New Years Eve Outfit Ideas

Sparkles and Sequins

If you want a traditional New Year’s Eve look you should defiantly go with  sparkles and sequins. The key to looking beautiful and stylish is to not go overboard with the sparkles. A sparkly sequin dress is perfect if you don't wear any more. Sparkles and sequins are perfect for a big New Year’s Eve Party.

Shoes

Throughout the night on New Years you will probably be on your feet all day so it is best to pick comfortable and stylish shoes. Therefore you should make sure that not only your dress is comfortable, but also your shoes.

Make Up

New Year’s Eve is the perfect occasion for over the top make up. Be careful to concentrate on either your lips or your eyes. It can be to much if you have a sparkly dress. But if you have the right amount you can make your outfit look so much better 

2 Ideas

Dress: Nasty Girl Dress

Tights: Any Black Tights 

Clutch: Zara Box Clutch

Heels: Black Heels

Blazer: Mickey's Girl

Jeans: American Eagle

Heels: Black Heels

Tank Top: Les Pommettes

Celebrity Fashion Inspiration: Arianna Grande

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their winter break so far. 

Today I want to share another one of my favorite celebrity fashion inspirations, Arianna Grande. For those who aren't to familiar with Arianna, she is an actress, singer, and songwriter. Grande made her acting debut in the role of Charlotte in 13 on Broadway. Then she played Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon show Victorious and is now playing the role on the spin-off show Sam & Cat. She is also well known for her hit single “The Way” Ft Mac Miller.

Aside from her career,She has a amazing girly style. I mean who dosent love a crop top, skater skirt, sneakers, and high waisted denim. Even though people aren't as confident to try out this look.

Even though Arianna has a girly style, she also has a comfy style that every girl loves. Her cut out dresses and skater skirts are the cutest things I have ever seen, but sometimes I like a good pair of shorts and a T-shirt, that she wears with as much style as when she wears her dresses and skirts. 

What are your thoughts on Arianna? Do you like/hate her style?

Who Is your celebrity style inspiration? 

-Amanda

xoxo

Celebrity Fashion Inspiration: Kylie Jenner

Hello everyone and happy almost New Year! I hope everyone is enjoying their winter break so far. It’s unusually warm in New Jersey today considering its winter, so I plan to

go out and enjoy the weather before the cold weather comes again.

Today I want to share one of my favorite celebrity fashion inspirations, Kylie Jenner. For those who aren't to familiar with Kylie, she is a reality television star, model and ambassador for Seventeen Magazine. She is also well known for her appearance on the E! Realities TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” that she takes part of with her family. She is 16 and currently residing with her family in California. 

Aside from her career,She has a amazing style anyone can recreate. I mean everyone has the ability to pull off a collared shirt, denim, and boots. Though Kylie can pull this look off and look better than everyone while doing it. 

Even though Kylie Jenner has a comfy and casual style, she also has a girly side that would make any girl find her inner beauty. Her cut out dresses and skater skirts are the cutest things I have ever seen, even though on the pricey side they are easy to find replacements for. 

What are your thoughts on Kylie Jenner? Do you like/hate her style? In my opinion she experiments with her style in ways most teenagers only wish they had the courage to do. She can inspire us all to be daring. 

Who Is your celebrity style inspiration? 

-Amanda

xoxo

Last Minute Christmas Gifts

Hot Coco Mix 

This hot chocolate mix combines cocoa powder and chocolate chips for the best cup of hot chocolate you have ever tasted.

Cookie Bark

This delicious chocolate confection is easy and fun to make. 

What you'll need

• 20 creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookies (about half of an 18-ounce package)
• 
  
• 2 2/3 cups white chocolate chips or 2 2/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use with semisweet chips only)

How to make it

1. 
   
2. 1.)  Line a 9-inch-square baking pan with waxed paper. Coat the paper 
3. with nonstick spray; set it aside. Pour the cookies into a large bowl and break them into 
4. small pieces by hand or with the back of a wooden spoon, a job kids will love.
5. 
   
6. 
   
7. 2.)  Melt the white chocolate chips -- or the semisweet chips -- in a large microwave-safe bowl according to the package directions (add the extract after the chips have melted). Remove from the microwave and quickly fold in the cookie pieces with a spatula. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and spread to about a 1/2-inch thickness. Refrigerate until solid, about 1 hour.
8. 
   
9. 3.)  Remove the bark from the pan and carefully peel off the waxed paper. Set the bark on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut the bark into 12 bars for wrapping or 24 triangles for boxing as shown above. Store in an airtight container.

I-Tunes Gift Card 

This gift is possibly the best gift ever for anyone who has a Apple product. This gift is so easy to find and sold at practically any Drugstore. 

