Getting ready for Maui!

I leave for Maui in just a few short hours. I decided to get my fingers and toes ready for the occasion.

My fingers are my new Honeydew by Fresh Paint. Toes are Dreamy Poppy by Wet n Wild.

Make-up Storage

I have seen countless nifty storage ideas on Pinterest and elsewhere for the gobs of make-up that we seem to invariably collect. I'd love to use lots of those ideas someday, but all too often they involve space and/or wall mounting that I just don't have the option for right now. And so, my current solution is to have it out on my dresser in as nice a fashion as I could come up with. Why my dresser? Because there is zero space in the bathroom for it, and it's one of the only large flat surfaces in the apartment not being utilized in some other way.

As you can see, a few other things have wiggled their way on there, namely jewelry and the alarm clock. The alarm clock lives there and not by the bed so that if I use it, I have to physically get out of bed in order to turn it off.

And now for a closer look, going from left to right:

These three things are actually new additions to the dresser. In the back is a little bucket with all of my combs and hair brush. It used to have cotton balls in it, but I found something better for those. In front of it are two pieces of a box that I'm using to hold all my lipsticks and chapsticks. I may re-do the outside so it goes better with everything else or eventually replace it with a different container. However, it's a big improvement over the bag they used to be in. It's much easier to look, see all my options, and then grab the one I want.

Next is all my tin can and glass votive storage. My e.l.f. brushes are in a tin can and my other random brushes/beauty tools are in a glass jar that used to have a candle in it. Eye liner and mascara each get their own can. I modified the tin cans by glueing clips from magazines/advertisements on them to make them fun and colorful. In the front are two cleaned out Bath and Body Works candles, one of which has bobby pins in it and the other which has yet to be repurposed. You can see I still have a card of pins chilling off to the side. Eventually those will all end up in the jar too.

These are some storage containers I got from the dollar store a long time ago. In the first big one is all my Clinique eye shadow, my e.l.f. cream shadows, and a couple random square shadows. In the back small container is all the rest of my eye shadows, mostly single color shadows from various brands. The front small container has all my blush and my body shimmer (goodness knows the last time I used that). In the other long container is all my foundation, loose powder, bronzer, and concealer. (My favorite blush from Physician's Formula somehow jumped over there apparently; I'll have to put him back later.)

This is the random not-really-make-up section. Mostly it's jewelry, the rest of which lives in the top drawer of the dresser with my underwear and bras. But there is also my owl box with all my fragrance in it. In the front are the two I wear most (Midnight Pomegranate and Dark Kiss from Bath and Body Works). I'm actually starting to get low on both. In the back is Calyx that I got from ELLE and Forever Red from Bath and Body Works. The Calyx I'll randomly wear, but it's not my favorite as it doesn't stick around all day. The Forever Red is the first real perfume I've actually enjoyed.

Finally, I have three old candle jars full of cotton goodness. In the back, two Yankee Candle jars filled with q-tips and cotton rounds and, in the front, an off brand jar full of cotton balls. Like I mentioned, the cotton balls used to be in the blue bucket, but we recently polished off another candle, so the cotton balls get to be in a nice glass container now too.













And that is the exciting, exciting world of the top of my dresser! Now I'm off to finish folding the four loads of laundry I did today- not so exciting.

The Return of the Winged Eyeliner

Last week I needed a pick-me-up and so I decided to go out on a limb and try to do a heavy winged liner. It came out much better than I had hoped, though it was still a little on the wobbly/unmatched side. Once again, I used my e.l.f. liquid liner. I went with a nice, light pink pretty much everywhere else on my face so as to let the liner stand out and not overpower my face with make-up, since it was just a work day after all. I got a ton of compliments on it.

Eyes open

Eyes closed (the wobble is more noticeable here)

Beginning of the day

Near the end of the day, at work

When you have one sad banana- Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies

Frequently we buy a couple of bananas to put in smoothies. Unfortunately frequently, we also only get around to using one of them until it starts to get brown. If we notice quickly, we can just throw it in a smoothie anyways. Another time, it was both of them that went brown, and so I made muffins or bread (don't remember which, but both use two bananas). However, last week, we had just one banana hang around and get very, very overripe. Which left me with a conundrum. All the recipes I usually use bananas in need TWO bananas. After a bit of internet searching, I stumbled on a cookie recipe from Martha Stewart that only needed ONE banana. Hallelujah! I modified it slightly as I don't use whole wheat flour or keep semi-sweet chocolate bars in the house.

Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup banana (about one banana)
1 cup quick oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts

1) Mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a mixer (or by hand if you're foolish like me) cream butter and sugars. Add beaten egg and vanilla to sugar-butter mix. Add banana. Stir in the flour mix to the butter-banana mix until completely combined. Stir in the oats. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

2) Drop approximately 1 1/2" balls of dough onto baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Cook for 12-13 minutes at 375 degrees until golden brown and set. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

They're super easy and fairly quick. Best of all, they're delicious! Mike still hasn't tried them, as he's not  a huge fan of banana, so I ended up throwing most of them in the freezer. They're delicious re-heated, or re-heated under a pile of vanilla ice cream. I also feel slightly better about eating too many of them since they have a few good-for-you things in them.

Chocolate Chip Scones

I love scones. But I especially love chocolate chip scones. For quite a while, they became the breakfast food Mum made on Christmas morning, and I have carried on that tradition. However, they are so quick and easy that they're actually a good thing to make when you have work later in the day, but still have a little bit of time to bake in the morning. Like today! I got up early in an effort to shift my sleep schedule for Monday (long, early carp day). This is yet another recipe from Mum.

Chocolate Chip Scones
2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup chocolate chips
(or 1/2 chopped dried fruit and/or nuts)
1 beaten egg
2/3 cup milk

1) Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in butter until pea sized (like for biscuits). Add chocolate chips (or fruit/nuts). Make a well and add egg and milk. Stir with a fork until soft dough forms.

2) Knead 8-10 times on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough in two. Pat into 6 inch circles. Cut each circle into 6 wedges. Transfer to a greased baking sheet (leave at least 1/4-1/2 inch in between scones). [Optional: Brush tops with milk and sprinkle with raw sugar. I omit this step.]

3) Bake at 375 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until tops beging to get golden brown. Remove from pan and serve.

You could make these plain and make lemon curd to go with them. I love them with chocolate chips. You could also do cranberries and walnuts, or really anything you like. But chocolate chips make husbands like them. ;)

Okay, time to go do a two show day.

Dry Shampoo Times Two!

Dry shampoo is one of my favorite things. Many people use it as an extra volume boost, but mainly I use it to help my second-day hair. My scalp and hair get angry if I wash it every night, so I usually do every other day. However, the second day, it can be a little greasy. For a while I just used baby powder as a dry shampoo, but I threw together a couple different kinds of shampoo recently that have been working quite well. One is a dry formula and the other is wet (which I guess means it's not technically dry shampoo?).

Dry Shampoo- Oatmeal
Ground oatmeal (I used a coffee grinder)
Baking soda
Cocoa powder

I can't say exactly how much of each I put it. It is mainly finely ground oatmeal, with a pinch of baking soda, and enough cocoa powder to color it. I'd been using this one for a while and am pretty happy with it. The container I have it in is a shaker, so I just shake it on, let it sit for a little while, and then comb it through to get any little oatmeal bits out.

Dry Shampoo- Wet
1 Tbsp cornstarch

4 Tbsp water

1 Tbsp rubbing alcohol

Mix together everything in a spray bottle. Shake before using (the cornstarch likes to separate). Comb through. Blow dry if necessary. I usually just let it air dry. I made this one after I cut my bangs. They are all crazy the second day and I need something to tame them back into place as well as de-grease them a little bit. This works perfectly. Lilly is actually the one who recommended this one to me.

Strawberry Cobbler

I mentioned the other day at work that the piggies like strawberries. Noah had bought a large quantity of strawberries, but they got a little over-ripe before he finished them. So he gave them to me for the piggies. I decided that they were salvageable, though, and made a cobbler with them. This is Mum's cobbler recipe and she usually made it with raspberries or blackberries, but I figured there was no reason why the strawberries wouldn't work. And don't worry, I did give a few strawberries to the piggies and they get all the strawberry tops.

Strawberry Cobbler goodness

Fruit Cobbler
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar (plus ~2 Tbsp)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk
2 cups fruit

1) Put butter into two quart baking dish and place in oven to melt as the oven preheats to 350 degrees.

2) Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and milk. In a separate bowl, add ~2 Tbsp sugar to the fruit of your choice (more for tart fruit). Make sure there are no stems, tops, etc. and that the fruit is in bite sized pieces.

3) Carefully remove baking dish from oven. Pour the batter over the butter (don't mix it into the batter!). Pour the fruit over the top of the batter. Bake for 45 minutes or until the center of the dough is firm and the edges are golden brown. (Like always, I had to add about 10 minutes to this cooking time.)

I could have made Strawberry Shortcake, but you really want whipped cream with that. We do have vanilla ice cream and cobbler goes perfect with ice cream. I am super excited to have some before we go to work.