Baking: BANANA BREAD

Guys I found a cool recipe! It is ONE BANANA BANANA BREAD! I found it HERE. I've made it twice so far (two loaves each time) and it is fool-proof and has few ingredients and tastes like banana.

Okay, so basically you get all the ingredients and dump them all in a big bowl. I doubled the recipe but here's 1x:

1 egg

Milk until egg+milk = 1 cup (I used almond milk here! yum!)

0.5 cup butter

1.5 cups flour

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

and of course, one banana!

Everything in the bowl! I mixed it by hand and it didn't take long though you can totally use a mixer (those things scare me though, I avoid them at all costs). Mix it until most of the lumps are gone, but not too much or it'll be too dense.

Fill the loaf pans two-thirds full!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 55 minutes.

The toothpick test was the perfect check. Breakfast is served!

It was pretty much gone the second it came out of the oven so no pics of the sliced up pieces. Yum! Let me know if you try this. Do you have any favourite recipes?

My first experience with studs! (except Branden of course ;D)

I really really really wanted to do something with that gorgeous colour and drew up a blank, so I just dug into my Sharpie pouch and pulled out GOLD. I also knew I wanted to incorporate the new studs (Sally Hansen!) that I got for Christmas from Branden's cousins and aunt/uncle).
Anyway, obviously I started with Formula X for Sephora Cosmic (what a name) and then just started drawing lines with the gold sharpie. I knew where I wanted the stud, so I added a layer of topcoat (which of course caused the sharpie to run everywhere :( ) and then pressed in the stud with this handy little tool that the kit came with. It'll pick up and let go of them when you want it to for the most part.

Anyway, I talk too much!!

It looks alright from a distance! What's your favourite manicure with studs? I need ideas! I still have silver and black ones to try out, and a bunch of loose gorgeous glitter too! Send things my way :D

Swatch: Formula X for Sephora Cosmic

This polish is going to have so much sentimental value for me forever because one of my students from last semester gifted it to me and she is so bloody cute, you don't even know.

LOOKIT IT WAS WRAPPED <3

She drew all over the box with jokes and compliments and T_T I don't know what I did to deserve it but eeeee.

AND THEN I OPENED LE BOX. (The bottom box was beautiful chocolates that I'm afraid to eat because they look so beautiful and fancy).

In the bottle, Cosmic looks like Max Factor type polishes - purple with a red shimmer throughout. To get this effect on my nails though, took three coats because that shit is BLUE! Threw me for a loop haha! The red shimmer eventually purples it all out but if you look closely the combination leaves this wonder effect of a mix of red, blue and purple.

Eeeehhh it's gorgeous <3 Thank you bun! <3 <3

Have you guys picked up any of Sephora's new Formula X? (The formula is great by the way, and the brush too.) What colours should I check out (oh god what has she begin? XP)

Pokemon #12: Ice

AAAHHHH A POKEMON POST. Now that the pressure's off, it seems some of the creative juices are flowing. I left the NCC before the new year since I couldn't really keep up, and hopefully this gets it all going again this year.

Anyway, ICE. I started with Essence You Belong To Me (which still looks sky blue to me!) and layered Essie Shine of the Times. When this dried up to look acceptably icy, I broke out the acrylic paint and swept a beautiful sea creature across my fingers...

I like it! It looks fine EXCEPT FOR THE HORRIBLE BLEEDING SHARPIE FACE D: Don't use Sharpie for small details, okay guys. I must be out of the loop because I tried it anyway. SIGH! I still like them though, they're cuties, even if they do look unbearably sad.

Anyway, I think the inlinkz is so old I'm really only advertising for everyone else but they deserve the attention, they did amazingly <3

Swatch: Jindie Nails Moon Walk

I gotta admit, I have no idea what this name means, and though the pink colour is beautiful the glitter didn't really come out of the bottle.... It's really disappointing. Good thing it's a mini, I would NEVER get through a full size. I did get this in a grab bag from that giveaway from A Painted Nail though. That's pretty freaking awesome (like she is!)

Anyway, I believe I did three coats. The pink jelly is quite gorgeous, I wish there wasn't any glitter to distract me at all, actually.

These pictures look way better than I remember....

There's one more Jindie coming up but tell me what your favourite is!

Swatch: Jindie Dancing With The Stars

Obviously I couldn't leave a solid colour alone! A couple months ago, I had won a giveaway from A Painted Nail when I got a grab bag from Harlow&Co. It included several Jindie's, including Dancing with the Stars! I don't know if I did this one proper justice over Julep Nadia but here you go.

I had to dab a little bit and the pieces weren't entirely flat so I don't think this is my favourite glitter ever... I still have two more to try though, so keep an eye out!

What's your favourite Jindie?

Swatch: Julep Nadia

Yet another from the Julep Black Friday sale, Nadia is a lightly frosted pale yellow that has a gorgeous silvery shimmer that actually reminds me of my first OPI: So You Vant To Be A-Lone Star.

I did two coats. It seemed a little thick but that might have been the brush... Anyway, I didn't really have any problems with this. It survived quite nicely without any topcoat =3

Shiny! Did you get anything good at black friday sales?

GUEST POST: OCC Lip Tars!

Happy hump day!

Man, I have been sitting on these forEVER. I'm sorry about that, because I've basically deprived you of my friend's gloriously luscious lips for far, far too long. Last year she swatched all her new lip tars for me and they are freaking beautiful. Her name is Bri and she is extremely active on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. She does all sorts of make up, especially gore and creepy stuff and she is really really good at it.

I asked her to tell me about applying the lip tars and this is what she figured you would need to know.

1. Use the tiniest drop of lip tar and start at the center of lips, work outwards. A little goes a long way.2. Conceal your lip completely.
Optional: Nude lip liner if you have some.
They're also all vegan, for those of you that care for that kind of thing!
Anyway, we've got ten colours here.

Annika

Batty

Beta

Chlorophyll

Grandma

January Rising

Kava Kava

Lovecraft

RX

Triptych

Direct quote: "Don't over-draw like a drag queen like I did unless you secretly want to be a drag queen (like I do)." ;D

Bri also notes that they are amazing for mixing, and for that her favourite is RX, though she does love Grandma pretty hard too.

What do you think? Go tell Bri how awesome she is! (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)

Swatch: I Love Nail Polish Truffle Shuffle

I had to do something with that Julep Kai textured mess from last time since it wouldn't dry and it looked terrible so I chose a glitter topper that had been waiting for the perfect base colour.

ILNP Truffle Shuffle is from the Valentine collection and I picked this one up on sale the same time I ordered the Ultrachromes =3 It has various sized red and pink hexes that come out of the bottle and off the brush super easily.

I got some nice compliments, including one that called these robin egg nails.

That night I was going bowling and the best thing about that is BLACK LIGHTS :D This meant I could pull out my WarPaint Blacklight topcoat and put it to the test. It aced!

So glowy! Sorry about the terribly grainy photos, I'm not sure why that happened, but rest assured the WarPaint blacklight polishes definitely work.

Do you have any fun topcoats or glitters?