Cupcakepalooza

Helloooo!

So this past weekend I decided to make some cupcakes for my friend's birthday (which is today). I really wanted to surprise him because honestly, who doesn't like surprises that makes you feel special?

Honestly, you know I have too much time on my hands when I have time to properly plan out a whole cupcake sampler loaded with a plethora of symbolism and small details that no one would notice or even care about but me. So here we goooooooo.

Flavours. Obviously I needed to think about how many of what I was going to make.I know what some of his favourite ones are but I have no idea how to go about making them (or really have the finances to do so). I already spent a ton of money as it was. Do you know how much butter goes into homemade frosting? Especially when you're not only making homemade buttercream, but also making 6 different types? Nope, didn't think so. Okay, enough block rambling, here are some pictures to keep you entertained whilst I explain  :)

The flavours I decided on were : coconut, lemon, coffee, carrot, amaretto/caramel, and peanut butter.

What I ended up making were: Coconut (chocolate dipped), Lemon, Espresso, Carrot, Peanut Butter (chocolate dipped), and Cream Cheese with Caramel Drizzle.

Okay so, I originally exed out the amaretto because I thought caramel would be more appealing/ I didn't want to buy amaretto (or even almond extract). Finances were a smidge tight. So decided to make caramel. As luck would have it, I burned the caramel sauce that I was making, and therefore it was completely inedible. I didn't have time or supplies to remake it, so I went with what I had: a TONNE of cream cheese frosting. We have caramel drizzle in the house, so I used that to jazz it up a little.

The cupcakes are supposed to say
"H A P P Y   B I R T H D A Y
T H O M A S !   X <3 O

Symbolism 1: Number - Since he was turning 26 I thought, "hey, why not make 26 cupcakes?" Genius, I know. Then I had to think of how many of each flavour I wanted to make to create an effective sampler. Seems simple, right? Yeah, well my specialty is making everything complicated. Finally I decided on the placement/ layout of the cupcakes and decided which words would fit on the cupcakes to make an effective birthday message. 

Picked these little paper liners up at Sainsbury's in London last October. I thought they were absolutely precious!

This is only the first round of butter too...

Symbolism 2: Cupcake Holders - All the "outside" cupcakes have the British guard cupcake holders. The one cupcake in the middle is the only one with the Union Jack cupcake holder. It's like they're surrounding and protecting the flag :)

Honestly, it was harder to take a picture of myself cracking the egg one handed than it was to actually crack the egg haha

First batch complete! All the cupcakes had a vanilla base (except the carrot cake ones, obviously)

Symbolism 3: Colours - He is very into football (soccer) and his favourite team is Manchester United, so I frosted the words in the team's colours current and old (hence the red, yellow, and green). Also, I thought this whole British theme would be cute because he, just like I am, is very appreciative of British culture.

Had to have my sassy companion in the kitchen with me. He didn't appreciate it when I sang Jesse McCartney's "Beautiful Soul" at him when it came on my Pandora though...

ANDDDDD after many long hours and bowl washings, piping bag incidents, frosting failures, detours, and hurdles, I finally finished my project. It only took about 9 hours... I definitely should have spaced everything out over two days. At least they were fresh though?

Here are some of the cupcakes after I finished them :)

Cream cheese frosted with caramel drizzle

Symbolism 4: "Ice cream" Cake - Thomas's favourite cake is ice cream cake, but since I could not use ice cream (for they would melt), I decided to make a center piece out of an ice cream sundae cupcake.

Chocolate ganache dipped, vanilla frosted with chocolate and caramel sauces drizzled. Garnished with a maraschino cherry

Lemon frosted with a lemon peel garnish

Chocolate ganache dipped, peanut butter frosted. Garnished with half a Reeses

Chocolate ganache dipped, coconut buttercream frosted. Garnished with half a Mounds bar

Finally, the whole project looked like this in the end:

I just wish I had taken a picture of when it was laid out for him to see. It looked much nicer than this.
HAPP - Peanut Butter
Y_BI - Cream Cheese w/ Caramel
RTHD - Coconut
AY X <3 O - Carrot
THOM - Espresso
AS!_ - Lemon

That's it for now! Let me know if you have any questions or want to know any of the recipes/ tips for these cupcakes. I'm sorry the pictures are so awful. :( I wish I had finished the cupcakes during the daytime so I would have decent photos. Hopefully next time they will look prettier.

love, xo

Anxiety is not something to be trifled with

Anxiety is such a curious sensation. Anything can set it off, depending on the person, and it can consume you  and your life. Personally, when I suffer from anxiety I get restless but am exhausted and listless all the time. This prevents me from accomplishing what I need to (which is usually what I am anxious about) which in turn, causes me even greater anxiety with less time to get whatever it is done. I suffered more anxiety attacks in overwhelming doses while I was at university because I usually had so much to do that I didn't know how to handle it.

