Are You Ready To Rumble?!

Its been quite some time since I've posted anything on here, almost a year! I got busy with life and I wasn't doing much that was worth documenting on here. I've been working on a few projects with crochet (which I'll be doing a blog post about shortly), working out a little, but mostly.... not doing much. I have two crochet projects that I'm currently working on that I know will end up being some awesome progress posts, but both I'm thinking are going to be huge afghans so they will take quite some time!
I was going to make some promises about what I'd be putting out, trying to be proactive about posts and actually post a few times a week. Let's be honest though, I don't have the best track record with doing that. It's not the easiest thing to do when there are quite a few days in my week that consist of playing video games or browsing the internet all day long. I'm super excited to be back for however long I have the motivation because it really inspires me to keep something up that helps me remember the little things about my life that I don't really remember after a few months or even a few days.

I'm so excited to be back right now though. Here's to.... consistancy?

Radio Silence

I've been super quiet lately, I know... buuuut... I have a reason. Archimedes has two weeks of 12 hour days with only one day off, which may seem like I have a ridiculous amount more time on my hands and I DO! But I've been using it to crochet and play my NEW favorite game that just came out. I've been excited about Borderlands: The Pre-Sequal for MONTHS and I just can't get enough of it. If your asking, no, I haven't even put a clear coat on my nails since I last showed you them although this game is giving me ideas for some cool borderlands inspired nails? Eh?

Well we'll see.
Back to my game and hot chocolate.

Manicure Monday ~ On a TUESDAY! Fall Nails

Yeah.. yeah.. I know. I said I'd be back on Monday with a new post, but I ended up spending the majority of my day deep cleaning the cat's automatic litter box. Super fun right? Anyways, I have a double wammy for you to make up for it. Two manicures at the SAME TIME! Both nail designs are super cute for Fall, the first one a French Tip and the second a full nail design.

The first French Tip manicure I've done for Fall this year is this one! The orange glittery French Tip was done with OPI's A Woman's Prague-ative which is one of the prettiest orange-red glitter polish's I've ever had. I love using it in Autumn because it reminds me of leaves and all the wonderful decorations Archimedes won't let me get from the store. I thought the French Tip at this point was a little boring so I added e.l.f.'s Gold Star over the top, stopping about halfway up my nail. I love the little golden glitter pieces and the few random big chunky glitter. It made it a sort of Ombre nail while still having a strong French Tip line.

Here they are, looking magnificent.

This was literally the next day. I went to Archimedes flag football game and somehow left with my middle nail broken off. It was quite depressing since all my nails have been getting so long. 

The second nail I've done for my Fall Nails is a taupe and blood red design with gold accents. I recently purchased an e.l.f. nail polish sampler that included 10 miniature polishes. I picked it up at Burlington Coat Factory for around $5 and have been enjoying testing all of its colors. The taupe in this set looked extraordinarily purple and didn't even know it was taupe til I looked at the name "Taupe of the World. Once I gave it a good shake it looked much more taupe, but it is quite purple-y. I was even going to try to take a picture of it to show you how lavender it actually looks, but the camera actually made it look quite.... taupe. ANYWAYS! On to the manicure. The blood red color is Essie's Limited Addiction over the e.l.f. Taupe of the World.

To attach the golden detail fixtures, I use an old bottle of Seche Vite that's gone too sticky to use as a topcoat anymore, but is really quite a perfect glue.

 Thank you so much for your patience with my lack of presence in the past week. Let me know if you would like another Recipe Wednesday! I've got one lined up all ready to go.

~À Bientôt

Absence Excuse and Date Night

Now, I know I haven't blogged in a short while.. I have a good excuse I promise. My mom was in town bringing my things to the new apartment and exploring all of the new city with me. Then of course unpacking and sorting through for a second time far too many boxes for one person to have. Since she left I've been unpacking and going to Archimedes Flag Football games they had on base between the squadrons. Excitingly, they won, despite starting out their first practice wondering if there were going to be enough people to even play.

