I Spy

From the left going clockwise: Sweater H&M $34.95, Truly Madly Deeply Elephant Paisley Legging UrbanOutfitters $19, Studio Flats in Black NeedSupplyCo. $38

The Inspiration: Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petri

Why: She was elegant, beautiful, silly, and great at dancing. Also you just can't help but love those fitted slacks with sleek pointed flats and loose blouse or sweater!

image:http://blueruins.tumblr.com/post/26236252746

Upcycling Glass Jars Into Vases

                                       

Just a quick snippet from life: an update from my little avocado plant. Started growing the little guy in a jar full of water a year ago and when it sprouted a little stem I couldn't help but be excited. Anyways with all that time it has grown enough to be in a big pot (: I'm so proud and hope it grows to be a tall tree one day (: Okay now back to the vase!

 For this craft you will need:

-a piece of ribbon(optional)
-a glass jar
-Krylon spray paint(satin meringue)
-newspaper

you can buy most of these supplies from hobby lobby. I think the jar was from some sort of jam.
 To begin:
1. lay out newspaper outside or in a well ventilated area. Make sure the paper is held down or else it could blow and ruin the paint job.

2. Place the jars upside down and paint the glass making sure to keep some distance from the glass to create an even coating then turn right side up to even out the paint. It might help to even hold the jar and rotate little by little spraying lightly. Wait 10 minutes in between coats. 

Tip: very lightly press the spray paint nozzle to help with finishing touches

 3. Let the paint dry for a an 10 minutes to an hour or so before handling and a day before using or getting wet.

And Voila! A beautiful vase for fake or real flowers! Also to be tied with a cute ribbon (: So go ahead and make those little vases and post your vase pictures in the comments.

##a quick sneak peek (;

Okay, so this is actually a recipe that I made a long while ago and haven't been able to post.

It was mostly inspired by the movie "A Little Princess" because it is just such a cute movie that I couldn't resist doing something for the name(if that makes sense, haha)

Anyways, because the movie is so involved with India, I thought that ginger would be a good place to start and the rest kind of fell in place. The idea for the coconut frosting was pretty funny though because it came from not having butter (:

Alright now we can get to the good part, the cupcakes! (:

(recipe coming soon!)

marble spicy chocolate chip cookies(sugar free!)

Alright so the inspiration for these cookies came from wanting to make my own chocolate chips and also wanting to add a kick to my other chocolate chip cookie recipe(http://thebreakfastclubber.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=7)

Ingredients:

-Ghirardelli baking bar 70% cacao
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
-1/2 cup agave nectar
-1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
-1 egg
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-3 cups flour
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt

So first I want to make the chocolate chips so they will have time to cool down while we make the batter.

For the chocolate chips:

1.Break the Ghirardeli bar into smaller pieces(so that it will melt more easily)

2.(if you don't have a double boiler)Fill a sauce pan half way with water and set it to boil over medium/high heat

3.Once the water is boiling put the chocolate in a glass bowl and place the bowl over the boiling water. Lower the heat to low/medium and stir until chocolate is fully melted.

4.After chocolate becomes melted take it off the heat and add the cinnamon and cayenne pepper for a little kick and mix well

5.Using a spoon, take a little bit of chocolate and make drops(about an inch apart) on a piece of aluminum foil covered cookie sheet

6.Now, because I wasn't able to fit the pan in my freezer, I decided to take a big rectangular pan and fill it with a little ice and cold water and place the chocolate chips over it. Make sure the pan is actually touching the ice or something cold, or else they won't cool fast enough.

7.When the sheet is filled with chocolate dots and is cooled enough to be solid, take the aluminum foil sheet and place it in the fridge to keep cool

8.Repeat steps 5 and 7 until all the chocolate is gone. Remember to only move the aluminum not the pan.

Now for the cookie batter:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.In a medium sized bowl, cream the coconut oil, unless melted. Once smooth, add the agave nectar,egg, and vanilla and blend.

