Recent Purchases

With my birthday approaching and it being half term I decided to pop into town with my Mom and Sister, as I rarely get the chance now that I work Saturdays and Sundays. I was after a new pair of heels and bag for my birthday outing. I wanted a pair of heels that were slightly lower and had a chunkier heel so I'd be a bit safer and also a clutch as I don't really have any except my prom one which is rather tiny. Thankfully Primark delivered on both fronts with a big black leather clutch for only £5 and a pair of heels for £14.

I was also after a heavier coverage foundation as though I have been wearing BB cream daily I don't have any 'nigh time' foundations. On the recommendation of  a friend I popped into the indoor market to have a look at the make-up and was simply amazed at the prices. They sell a huge range of branded make-up at about half the price of Boots or Superdrug.  I picked up all of the make-up pictured for only £22!  I brought Rimmel stay matte powder for £3 and the new Maybelline falsies push up drama for £3, the Rimmel Match perfection foundation for £4, Bourjois 123 foundation for £4, a Covergirl lipstick for £1, Rimmel lash accelerator for £4 and Maybelline lasting drama gel eye-liner for £3. Reviews will come soon for most of these products I'm sure except for the Rimmel Mascara which I've already reviewed here and the Rimmel Foundation which I've already reviewed here too.

Oh Shit Kit DIY Gift

How great is pinterest though? It's my go-to for gift ideas no matter the occasion or recipient. So when looking for an 18th gift for my friend, a hangover survival kit seemed like a great idea. Many sites had cute little printables for their 'Oh Shit' kits with rhymes on, but since I've acquired a new love of painting typography I decided to paint the label instead, and then write a bit of the little rhyme on the back as you can see in the photos.

In mine I included a 'Hangover Hoodie' from here (great product, speedy delivery), Hangover Cure Water bottle from Urban Outfitters, my favourite make-up remover in a handy sized bottle, some super cute hair bobbles (Which I really want myself), a pretty packet of tissues, a sheet face mask from Boots and some of her favourite snacks (toffee crisp bars).

Some other things you could include would be a favourite DVD or box-set, a netflix gift card, an energy drink, more food, mints, mouthwash, hand sanitiser, some painkillers,  or other pamper products like lip-balm, cleanser or moisturiser.

I do so love putting themed gift baskets together, if you wanna see some others I've posted about check out this NYC one, Broadway one, Party-in-a-box or a De-stress gift.

New York Themed Gift Basket

Two of my oldest friends (They're twins, just like me) are turning 18 in November so I wanted to make their gifts pretty special, in order to that I had a little brainstorm about the things that they love. Basically what I came up with, was to theme their gift around New York as last summer they went on a trip there and had the best time. They even met Nathan Sykes formerly of The Wanted. Awesomeeeeee. Everything I got them is pictured above except for these gorgeous metal bookmarks that hadn't yet arrived when I took these photos, some photos from their holiday which I got printed with the help of their little sis (Thanks Jose!) and some Krispy Kreme Donuts which I obviously couldn't get till the day.

Items Pictured-

NYC Nail Polishes in Time Square and NY Princess // New York, I Love You DVD // I Heart New York Book // Million dollar choc bar from B&M // Colab Dry Shampoo in fragrance New York // NY Notebook From TKMaxx // NY Book Box From TKMaxx // Vintage poster from here

This idea could be adapted to suit loads of different places, whether it's a hometown, a favourite holiday destination or dream holiday destination. You can buy food and drinks that remind the recipient of the place, books and movies that are set there and really anything else that's linked to the place or trip. The possibilities are endless!

De-Stress Gift Idea

It was my friend's birthday at the beginning of November and since she is so stressed all of the time, I thought I'd theme her present around relaxation to help her de-stress.  It started when I saw 'The Mindfulness Colouring Book' on offer at amazon as they have a brilliant 3 for £10 offer on paperbacks and I was already buying two  books for myself at the time. To go with that I also got her a nice pack of pencils so she'd have something to colour in with and a journal for her to write in when she couldn't sleep from the Book Depository (Great site for books with free UK delivery). To help her unwind I bought her some Radox Bubble Bath in Feel Relaxed which is on offer at Boots for £1 and an S candle for her name from Asda. Then finally to finish it off my mom had brought  her a massive tub of flying saucers as they are her fave so I drew a little 'Chill Pills' label to stick on to fit the theme.

I really love putting together themed gift baskets for my friends and sharing them on here, I have at least another 2 planned before Christmas. They obviously also make great Christmas gift ideas too!