At one point I "lived" with two boys who were focused and borderline obsessed with finishing their schoolwork before the other, as though it was a sort of competition. Something people don't really assume from me is that I am a rather competitive person, so naturally I was kept really on track that year. I had different courses than my pseudo roommates (really I lived next door with a girl who was a mess and a half), so I couldn't compete in the same things (they would have to write a paper on international politics, I would have to watch and write a film analysis in Italian plus a whole bunch of other coursework). Regardless, I had so much homework and social obligations (I ran clubs and had a scholarship) that I would start earlier and work later.

One night around 1 am, Josh even said to me "I honestly don't know how you do it all; you are always working. By the way, when are you going to bake something again? It's been a week and we're out of cupcakes." Now during midterms and finals, I was a complete mess. I shut down all the time and let myself go which caused me a lot of anxiety as well. I would literally just stop and sit there in a completely stressed state and I owe a lot to Jake and Josh for helping me power through it. I love them both for it to this day.

Now back on track, one thing which has always left me feeling trapped and anxious is clutter and mess, particularly when it comes to my room. My mum always taught me to be a clean and neat person, but that went out the window somewhere in high school. I didn't truly appreciate it and make the effort to have a tidy room again until I went to university. There I realized that I felt so much better (not to mention proud as I liked to have people over) when my room was clean. The messier it got, the more anxious I got, especially when I was already under stress. It was then I realized that I need to keep my space organized instead of a tornado swept whirlwind (in which I knew where EVERYTHING was despite its precarious positioning in my room, might I add).

So although I am no longer in a university dorm, I still have residual anxiety over a messy room, but I have been feeling so exhausted lately that I haven't done anything about it :(
This was my room two months ago before I cleaned it:

2 months ago

And unfortunately I did not take an after picture. But this is what it's looking like again, which admittedly is nowhere near as bad, but it's enough of a start. 

My room currently

My goal is to clear all of the clutter and hopefully clear some of the unwanted stress from my life.

love always,
xo

Flats with the bows

Yesterday I threw together this little ensemble with a lot of my newest clothes and makeup trends :)

Cheeky little selfie

I honestly wish I had someone here who would do photography fashion with me. Wow bit of a dyslexic moment there. I definitely meant fashion photography. I absolutely adore putting together outfits and even wouldn't mind posing for a few for someone who actually knows what they're doing. I just put on a cheeky little self-timer for these to get a nice quality picture of my outfit instead of just an instagram mirror shot. But I really, I think I want to do more outfit coordination and fashion related things in the future :)

Wearing

White button-up tie shirt Chicos

Black tights (some generic brand)

Black High-Rise Shorts by Revenge Charlotte Rousse

White Flats with black lining and bows Forever XXI

Gold circle earrings Chicos

Makeup

Baby Lips Chapstick Maybelline

Chocolate Mousse Eyeshadow Pallet Maybelline

Black Doe Eye Liner Sephora

Gel liner in Blackest Black Maybelline

Nail Polish: Ballet Slipper by Essie

Question: What do you think about the outfit? I feel like it would have looked better if I had curled my hair.

love, xo

Keep With It: Day 3

So today (technically yesterday at this point) was day 3 of my hopefully daily jogs/runs. It was a bit of a challenge because it was Murphy's Law all over today, but the only thing that did go right was when I finally got to run the boardwalk :)

Definitely took perseverance as it was 12 C (53 F) outside with a cloudy sky and a wind coming off the ocean.

My skin was bright red because of all the wind an cold!

Just a cheeky fun fact: I don't bring my phone running with me (just an ipod) so after I finished my run, I ran to the car, got my phone ran (or walked at this point) back to the boardwalk, and then took these pictures. The whole time there was someone in their car staring at me as if I was mental. But what I kept thinking this whole time was something along the lines of: "so this is what it feels like to be a real blogger." haha

love, xo

Keep With It

Helloooooo!

Ever since I was around 14 or so, I've had this delusion in  my mind that I would be fit when I got older. At first, my ultimatum was eighteen because hey why not? It's an age of responsibility and when life supposedly gets more real, I suppose. So when that didn't work or happen, I gave myself the ultimatum of 21 because I want to be fit sooner rather than later and it was another keystone age (honestly I don't know how I decide on these deadlines). But seeing as I am still not where I want to be fitness-wise, I've decided to just try and be as healthy as I can. I just came off of a gluten-free kick (otherwise known as "giving up something complicated for forty days for lent just to challenge yourself" because honestly, who DOESN'T like bread?) and I was forced to rearrange some of my eating habits. I can thankfully say that I have less cravings for junk food because I realized that I didn't really like them as much as I thought. Instead, I was just eating out of boredom (a habit I still have unfortunately...) and they were the only foods around.

