SWEET NAILS & SWEET FOOD

First up - the nails. This was my NOTD a couple of days ago. I really liked this color combo. I have had a hard time finding a color combo where I liked the white shatter. So I was very nicely surprised by this. I want to wear this again in the near future. I used China Glaze - Moulin Rouge and then OPI - White Shatter. Then I added a skull sticker for fun.







Now for the food! These were desserts I made for the Fourth of July holiday.

Reese's Peanut Butter bottom cupcakes. Basically you put a resses peanut butter cup in the bottom of a foil cupcake liner before adding your cake batter and backing. Let me just tell you - heaven!!!!!!!!!! I used a devils food cake and homemade chocolate butter creme frosting.





Vanilla cupcakes with a light cream cheese butter creme frosting and red, white & blue decorations.




I made three kinds of brownies, but only took a picture of this one. The others were plain and caramel swirl. This one is a cheesecake swirl brownie topped with leftover chocolate butter creme frosting, chocolate sprinkles, vanilla crunch sprinkles and dark chocolate crumbles.

CANDY TOES

Those who have been reading my blog for a while know that I have a huge love for over the top Japanese style nail art. I just love it everything about it. When I did a review of some products from the Born Pretty store a while ago, I requested these little candy, sweets nail arts. I knew when I used them I wanted them to last, and I paint my nails way to often to use them on my hands. So I got with my awesome local nail salon POLISHED NAIL SALON, and Samantha created this wonderful pedi!

She was worried she was putting too much stuff on my toes, but I assured her, I wanted every inch covered! I wanted the most over the top, tacky, fun pedi we could do. I think she accomplished my goal and then some! Thanks Samantha and all the girls at POLISHED NAIL SALON for making my toes the talk of the town, lol.

MEET MY 94 YR OLD AUNT HELEN

Here is my Great Aunt Helen - she rocks! She is 94 and came all the way from California for a visit. I wish I could express how awesome this lady is. I am just so glad that she is here and that I am getting to spend time with her. I tried explaining to Little how awesome it is that he is getting to know his Great Great Aunt.

I'm planning an outside evening party this Saturday for her, so I have been a little side tracked this week. I do have 5 more Ruby Kisses polishes that I am going to show you though, so look forward to that.


I also wanted to share this epic food fail I had last night. I was attempting to do rainbow cakes. I didn't have blue & purple food coloring on hand, so I had to improvise a bit. I substituted one of the colors for black, so the black parts you are seeing ARE NOT burned.



This is what it looks like when the oh so carefully prepared cakes don't want to come out of the pan!! Grrrrrr, I was so upset about this.


I did fill the pans a bit too full and cut the over flow parts off, which you will see below:



Those look kinda cool though, right? I glazed these little rounds but have no clue what to do with the other mess of cake.

This pan was the culprit. After reading online today, I see regular no-stick spray doesn't work, which is what I used. I guess I need Baker's Joy and I also think I needed a thicker cake, this one might have have been a little too light. Live and learn I guess :)

NAIL BITER? I MIGHT START . . . .

Ok, no biting but maybe some finger lickin'. . .

You guys ever do a design and then after you are done realize you could have done it much better? Well that's how I felt after I did this. I am going to do it again with a different color combo. The pink cupcake didn't look pink enough, it looks red and green - total Christmas colors! Then to top it all off, it looks like Santa hats, lmao! Oh well, I am still loving it! I'm going to re-do this design tonight - better!

OREO STUFFED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

I know, I know!!! I haven't posted anything all week, and then when I finally do it's a huge, mouthwatering cookie!

I have been holding the fort down here at work while my boss has been on vacation this week, so I haven't had much time to make this a priority. I have been holding these pics all week if that makes anyone feel any better! :)

As soon as I saw these I KNEW I needed one in my mouth. These are awesome! Recipe can be FOUND HERE! I doubled my recipe since I was planning on taking some to my dad and sister over the weekend and I think it made the batter a little bit more thick and mine didn't "melt" down as much as the original recipe, but the taste was still out of this world! Especially good fresh out of the oven when the oreo creme center is all warm and gooey and melty :)




These cookies are HUGE!!! Which one is like eating three cookies, so you don't need many of them.

I'M A MEAN ONE :)

I was back at it again in the kitchen, making some more cupcakes. I made these per the request of my Mom, so that she could give them to some one. She requested a death by chocolate cupcake, and I think I delivered.

These are mini cupcakes, since it was so chocolatey I thought a full size one might be a bit much. They are a butter fudge cake topped with chocolate icing then dipped in chocolate and drizzled with white chocolate. They looked like the dipped cones you get at Dairy Queen. I'm calling them Death by Dairy Queen :)

LET'S START THE DAY OFF RIGHT

Just a little something I whipped up last night :P

Banana cupcakes with a chocolate ganache filling and peanut butter icing topped with a banana chip that was dipped in a peanut butter & chocolate glaze . . . . .ENJOY!

PS This totally ties in with nail polish - I'm doing all Icing brand polishes today :)

DINKY UPDATE

First - no she hasn't had the babies yet, dang it!! lol I have been bringing her with me to work everyday to keep an eye on her for signs that she is going into labor. She has a comfy little bed I made her out of a box that has blankies and toys and a pet bed warmer in it. As you can see from the pictures, she is pretty content with it. So no baby news yet, but you can bes' believe as soon as I know something I will let you all know.



Even pregnant - she still has her America's top dog model going on!!


I have been super busy making tons of Christmas candy too! Me and Little were in the kitchen a good 2 hours making coconut bon bons, chocolate covered peanut butter balls, peanut clusters, toffee, peanut brittle and thin mint cookies. He was really an awesome helper!



These were the thin mint cookies and they were soooo easy to make and soooo good that I wanted to share the recipe with you all.

Andes Mints
Ritz crackers
Sprinkles

Melt your Andes mints, dip and totally cover your Ritz cracker, move to a cooling rack or baking sheet lined with wax paper, add sprinkles.

These cookies are to die for! I promise you can't tell it is a cracker at all, they taste awesome.


Lastly, in the middle of Christmas candy and Baby watch 2010 I agreed to make 24 cupcakes for a lady's son's party, so yeah, I've been a little bit busy as of late. I hope to at least get one or two nail related posts up this week, but I can't promise anything.

Hope everyone is having a great week :)

STRAWBERRY NAILS FOR STRAWBERRY FEST

Happy Friday! I'm heading out of here early today. Me, Mom and Little are headed to Stillwell, Oklahoma to attend the Strawberry Festival. I have always wanted to go, but this is the first year of us actually going. There will be a rodeo and carnival tonight, and then Saturday there will be a parade, a crowning of the Strawberry Queen (squeee, lol) plus food and arts and crafts vendors. Stillwell is about three hours away from here (Oklahoma City) and is almost to the Arkansas border. I plan on taking tons of pictures and hope to have some great stories to tell you all on Monday.

Of course I went with strawberries for my nails! Duh!!! My stamping skills weren't at their best, but I was a little rushed last night to get them done. I just stamped over my base of OPI - Let Them Eat Rice Cake and Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure. Look how well it has held up! This is almost the fourth day of this base coat mani!






Here is a sneak peak of my Birthday cake from last night. I want to say THANK YOU to all that stopped and wished me a Happy Birthday yesterday - it means a lot to me girls :)

If you want to see more pics of my cake and the wonderful dinner my Mom made for me last night, head over to Polishing Off . . . for all the details!