Red Velvety-Smooth

So I made some delicious red velvet cupcakes for Francis, just as a little treat. Safe to say he loved them, which is another hint as to why I know we belong together haha… He tolerates - and possibly enjoys - my cooking/baking! It was a really nice surprise because Francis was writing an exam so I baked them while he was writing so they would be ready for my man to come home!

 


Now there were some crazy set-backs that prolonged my baking adventure and also the lack of photos involving the frosting, but I still managed to make a huge mess of my boyfriends' kitchen and get them done just as he was walking through the door! 

Before you begin, make sure you have all your ingredients:

Cupcakes: 

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk

• 1 (1 ounce) bottle Red Food Color
• 2 teaspoons pure Vanilla extract
• 
  
• Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 teaspoons pure Vanilla extract
• 1 (16 ounce) boxconfectioners' sugar

So the first step is to preheat oven to 350 degrees f. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl and set them off to the side.

Next, you beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed for 5 minutes or until it is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time then mix in sour cream, milk, food colour and vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on low speed until just blended but make sure you do not over-beat. Spoon the batter into 30 paper-lined muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full.

Bake your cupcakes for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack for five minutes. Remove the cakes from their pans and allow them to cool completely. Frost with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting which you should make while the cupcakes are baking.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat the cream cheese, softened, butter, sour cream and vanilla extract in large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth.

Enjoy everyone! <3

Homemade shirts!

For St Patty's Day, my friends and I made some awesome shirts that I want to share with you! :)

Bow back!

Shredded back and she painted it green!

"Kiss Me I'm Irish" and "Kiss Me"

Emily's shirt says "Shake Your Shamrocks"

Lastly, my shirt says "Drink Until you're Irish"

Gold and Pink Eyeshadow Tutorial!

So I found this lovely tutorial here and thought it was SO pretty, but it was all in a foreign language and felt maybe it would be cool if someone did it in English. Which leads us to this post!

1) Start off with eyeshadow primer, so it stays in place all day! :) Next you're going to take a golden shade such as Glamour by GOSH. 

2) Cover the rest of the eyelid with a pinky-white shadow, such as Virgin by Urban Decay.

3) Blend in, from your outter corner of the eyelid, a dark pink. Start darker on the inside and lightly blend towards the centre. A good colour for this is All Lid Up by Hard Candy. The key for this step is lots and lots of blending!

4) Bend the crease with a darker brown shadow like Smog by Urban Decay. 

5) Use the same shadow as the previous step to line the bottom lashes.

6) Add a shimmery white such as Ice White Base by The Body Shop to the tear duct corner for an eye-opening effect.

7) Line the upper lash with a dark shadow and a thin edged brush. Any black is good for this.

8) You don't have to, but I always wear mascara so I finished with applying 3 to 4 coats on my top and bottom lashes! :)

Thanks for reading my blog, here's the finished look! :)

Ombre Nails!

Haha today Alex and I explored the magical fun of ombre nails.  We used just a normal make-up sponge to do this, it was way easier than you would expect.

1 - Always use a base coat, this base coat allows you to easily remove the nail polish next time and helps your nail colour last longer! We used probably like 3 layers of the base colour, this nail polish was really thin though, so for some other nail colours you may only need one or two coats.

2 - Directly on the sponge, paint a strip of the base colour

3 - Making sure they overlap, swipe the second colour overtop of the base colour

4 - Sponge on the nail polish in small dabs, once the nail polish on the sponge is mostly used up, concentrate on the ends to blend it into the original colour.  Wait until your base colour is completely dry and make sure each layer of second colour is dry before applying a new layer.

5 - Once everything is dry, apply a clear coat so the colours blend more smoothly into each other.

Thanks Alex, we love you!

Feathered Nails

My lovely friend Alexandra will be helping me with this post. Usually on the weekends, we find these ridiculously crazy ideas and paint our nails. So we've decided to start documenting our exciting finds. So this weekend, we tried a new idea called "feathering" and it turned out freaking sick. 

Let's take a moment though, and admire my dear Alexandra's collection. Love life.

 

You need a small paint brush and glossy paper.

Paint all your nails with the base colour(s) but make sure you use two to three coats.

Use the small paint brush to make light strokes. Repeat as many times as necessary, but make sure you let each layer dry.

Add some cute little white dots on the rest of your nails for accents.

This is Alex! Isn't she so cute? Thanks, love! <3

Swirly nail tutorial.

So, I know you're probably busy doing the really neat nail thing I showed you over on Simply Sunstar in my last post.  But here's another cute nail tip.  Multi-colour swirls!:)

You can take your one colour nails like this:

(Sorry about the chips lol, I did it last night but had no time to post)

So you can get your nails to look like THIS:

(This picture was taken before I could remove the out polish off my skin.)

BUT all you need is a plastic or reusable cup, cold tap water, moisturizer and whatever choice(s) of nail polish.  As well as q-tips, toothpicks and nail polish remover.

1: Fill the cup about half an inch from the top with cold water.

2: Drop a drop of nail polish into the water.  (Try to make it towards the center)

3: Once it spreads (you'll see what I mean) place a different colour in the center of that colour.  And so on..

4: Take the toothpick and swirl the colours around to make a neat pattern.

5: Cover your hands with moisturizer to make it easy to take off.  But DO NOT GET ANY ON YOUR NAIL or it won't stick.

6: Dip the top of your finger into the cup, and lift up under a part of the pattern you like on your nail.

7: Remove the excess on the skin with nail polish remover and a q tip for careful removal.

8: Clear coat:)

Have fun, and be creative:):)