Cloud manicure

It's so easy to spend too much time doing your nails when you're on summer break, oh well! Cloud manicure (on my ring finger) this week. Search for it on Pinterest, it's all over in so many fun colors!

I painted all of my nails the pretty coral color (Sonia Kashuk), then added the white layer and the purple (it was so difficult to correctly capture the purple color, it looks blue here) layers by freehand.

Close-up, but still couldn't really get the colors right.

Mini apple pies

My rommmate and I attempted mini apple pies! We used a muffin tin to bake the mini pies in.

 

We cheated and used the 99 cent Jiffy pie crust (just add water!), and we were actually really impressed with the results.

 

The filling was an in-exact mixture of chopped apples (skin removed), cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, lemon, and butter. Luckily,we had extra filling to snack on, it was like candy!

We even added little lattice crusts to the top, brushed them with raw egg, and topped them with a little pad of butter.

We baked them at 300 degrees for about 50 minutes (we kept the temperature low because we weren't sure how they would cook). 

They came out pretty cute, if I do say so myself, and they were really delicious!

Fancy breakfast sandwich

 Had a fancy breakfast this morning (well, it was breakfast for dinner). Open-faced sandwich inspired by this recipe. 

Toasted whole wheat bread

Asparagus sauteed in butter and salt

Sliced hard-boiled egg

Onions sauteed in butter until slightly brown

Salt & pepper

It was really great! I just wish I woke up early enough in the mornings to actually have this for breakfast!

Green grilled cheese

Apparently I missed National Grilled Cheese month (how could I??), so I made up for it tonight with a grilled cheese recipe similar to this one. It was sooooo good I can't even tell you, you just really have to try it yourself. 

Whole wheat bread

Mozzarella cheese (sliced)

Baby spinach leaves

Avocado (sliced)

Goat cheese (crumbled)

Salt & pepper

Fry on a stove or use a counter-top grill til the bread is toasty and the ingredients are warm and melted :)

Double braid

 I run around A LOT for my job as a nanny for two little boys and a newborn baby girl (I usually have the boys, not the girl). In any given two hours, we will play a bit of football, baseball, soccer, golf, basketball, and tennis. It's crazy! And fun :)

So I need my hair back and away from my face, hence the braids.

I started with a Dutch, French braid (braiding in reverse, but also a French braid, so it's Dutch-French braid??) behind my left ear, and another coming across my scalp from right to left. 

I pinned them together below my left ear, then twisted them and fastened with a little rubber band. Long hair is so much fun to play with :)

Chain-metal pedicure

Some fun with nail art today  :)

Started with this dark purple...

...and dipped the tip of a pen (with the ink bit taken out, so the tip was just a small circle) in metallic silver polish to make little circles all over. 

 

To finish I added little dots of metallic blue in the middle of random silver circles.

Kind of unique look, I've never done anything like this before, but I do like using props in my nail art :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my Mama! I was home with my family this weekend and we enjoyed a nice, relaxing few days.  

My gift to her was a craft from Pinterest :) I hot-glued river stones to a piece of black felt (both from a nearby craft store) to make a hot pad for her tea kettle.

To celebrate her day today, we went to a restaurant called the Chart House for a delicious meal.

We had oysters on the half shell for an appetizer,

and my entree was salmon wrapped in prosciutto with a balsamic reduction and a miso sauce. Spectacular! There was also a chocolate lava cake and a creme brulee for dessert but we devoured those before I remembered to take a picture, oops! Plus, we had a nice drive through the mountains to and from the restaurant. We ended the evening with a nice long walk along the creek nearby. 

Hope you had a great Mother's Day, love you so much Mama! 

Curling iron to wand

So I really love the look of wand curls (like these), but I didn't really want to spend the money to buy a wand.

So I decided to make my own!

I removed all of these parts from my curling iron, and I was left with a wand!

 

It's a little bit larger than the wand I had used before, so I ended up with more relaxed curls.