Mugs  

Mugs are a nice gift but also very boring. When you add your own touches it makes the gift so much better. All you need is a plain white mug and a few Paint markers and after that you can customize it however you want.

Candles  

Candles are one of the best gifts ever and the best ones are expensive half the time. So when I get one for free I am basically in heaven.

Winter Wardrobe Pieces

It's the most wonderful time of the year. You sang the song when you read that didn't you? Haha. That's right people it is December so winter has officially begun! Well at least it has for me. So I thought I share a few of my favorite wardrobe pieces that I love for the winter season.

Nice Warm Scarve

They keep you nice and warm and make you look super cute and put together. Its the best of both worlds!

Beanies and Slouchy Barets

These hats are just so cute and fun and can add a little edge to your outfit. They're also a great easy way to accessorize. 

Boots

Now I kind of have a weird relationship with boots. I love them and think they're so cute but I can never bring myself to actually buy them. I don't know why they like intimidate me or something. But I am currently on the search for the perfect pair of brown riding boots. And I really do think all boots, knee-highs, booties, tall, short, combat, riding, are so adorable and one of my favorite things that come back for the winter season.

Darker Nail Polishes 

I'm not really someone who wears certain colors depending on the season but in the winter and fall I just tend to gravitate towards darker colors when it comes to paint my nails. And yes I do paint own nails. I'm not going to spend $30 dollars on a manicure when I have my own capable hands that can do somewhat good job for free.

Leather Jackets 

I love leather jacket, faux of course, during the fall and winter season. And I'm going to try to do this new thing were I but a new jacket every winter season. I'm currently on a quest to attain a perfect black leather jacket and maybe even a red one. Out of all the items I have listed leather jackets are probably the hardest to pull off during the spring and summer times so you got to try to have as much fun with them as you can.

Last Minute Christmas DIY Projects

Card Tree

Save your mantel from a paper blizzard with this "tree." To craft it, you'll need two wood dowels. Cut them into five segments, starting with eight inches wide and enlarging each piece by two inches. Fold two yards of ribbon in half, then place the shortest dowel about six inches from the fold, spacing the rest about five inches apart from one another. Hot-glue so the dowels are sandwiched between the two ribbon tails. Attach your favorite greetings to the dowels with small binder clips and hang.

Advent Calendar

Count down the days until Christmas with little paper envelopes, sized to hold all sorts of surprises: candy, tickets, tiny toys. Use rubber stamps to ink the dates, and other motifs, on the envelopes. You can also embellish them by adding tags, string, washi tape, and clip art. Then, simply pin the envelopes on a pretty corkboard.

Honeycomb Wreath

Toilet-paper, paper-towel, and mailing tubes have never looked so fine. To upcycle yours into something front-door-worthy, use an X-Acto knife to cut each tube into two-inch slices. Then, lay a bowl (ours measured six inches across) rim down on a flat surface and arrange the cardboard slices around the bowl, using this photo as a guide. Hot-glue the slices where their sides meet. If you like, perch jingle bells inside.

Advent Calendar

Use ordinary grocery-store matchboxes to count down the days till Christmas. Just hot-glue the tops of empty boxes to one another to form rows (start with nine boxes for the base, and decrease by two until you have a single box). Cut wrapping paper to cover each section; secure with hot glue. Next, hot-glue the rows in a pyramid shape as shown. Use number stamps (available at craft stores) to mark the boxes 1 through 25, then fill with candy and trinkets.

Upgrade a Plain Glass Ornament

At around a dollar each, these empty orbs offer an affordable catalyst for creativity. Fill one with small wooden chips, another with a single stunning peacock feather (attached to the ornament's top with hot glue). Or compose a more obvious Christmas scene by dropping a model fir tree into a globe dusted with artificial snow. You can also use tweezers to position branches inside and even hot-glue a tiny cardinal in place. 

Photos courtesy of Country Living 

Photo Wreath

To make your own photo arrangement, hot-glue a selection of black-and-white snapshots (use copies if you're worried about ruining the originals) to a wire wreath form.

Healthy to ME

                           

Merriam Webster's Dictionary defines healthy as having good health : not sick or injured. If you know me you know i am a very health conscious person. The reason for this is because I love the feeling after I accomplish something that i wanted to reach, and honestly you feel so much better after you eat a few carrot sticks over a bag of chips. If you know me personally, you know I am a very health conscious person. I have always been interested in health, excersise, and sports. Starting 4 years ago I have decided to completely cut off fatty foods from my diet and my parents were very supportive of it too. 

Everyone knows you should be healthy, and everyone knows what foods are good for you and what food are bad for you, but we don't always choose the foods that are good for us. I believe this is because junk food is cheaper and more available to us. 

