. 

Middle finger is OPI Copacabana with Formula X Turbo. Ring finger is Revlon Parfumerie Wintermint (yes, it makes my hands smell like toothpaste) and little finger is OPI Copacabana. Studs are the Born Pretty Store wheel of neon studs that I've used before.

I didn't actually take these photos till a couple of days later.

I lost the studs after a few days, and actually had a second mani for the second game. I forgot to take nice photos, so here's one from 2am in the morning, sitting on the dark snap from Instagram.

Now on Instagram!

My lifestyle is more suited to Instagram than blogging really. Lots of the random little things don't really warrant a whole type up and I don't have that much time to make the photos look nice on a full sized screen. So I've joined that now. My facebook friends are probably relieved — now only those who are interested in my photos get bombarded... and everyone else gets less of a bombardment.

Here is my instagram profile link. At some point I will figure out how to create a nice set of buttons for my different accounts elsewhere. Not only does it features my current nails, but other fun things too!

Edit:
Changed my name, had to fix the link so it'd work again!

Aqualicious Neon Nails

I've been just a little excited about all my American goodies, so I went straight to posting those and skipped this gorgeous aqua neon manicure. I loved this look so much, I actually did it twice, with only minor changes (had to use different decals).

So the glitter polish is Emily de Molly Bo Peep. The base on the other nails is China Glaze Aquadelic (Thanks again, Alicea!). The plain aqua is actually a touch darker than Bo Peep, but you can't tell unless you looked at them closely in person. The nail stickers are from the Born Pretty Store - I purchased the whole set, because, you know, NEON.

And yes, I tried them under UV light, and of course, it glows! I'll try to take a photo next time!

Neon Orange gradient with matte glitter topper

Continuing my rebellion against winter with bright colours, I created a neon orange gradient. This isn't fully a stateside haul mani. The light orange neon is from a collection of this cheap brand that neither of us have heard of. She thought this colour would be right up my alley, and she was right (despite our constant bickering, sisters always know each other best). The brand is Claire's and this colour is The Extra Mile.

Ulta3 Tahiti, Formula X Thunder and Claire's The Extra Mile

The darker colour is the ring-in, a coralish neon orange by Ulta3 called Tahiti. I used Formula X White Matter as my white base. All this was then topped with Formula X Thunder (why it's call that, I don't know, can't say it reminds me particularly of thunder), a matte glitter topper with big white hex, smaller blue hex and micro dots glitter. The payoff was pretty good, only minor fishing for the big white hexes. 

I learned something when painting this... neons are HARD to clean up! But I loved it and couldn't stop staring at my in-your-face nails for the whole full week I had it on! Admittedly, some of that time was spent staring and rueing the fact that I broke a corner off my left index. It's always that spot lately!

Attempting some different poses

How about this pose?

I picked up a bright pink Ulta3 today, I couldn't help myself. The receptionist at my gym has bright, bubblegum pink nails and I just had to get some bright pink polish (despite my usual aversion to traditionally 'girly' colours and my promise not to buy anymore nail polish for a while - but hey, it's only $2!). My battle against winter continues!