17th Birthday Present Idea

So firstly, I take absolutely 0% credit for this idea as it was a present that I recieved for my 17th birthday from 6 of my amazing friends Katie, Eilis, Rose, Liz, Niamh and Sandra. They came up with the theme perfect night in and perfect night out for this gift basket. 

So for the Perfect Night in theme they got me Strawberry Buttercream, Black Cherry and Summer Scoop Yankee Candles, a candle votive, a lush bath bomb, some reed diffusers, 4 maltesers hot chocolate sachets,a mug and some lucky charms.

And for the Perfect Night Out theme they got me the Urban Decay Naked Palette (I'm such a lucky girl!), some plastic shot glasses, Tequila Mockingbird which is a cocktail recipe book themed around books and 2 Bourjois Rouge Edition velvets in Hot Pepper and Nude-ist.

They also got me some hand sanitiser because all of them are always using mine as I always carry it cus I'm a bit of a clean freak, plus I love the smell of them.

I think it was such a clever idea to combine the two ideas and I'm so so grateful to each of them for this amazing present. I know they won't mind me sharing their idea with you, but if you do recreate it, I'm sure they'd love to see so tweet me a pic @KatieCorbebett98 ... 

DIY Birthday Party in a Box Gift Idea

Today's DIY is inspired by my one of my new favorite youtubers DIYLover, I absolutely love her DIYS, they are so creative and her videos are edited amazingly. I thought I'd do a slightly more grown up version of her Birthday In A Box video for my friend Eilis's birthday which was two weeks ago.

I used shot glasses that I bought from boots plus some apple schnapps and a cocktail mix as the main part of the present since my other friends had brought Eilis a cocktail Shaker and glasses for christmas and her birthday respectively.

 Then I added some balloons, confetti, sparklers and party poppers in cellophane bags before wrapping everything up in tissue paper.

To finish it all off I put everything in a pretty box and placed her birthday card (which explained what the gift was) on top.

I think she found the gift quite funny and it came in useful for her party so I'm very happy with how this DIY turned out. It's a great gift idea for any older people you know who perhaps are a little harder to buy for, or just anyway you know is having a party!

If you try it out tweet me a pic @KatieCorbett98

March Summary

March has been quite the busy month for me with my birthday and quite a few of my friends birthdays so I've been up to quite a bit..

1.Comic-con highlight with Anna and Elsa, full post here.

2. Photo from my birthday, full post of that here.

3. Taking selfies in TK Maxx in Stratford when I was in the hat section.

4. I made some profiteroles for mothers day and sparklers make everything better.

5. That fateful day came to take my passport photos.

6. One of the funniest nights of my life. We went for a curry and the waiter ended up thinking that me friend Katie was called Tracy and that it was her birthday so they gave her birthday cake and brought out a bottle of champagne for us to share! 

7. Emily's 16th birthday which was awesome.

8. Bronaghs 16th birthday which was amazing! 

So what have you guys been up to this month?

My 16th Birthday! What I Got & Celebrations

Sorry this post took me so long to get up, It was actually mine and my twin sister Megan's birthday on March 6th! I thought about splitting this into two posts-What I Got and the Celebrations- but in the end I have decided to keep it as one. Just a warning though, this a very long and photo heavy post but alas, let us begin... 

Originally Me and Meg had been just planning to have a party for our 16th, but it turned out 3 of my 5 best friends couldn't come. In the end I decided to go out for a cheeky nandos with them on the friday before my party on the Saturday. Here are some of the photos below. They even surprised with a mini chocolate cake (candles and all!) as you can see in the bottom right photo. I don't know why i look so scared though? I'd also like to point out that I have a confetti star stuck to my right cheek that was in my birthday card :)

 It was here that my gorgeous, amazing, beautiful, fantastic, brilliant best friends presented me with my INCREDIBLE gift! They all decided to club together and got me the gifts you see below, as soon as I saw the gift bags I was super excited! They brought me a GORGEOUS Pandora ring, Lush Twilight Bath Bomb (Review coming soon), a whole bunch of American Sweets (they know me so well!) and the money for a MAC lipstick because they didn't know which colour to get me. I simply cannot thank them enough so if they are reading this, thank you a million times to Rose, Liz, Eilis, Katie and Liv!

These things below are what I received off my brother, sister and parents. My brother got me a game of thrones hand of the king badge and a game of thrones cushion with isn't shown in this photo because it hasn't yet been released in the UK. My sister brought me the James Blunt CD and then the poster, bag, phone and silver cuff were off my parents. So thank you to all of them!

Now onto the party...