One reason I think this way is because I am a competitive swimmer and runner. Being a swimmer is very demanding and I often think why havent i quit yet, but it keeps me so focused and healthy and it is just a amazing feeling. And for girls it has a added bonous, because when you eat all healthy your skin has a natural glow, and clean feeling which means minimal makeup and pimples! 

When  people think of the word healthy they often think of a bikini model with washboard abs or a thigh gap. The word healthy to me means something totally different. It means to be felling good physically and mentally. To make sure you eat lots of vegetables and fruits and to exercise at least 1 time a week. It's not about being skinny or toned. It's about eating the right amount to fuel for your body to preform to its optimum level.

Twiggy Christmas Trees DIY

Tutorial: Twiggy Christmas Trees

You will need:

• a few twigs
• handsaw
• drill with small bit
• ribbon
• scissors
• large needle
• sandpaper
• liquid acrylic paints (optional)

1. Using the handsaw, cut your twigs into progressively smaller pieces. No need to be exact. Trust yourself and just wing it. Also cut several stubby bead-like pieces for the branch spacers.

2. Place them as in Photo #2 to make sure they all look good together. Trim any pieces that may be too long.

3. With the drill, drill holes into the centers of the twigs. Try to find the center of balance of each piece before you drill to ensure that both sides are balanced. For the bottom-most trunk piece, drill a hole down into the heart of the piece.

4. Sand all the ends with fine sandpaper.

5. Cut a piece of ribbon that is 1-1/2 times the height of your tree. Thread the ribbon into your needle. Starting with the bottom trunk, thread the ribbon through all the tree pieces leaving a tail hanging out the bottom.

6. Back at the top, turn that needle around and head back down the top three pieces leaving a loop at the top.

7. Making sure you have a nice long loop at the top, pull the end of the ribbon out between the third and fourth pieces and tie a knot as in Photo #7. Trim the excess ribbon end at the knot.

8. Nudge all wooden pieces together, slipping the knot inside one of the pieces to hide it. Make a large knot at the bottom end. Trim the excess ribbon.

9. (Optional) If you're a fan of color, beautify your trees with paint! Before assembling your tree (which starts at #5 by the way), paint all the twiggy pieces using liquid acrylic paints. I chose to go nuts with the stripes and polka dots but you can paint yours however you like. Get creative and make them one-of-a-kind spectacular!

Vanilla Bean Sugar

During the holidays im always trying out new recipes to share with my family or bring to holiday parties. This year I am hosting a holiday party and thought this was a perfect gift to give to the guests. 

Vanilla Bean Sugar

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Start to Finish: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 whole vanilla beans
• 4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 (1 quart) jelly jar or glass jar with tight fitting lid

Directions:

Slice one of the beans open down the side with a small knife and scrape all the seeds into the glass container. Add about a quarter of the sugar.

Then slice the other bean open but leave seeds intact. Place both beans in the jar and fill with remainder of sugar covering the beans. Cover with a tight fitting lid and let sit for at least a week before using.

Images courtesy of Cooking with Sugar 

Cooking Tips:

A cinnamon stick or two can also be added to this for a variation.

Use as you would any sugar.

Goes great in coffee or over oatmeal.

Rainbow Christmas Wreath Cake

This cake is sure to be the talk of the party. It’s super fun and easy to make, plus your sure not to clash with any other goodies people bring. This cake is really fun to make and twice as fun to see. Plus its priceless to see peoples faces when you slice the cake open. 

I start by mixing the cake mix according to the directions on the box and then pour 1/2 of the batter into a bowl then divide the other half equally into two other bowls. You’ll have three bowls of batter. I add some red food coloring to one of the quarters of batter and mix well and then some green food coloring to the other quarter and mix well.

I first pour the white cake batter into a greased Bundt pan, then the red batter, then the green batter and the remainder of the red and bake it in the oven according to the directions on the box.

Once cake is cool, I equally divide the frosting into 2 bowls. Microwave the white frosting for about 5-10 seconds on high then mix well with a spoon until it is smooth enough to drizzle over the cake.

With a spoon, I drizzle the white frosting back and forth around the whole ring in a striping pattern until I use all the frosting. Then microwave the other bowl. Before drizzling over cake, I mix in a few drops of green food coloring and then drizzle that back and forth. It’s a fun way to frost the cake. If you bake with your kids they will love this part. I then give it a sprinkle with some holiday sprinkles and that’s it. You will be amazed at how pretty it looks when you slice it. Trust me when I tell you that everyone will talk about this cake and want to know how you made it. As with all my recipes and tips don’t be afraid to get creative and use some red in the frosting or some golden cake with the red and green. It’s fun to make it your own way with this basic technique.

Images courtesy of Betty Crocker