I'm ready to get back in the swing of things this next week after a nice break with my mom and then spending some quality time with Archimedes. Tonight we're having a dinner & a movie date night. I'm really excited because believe it or not, we've never been to the movies together before.

Manicure Monday ~ OPI Bond Skyfall Collection Mani

It's been two years since the OPI Bond Skyfall Collection came out and it's still one of my favorites. I got a few of the miniature sizes for Christmas 2012, instant love ensued. I used up the entire sample size of OPI's Tomorrow Never Dies so I decided to buy the full size. This color is gorgeous and easily a base for any gorgeous manicure.

My favorite pairing in this collection is Tomorrow Never Dies and Golden Eye. Tomorrow Never Dies is a wonderful blue with a sheen more than a sparkle. Unlike a lot of blue colors that OPI makes, it doesn't really have any flecks of other colors, just dark and light blue that makes for a gorgeous navy color. Golden Eye is the best accent gold I've ever had. It truly looks like flecks of gold as you would see if you panned gold or something of the sort; small, but uneven in size is what gives it a very natural (less chunky glitter) look. When you paint it on your nail, one swipe leaves an evenly dispersed amount of gold and can easily be intensified with an extra coat.

This is how I put them together today in a simple golden ombre from the top of the nail over the top of the blue.

Thank's for reading guys, let me know if you like this "Manicure Monday" thing. I really enjoy doing it because I do my nails all the time anyways, certainly at least once a week. Have a great day!

~À Bientôt

Over 1000!

I've gotten over 1,000 page views. I know that's not big and I honestly don't have a lot of followers, but my blog has been viewed over 1,000 times! That's super exciting to me! Thank you all for reading my silly little musings and please, continue to view it, comment even! :) This has most certainly made my day.

Baking a Cake in a Silicone Mold ~Recipe Wednesday on a Thursday

I did some inspirational baking yesterday and it came in the form of a chocolate cake! Now, I got this recipe from tasteofhome.com and it's a chocolate Dr. Pepper cake. I'm immensely excited because I've had a few cakes with soda in them, but I've never made one myself so I didn't know how it would end up. I made a few adjustments based on what I happened to have lying around today. In my experience, improvisation is one of the best ways to find new, delicious foods.

This is the list of ingredients from the website:

1 package German chocolate cake mix, regular size   1 package (3.4 ounces) instant chocolate pudding mix   4 eggs   1 can (12 ounces) Dr Pepper   1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Read more: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/dr-pepper-cake#ixzz3Cl87IiMD

This is the list of ingredients with my replacements:

• 1 package of Devils Food cake mix, regular size
• 1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1 can (12 ounces) Dr Pepper
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

They also suggested to put it into 3, 9 inch round baking pans, but I don't happen to have any round baking pans. All I have are a few silicon cake molds that are ABSOLUTELY adorable from Ikea. They are the Sockerkaka line of cake molds and you can find them right here! I have all three styles of molds that they have, but for this cake I decided to use the heart shaped one. 

I followed the mixing directions exactly :

• In a large bowl, combine cake and pudding mixes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in Dr Pepper and vanilla. 

I then transferred it into the greased heart shaped silicon mold, all of it. I wasn't sure how this would turn out for me since the recipe recommended more cake pans, but the molds are actually quite tall, double the height of a normal cake pan so I had HOPED it wouldn't cook over the height of the pan as the batter only came to its midpoint. 

As the oven was heating to its recommended 350°, the lovely maintenance people from my apartment came to replace my dishwasher. It took a while and I didn't put the cake in the whole time they were here.

The cake ended up being so large I had to turn the oven down to 200° and cooked it for around an hour. Looking back I would have distributed it into different pans because having all the batter in the one cake mold was just too much.

FINAL RESULT:

 I decided it needed a little bit of frosting, so I made a glaze with store-bought dark chocolate frosting, put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, spooned some into a bowl and added just a smidgen of Dr. Pepper. I poured the mixture all over the cake and bam! It was delicious!