My AMAZING(!!) friend Elizabeth did my hair for me for my party, seriously how good is she! I curled my hair before she came round and then she just did my hair with no picture references or video tutorials or anything...I just don't know how she did it?! So thank you very much Liz! I also thought it looked especially good because of my ombred hair :D

And here are the photos from the party. We spent the night dancing, eating cake (Rainbow cake specifically, as you can see below), chatting and playing snooker (Or is it pool? I have no idea of the difference). I really enjoyed it and I hope that all my guests did too :)

My friends also brought me all of this amazing stuff and I can't thank them enough for how lovely and generous they've all been so thank you sooooo much!

I also got this amazing giant cookie off a bunch of my friends. Lessons I have learnt whilst eating this 1) all cookies should be iced 2) do not try and eat it all yourself...

And finally I'd like to say a huge thank you to Bronagh (She clearly reads the blog!) Not only for the brilliant present of Maybelline Colour Tattoos, but also for the adorable little quote that I found in the card! I have wanted the colour tattoos for what seems like forever but you know when you just never get round to buying something even though you really want them, well thats what happened with me. And well done to Bronagh for picking such gorgeous colours! I'll hopefully be writing a review on those soon!

So all in all I'd like to say a huge thank you to all my family and friends who made my 16th so brilliant! I'm also quite happy that the image on my side bar is finally accurate now I've turned 16 :)

16th Birthday Present Idea

 Since it was the 16th birthday of my best friend since I was four years old, I wanted to do something special. The basic concept is as she's 16 years old, she gets 16 presents for the 16 days before her birthday.

What I included in my gift-

1. Baby Lips Lipbalm 

2. Marshmallow Fluff (She loves american sweets)

3. 16th Birthday Badge

4. Earrings

5. Vimto Sweets (Her favourite)

6. Nail Polish+Blusher

7. 16 Keyring

8. Book

9. Handbag Organiser

10. Photos

11. Lumos Candle (DIY here)

12. Gryffindor Bauble

13. Bertie Botts every flavour bean (Box template here) 

14. Harry Potter lightning bolt ring

15. Dictionary Necklace (DIY here)

16. A Birthday Balloon

 

Then here they all are wrapped up, numbered and ready to go. Then I just placed them in the gift bag, attached the card to the balloon and tied the balloon to the gift handle. I gave the present to her 16 days before her birthday so that she could open one each day before her birthday. 

And although You'd expect this to be pretty expensive it turned out at less than £25 due to the fact that I DIYed a few of the presents.

Hope you like the idea, let me know if you try it out...

Dictionary Necklace

My friends birthday is coming up in September and as I have been wanting to make my own necklace charms for a while now, I felt this was the perfect opportunity to do so. This will also be part of a future post to so don't forget to check back towards the end of August (EDIT- here's the post);) For the image in the pendant I decided to use a cut out from a dictionary that I brought for 49p in a charity shop that was missing a few pages.

Supplies-

Dictionary (or image)

Glue

Glossy accents (or other glaze)

Pendant Blank

Chain

Scissors

1.Cut the image you would like to use to the correct size.

2. Glue the picture into the pendant blank. I used PVA glue for this.

3. Add the glossy accents to the pendant, filling it to the top.

4. Once the pendant is dry thread it onto a necklace or use pliers to open a jump ring and connect it to a chain.

5. I also cut a piece of card and stuck it into the gift box after I stamped it with a message as an added touch.

The finished product, gift boxed and ready to go.

xoxo

Katie

Rainbow Cake

It was my birthday on the 6th March and I finally got round to making a rainbow cake! Next on the check-list is cake pops.

I kind of cheated and brought packets of cake mixes because I didn't really want to make 3 cakes. I also used frosting from the shop too..But i did buy some great neon sprinkles to go on the top of the cake :)

Note: I used 2 boxes of cake mixes and they turned out much to thin so I would advise using 3 boxes.

You will need:

Cake mixes x3

Icing x1

Cake tins of the same size x6

spoons x6

bowls x6

Food colouring in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

Sprinkles (optional)

1.Grease or cut out liners for your cake tins, you will need 6, one for each colour of the rainbow 

2. Mix up the cake mix and split into 6 equal (as equal as you can) parts.

3. Colour each of the parts. I put too much food colouring in mine really...

4.Pour the mix into the lined tins, I cooked 3 at a time because I only had 3 tins.

5. Bake in the oven to packet instructions. But be warned as they're thin they can burn very quickly

6. Take them out and leave them to cool

7.Place the purple layer on the surface and ice, then place the blue layer on top and ice and so on. Just in case you forget, the order is purple,blue, green, yellow,orange and red.

8.Add sprinkles and you're done :D 

Look at the beautiful edible rainbow...

Sorry about the quality I know its terrible..

Anyway, enjoy xoxo