So in addition to my many other random subject matters in this blog, I thought I'd add a fitness aspect to maybe inspire anyone who happens across this but mostly so I can come back, read this, and maybe recommit to this goal because I really do enjoy being fit to a point. Meaning: while I have never achieved my goal of weight loss or a completely fit body, I have made progress. This time two years ago, I couldn't run for a whole minute to save my life. Now I can run a boardwalk. It's all about baby steps and everything else will follow. Or this is what I hope anyway haha ;)

Post-run picture :)

One thing I don't understand is why people lie about exercise. I honestly don't see a point in lying to other people about how much or for how long you exercise because the only person you're really lying to at that point is yourself. Plus, they're gonna figure it out if you say you run for 15 minutes or go to the gym for 2 hours everyday and you look the same after 3 months. So do yourself a favour and be honest.

And on that note: self, if you are rereading this, just remember how proud you are telling people that you're going for a run and you actually mean it because you CAN do it. You can back up your claim with proof and that is amazing. Please please please just stick with it because you will never regret one second of it. Remember the wise words of Tumblr or Pinterest or wherever you read the fact that it takes 4 weeks for you to see change, 8 weeks for friends and family, and 12 weeks for everyone else. Is 12 weeks really that long of a time? No. If you keep with it now, everyone will see it sometime in June and you will be able to buy all those cute summer clothes that you're not really liking now. Think about the bandeaus, the bustier tops, and all those cute dresses

I have so much more to say on my opinions of people, looks, self-esteem, fitness, diets, habits, etc., but I"m afraid I would write a novel with a lot of tangents. So, in order to keep this nice and precise, I'll leave it with this thought: day two of running done.

Question of the post: How do you keep motivated when it becomes so easy to become discouraged?

as always, with love, xo

Sunshine and Polka Dots

Hellooooo! Just thought I'd share my look with you today. It's amazing how much the warm weather can inspire new looks :)

Wearing:

Charlotte Russe  simple white shirt

Charlotte Russe  high-waisted polka dot shorts

Makeup:

Maybelline Chocolate Mousse Eyeshadow

Revlon Mascara

Sephora Doe Eye Liner

Maybelline Plum Perfect Lipstick

Nail Polish:

Essie Mint Candy Apple Polish

Color Expressions White

Icing Silver

Til next time, loves!
xo, love

Tee Shirt Time

Helloooo! I decided to undergo a project today to make one of my tee shirts into one of those loose fitting, workout type tank tops. It was a bit tight when I made it into a racerback tank so I took it out so it would be looser. However, I have included the steps in case you want to try it :)

I really like how this shirt came out and I'm glad I found another use for it :) I got it this August when I was an Orientation Mentor for my university.

If you wanna make your own, here are the steps I took:

1. Get your tee-shirt and lay it flat

2. Cut off the neckline along the seam (you can cut more later for a deeper neckline if you want)

3. Cut off one sleeve and use it as a guide to cut the other sleeve so they are even.

4. Cut off the bottom hem along the seam

5. Cut a V in the back of the tee-shirt

Now this is where I stopped on mine because it is the look I wanted, but to make it into a complete racerback tank top continue with these steps:

6. Take the bottom hem and cut off the seam so you just have fabric; then cut the loop so it is one string and stretch it out

7. Make two small holes on either side of the bottom of the V and towards the top of the V by where the sleeves used to be.

8. Thread the string through the bottom loops and leave 1-2 inches on one end and tie in a double knot to secure it

9. Gather the tee shirt material, loop the string around it and pull through to create a semi knot on each wrap.

10. Finish when you get to the two top holes, double knot to finish and leave 1-2 inches of string in case you ever need to retie it :)

If you have any questions or need help, just comment down below!

love, xo

Pierced and Polished

What makes some piercings "cool", "hot" , "pretty" and generally acceptable while others are deemed by society to be "completely outrageous", "a call for attention", and absolutely not "respectable" by society?

I got my ear pierced a few days ago which  now raises my number to seven (four on my left and now three on my right). All of my piercings are on my ears

Before

After :)

I also picked up this new super cute colour from Essie. I love their colours, especially all these cute pastel-y type ones I've been into lately. I really wanted a sherbert-y/ creamsicle orange, but I picked this up instead. Guess I'll have to go shopping again ;)

Tart Deco by Essie

Cool Mint Apple by Essie

Also, I did this to my nails yesterday using Colorful Expressions White, Silver and Essie in "Mint Candy Apple", which I absolutely ADORE.

This is from pinterest and is just the idea for my nails (i.e. this is not me)

Til next time!

love, xo