cute stripes nail design

It's finals week and I'm stressed. I've been studying all weekend, so I took a break this morning and painted my nails while I made granola (more on that later).

It's super simple. Basically, here's the colors I used:

You can just ignore that gold one on the right. I didn't end up using it. Anyway, I just bought that Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polish the other day and was eager to use it. It's wonderful! It took one coat to get the purest opaque color ever! I also used Freja by Zoya (my favorite brand. ever.) which is actually a metallic polish, so it needs 2 coats. Here's a picture after the base coat and first coat of color:

I've found that when painting nails with two colors, it adds a nice accent if one nail is painted opposite of the others. Anyway, I let them dry, added a second coat to the silver, and painted the stripe. The Insta-Dri dried a little too quickly, so it ended up bumpy, but here's a picture:

As you can see, I just painted a thick stripe diagonally across the nail. This design is very forgiving and allows you to fix any wavy lines by going back over it or making it wider. Just as a general guideline: when you paint your nails with a design, it's best to leave one or two nails solid. Otherwise it might end up looking tacky.

Done! Personally, I prefer to not have symmetrical hands (accent nails and solid nails on the same fingers), but it's all in how you like it. Also, just ignore the nail polish I got on my fingers. I may have been a little careless, since it washes off easily =)

oh! headband.

Remember in first grade, when the girls all made friendship bracelets? Well I got back into that, but I didn't make a bracelet...

I made a cute little woven headband with elastic in the back.

yay! haha. I wove it (notice it isn't braded. there are 5 wide cords and a thin gold strand). It can be worn all cute and bohemian-like, with the entire headband over the hair, or simple and sophisticated the way a normal headband is worn.

I'm not quite sure what the wider cords are made of.. I should have checked when I was at the store. But I'll be be going back soon, so no worries. The cords are made of 100% rayon, so they're nice and smooth. Seriously. I wear headbands pretty much all the time. It's a bit of an obsession.

As you can see, it's really simple to make. The most time-consuming part is the weaving, and that's not bad at all. Here's a closeup:

The best part about this headband? It cost practically nothing! Definitely cheaper than buying them from a store..

cherry blossom birthday.

Apparently I've been on a cake craze recently.

Last Thursday was my birthday and, of course, I wanted to make my own cake. Since every other cake I've ever made in my life (two) has been fun or childish-looking, I decided to do something a little more simple and elegant(ish).

The answer? A vanilla cake with lemon filling, topped with cherry blossoms.

It was really yummy! Basically, it was a Pillsbury Classic Yellow cake with lemon Snack Pack pudding for the filling. Since I'm such a picky person, I decided that if I'm going for the elegant look, I would need a square cake. So I did the obvious thing that anyone would do: I went out and bought two 8x8 pans. (yay! My future kitchen has a few more items in the cupboards.)

Ok. Back to the story. So basically, I baked two 8x8 square cakes, let them cool, then cut the tops off so they aren't all uneven on the top. Then comes the filling.  Here's what I used:

Personally, I don't really like the flavor by itself, but it tasted delicious with the cake! A little trick I learned a while back was to put some icing around the edge of the cake before adding the filling. It keeps the pudding from oozing out the sides.

I used two of those individual cups of pudding, but I can't remember the exact amount, because I think I ate some of the pudding beforehand. But anyway, I then placed the other cake upside down on top of the cake with icing and filling. (remember? I cut the tops off of the cakes, exposing the inside. It's a lot easier to ice the cake if the crumbly inside of the cake is not on the outside).

Next I iced and decorated it.. I decided that since I didn't make the cake mix or the filling, I should probably make the icing from scratch.. so I did. And I added some of those lemon packets that you add to water to make it yummy (my dad's idea). So yep. that's it. Here's an up close picture

aaaannndddd.... last picture. a view of the cake after it was cut...