 

I never really used that curling iron anymore, and now I will use it all the time!

 

Yay! 

Chevron with nail stickers

Playing with the chevron nail look today, incorporating The Beauty Department's easy nail sticker method (paint nail polish on tape and cut tape into desired shape).

Here are my 'nail stickers' on the edge of my desk.

I used tape for the metallic triangles, and free-hand painted smaller black triangles on top using the metallic triangles as guidelines.

The beginning of summer means I have time for these things now :)

Date night hair

 Finals are over! I am free! It's officially summer!

Time for date night, complete with date night hair!

Double braided headband with a side bun.

Braided headband, like this one here.

I started the braids on the side with the bun (the bun covers the spot where the braids come from) and fastened them with a tiny rubber band and bobby pins, pulling the hair in front over to cover them.

View from behind.

I made a twist with my hair and twisted this around to make the bun, securing it with my Spin Pins.

 Side view.

Off for dessert!

Neon French mani

Studying like crazy so not much time for personal aesthetics (well, aesthetic 'extras.' I'm still showering regularly and everything), but I couldn't resist a quick manicure!

So here it is, the Neon French!

It's got me in the mood for the summer that is quickly approaching! :)

Chocolate rolls

Mmmm... study food!

Pillsbury Crescent rolls with a warm gooey chocolate center!

I unrolled a few rolls, added a strip of chocolate chips, rolled them up, baked them at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes, then I devoured!

Made studying calculus a bit more bearable :)

A slightly different braid...

Stress-playing with my hair again (finals are looming over me). I guess you could call this a variation of a braid since I was wrapping three sections of hair around each other.

I started by dividing my hair into three sections and securing these with thin rubber bands.

 

 I wrapped the left and right sections over the middle one, and wrapped these sections under the middle one.

I continued this process (left and right over, left and right under, never moving the middle section) until I reached the end of my hair and I secured this with another little rubber band.

A little bit later I snipped the three rubber bands at the top (not the one holding everything together at the bottom), but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of that. Made it look a little more polished though :)

Green apple and brie sandwiches

Yummy snack tonight! Brown sugar, green apple, and brie open-faced sandwiches. 

I sliced a loaf of French bread, sprinkled some brown sugar on it, placed a few green apple slices on each piece, and topped it off with a bit of brie cheese. I broiled them for about five minutes until the bread and the cheese turned golden brown. 

These sandwiches were one of my favorite meals when my mama still cooked for me on a regular basis (those were the days), but if I had really had my act together I would have added caramelized onions too :)

Weekend recap

Had a nice, relaxing weekend (such a change from last weekend!). Volunteering gave me the chance to flip through some magazines in my spare time, then it was home for a dinner party at our house with some fun friends. Slept in the next day, and lounged around the house all day getting chores done. That evening, I had a fun date night with dinner and a movie, The Five Year Engagement.

I thought it sounded funny from the trailer, and it was no disappointment. There were some really comical parts (the Elmo and Cookie Monster scene is absolutely hilarious), and it had a great ending.
Today (Sunday) also had a nice, sleeping-in morning and a relaxing afternoon of shopping and potting my plants.

A tomato plant and two basil plants, my first venture into vegetable and herb territory! So excited, I have high hopes for them (though I do have a terrible track record with my previous plants...). 

Another shot at no-heat curls

Here we go again. I tried the sock bun method which was good but didn't last through the day. When this popped up on Pinterest, I decided it was worth a shot. I like having options when I don't want to use heat to style my hair.

I started with slightly damp hair...

...and took two strands from right above my ears, twisted them, and tied them back with a tiny hair tie.

Then, I took a one-inch section and wrapped it around the strand I had already pulled back. I secured it with a bobby pin, and did the same with the next section.

When I had completed the whole head, I was done for the evening.

 

The next morning I woke up, unraveled my work from the night before...

...and this is what I had!

Cute curls, I was impressed!

And they lasted all day!