3.In a small bowl sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine the ingredients well.

4.Add a little of the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until well combined. Do this until you run out of the dry mixture. Never add all of the dry mixture, it will take longer to mix.

5.Once all ingredients are combined, fold in the chocolate chips.

6.Spoon the cookie dough onto a sheet, 1 inch in between.

7.Bake in oven 10-14 minutes or until brown. And enjoy with milkC:

Day 17!!!!!!!!!!! so far :3

Lately I have been trying to keep up the exercise so I keep getting stronger! (: So here are my results!

5 squats 10 high knees- 4,5,5
exploding push up-34,37,31
5 switch lunges and 2 around the worlds-5,6,5
plank jump overs-38,42,35

Another thing I have to share today is a special chocolate chip cookie recipe, but be careful, they are very addicting :3

 I got the cookie recipe from Nana Clare's Kitchen (url at bottom of page). However, because I just LOVE cookies and can never say no to having one more I made a few changes to the recipe (: Instead of using honey, which is quickly absorbed into the system, I used agave nectar. For me I did not notice a difference in sweetness, another plus is that agave nectar is slowly absorbed into the blood so it's good for diabetics (: ! Another thing I added is coconut butter, which is a healthy fat, to help with the cookie's texture (:

Alright, lets begin!

you will need:
½ cup agave nectar
½ cup butter( 1 stick non salted)
1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3/4 cups dark chocolate chips- little healthy and so yummy
1/4 cup cacao nubs-you can find them at whole foods, have a LOT of iron

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.In a medium sized bowl, cream the stick of butter. Once smooth, add the agave nectar,coco butter, egg, and vanilla and blend.

3.In a small bowl sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Whisk to combine the ingredients well.

4.Add a little of the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until well combined. Do this until you run out of the dry mixture. Never add all of the dry mixture, it will take longer to mix.

5.Once all ingredients are combined, fold in the chocolate chips and cacao.

6.Spoon the cookie dough onto a sheet, 1 inch in between.

7.Bake in oven 10-14 minutes or until brown. And enjoy C:

Nana Clare's kitchen http://www.nanaclareskitchen.com/2012/03/13/honey-chocolate-chip-cookies-and-tips-for-using-honey/

Fish painting

just a fish I doodled a few days ago (: and have done some more doodles since (:It was inspired by the songs Pretty Face by Soley and Take Me Somewhere Nice by Mogwai

The steps were actually pretty easy to do (:
1.In order to keep the lines crisp I outlined the my beginning sketch with a thin black sharpie

2.Then to paint the scales without spending too much time I chose a light shade of blue and lightened it more with water. Keeping the brush thin, I lightly tapped the brush down the tail

3.When preparing to change colors, I kept watering down the color as I painted

4. Once the paint dried I went back with the new color and repeated step 3

5.For the fins I watered down the paint and let the colors mix. Then I went back and made strokes with either the pink or blue

6.for the eyes and lips I painted layer by layer to create a little bit of shading (:

new beginnings day 6

July 4th (: - 6th day of body rocking and it felt awesome!

Also it was a beautiful sunny day and since we went to go celebrate and see fireworks I took my new camera out for a spin c: and played with some effects (:
For the picture above I used the miniature effect (: And just messed a little with reflections haha (:

Anyways later on I was able to get some nice pictures of the fireworks, so here is one of my favorites (: I just love fireworks and was really happy with how crisp this picture came out (: unfortunately my camera battery died so I couldn't take any more pics (: oh well, some things you just have to remember (:

After the show I came home and bodyrocked pretty late and so here are my scores!

Body rock burn
switch lunge and woodchop-24,24,27
diagonal knee raise-19,21,25
power jump, push-up and toe touch-9,9,8
pike mat jumps-32,50,53
pike press and knee tuck-12,19,24
leg swing,back lunge and kick-10,14,13

body rock sculpt
side plank leg lift-15
ab circle holds-20
side plank leg lift-17
ab circle holds-23