I'm moving!

In an electronic way... I'm making the move back to WP. Join me at mahalmade.wordpress.com

Red velvet cake batter cookies - oh my!

One of the things I love to do is cook/bake. The downside of my love of baking is that my husband won't eat anything I bake unless it's a strictly chocolate brownie or chocolate chip cookie. How boring. But this time around, I wasn't going to sacrifice what I wanted to eat because I knew my husband wouldn't eat it-- in fact, I kind of took guilty advantage of it. On one of our weekly grocery runs, I had to pick up more sugar (I use morena sugar for baking) and the boxed cake mixes were screaming at me. Knowing I wouldn't be able to eat a whole cake by myself, I picked up a box anyway because I can atleast eat a bunch of cake batter cookies alone or they'd be easier to share... you know, if I wanted to. So into my cart a box of red velvet boxed cake mix went.

Anywho, here's the finished product of my kitchen madness:

Looks good, right? Even my daughter couldn't wait for them.

See the recipe after the jump!

Revlon Girly + Wet n Wild Flossy Flossy

I'm the type of person that has to get up and do something in the morning-- I can't just wake up and do nothing. So what else is there to do when the house is clean and breakfast is cooked? Go to Target! Oh, but I wanted to look at fabric at Joann, too, so go to Wal-Mart! The Wal-Mart just down the street from where I live is perhaps the most ghetto Wal-Mart I've ever been to so if I'm not in my parents' neck of the woods, I make the 11 mile trip to the nicer one out in Porter Ranch.

While browsing the cosmetics section, I saw the beautiful brightly lit one-side-of-the-aisle display of... dun dun dunnnn... nail polishes and nail products. It was pretty spectacular, even my daughter thought so.

They even had a couple of brands that I'd never seen before, and across from the display was good 'ol Revlon. With so many options I just couldn't choose! I kid you not, I spent atleast half an hour going from side-to-side picking up bottles, holding them up, looking up swatches of them online. People probably thought I was crazy! I was limiting myself to only one bottle. For about 10 minutes, I was down to Sally Hansen Snow Globe, Revlon Heavenly, and Revlon Girly. I really wanted a pretty polish with holographic glitter so I could use it whenever I wear one of my aurora borealis bracelets like this one but I couldn't pick between the two (Snow Globe and Heavenly) so I ended up going the other direction and picked up Girly. Girly is a pinkish milky base with royal purple and fuschia medium hex glitters and small pink, purple, and holo glitters. I couldn't wait to get home and try it out. I didn't get around to it until the evening though.

See my mani using Revlon Girly after the jump!

New Spring pieces

Our family room has been a mess as of late with all of my jewelry supplies hiding in corners, in entertainment centers, and behind baby walkers. I've got TONS of supplies waiting to be made into something so I finally put some of them to use over the last week. When I think "spring" I think of flirty girly colors, lots of pastels, and LOTS of bling!

Here are a couple of the pieces I managed to put together while watching two AH-mazing Lakers games the last few days (go Lakers!):

 Spring crystal trio necklace on gold chain

Amethyst fire agate double wrap silver chain bracelet

The little birds hanging out in the pictures are from Michaels. I've actually got three of them-- these two have cut outs on the sides, the third doesn't have cut outs but has pretty rhinestones on the wings of the bird. I fell in love with them when I first saw them and I knew they were coming home with me immediately. My daughter is OBSESSED with birds and always points them out to me, "Mom, oh, a bee!" She calls them bees. She calls most things by their first letters-- my purse is a "pee," her diaper is a "dee"... Naturally, when she saw these little guys, "Mom, oh, a bee!" If you love them as much as I do, try your local Michaels store. I got them a couple months ago, I think they're from one of the Spring collections. I saw them maybe a couple weeks ago and I'm pretty sure they were in the clearance section and they had other colors, too. So if you happen to still find any or if you bought them like I did, please share-- I'd love to see them.

Sinful Colors Spring 2013 Collection: Sugar Rush

As I mentioned in my last post, Walgreens had a great deal on Sinful Colors nailpolishes. They are $1.99 regular price but they had a coupon for $1.00 off. I didn't go wild but I did pick up a few on a couple trips I made last week. I picked up these pretties the first time:

Left to right: Unicorn, Orange Cream, Starfish, Sweet Tooth, and Candy Coated

Walgreens had the displays for their new Spring 2013 Collections, one of them was Sugar Rush which was pastel and bright eyecandy. I basically went pastel crazy =D.  All of these colors (with the exception of Starfish) are part of the Sugar Rush Collection. There were a couple others, Cotton Candy and Sweet Nothing, that I did not purchase because the colors didn't appeal to me. At the time. Watch, I'll end up purchasing them in a couple weeks when they're regular price. Doh.

Here are the colors swatched. Unicorn (which I read on Emi's blog is also a core shade) is a really pretty yellow in the bottle but for me it applied horribly. All of the swatches above are three coats and I couldn't get Unicorn to full opacity with three. Maybe it's just me but it wasn't really my cup o' tea. I wasn't too crazy about how the color looked on me either. I'll still keep the color and use it just in my nail designs.

Of the five colors I picked up, my favorites are Orange Cream and Candy Coated. I also have Hazard from Sinful Colors which is a more bold orange/coral color but Orange Cream is just right on me. Candy Coated reminded me of Revlon's Enchanting when I saw the bottle in the store but I decided to purchase it anyway and I'm really glad that I did. Again, it's a great formula but it doesn't have the slight shimmer that Enchanting has and it's more on the blueish lavender side. To be honest, I actually like Candy Coated better and it helps that it's cheaper, too ;).

So those are what I picked up on my first trip, I'll be back later to show you a few I picked up the second time around. Did you take advantage of the $0.99 Sinful Colors polishes at Walgreens last week or do you have any of the Sugar Rush Collection? Which one(s) is your favorite?

Stripes, spots, and flowers

I've been obsessing over floral and polka dot nails lately, you know, ever since I learned how to do them. In between scrubbing the heck out of the grout in our master bathroom, watching the Laker game, washing three loads of laundry, and prepping dinners for the week, I managed to sit down and do my nails... right before I washed the dishes. I messed up my tips a little in case you couldn't tell which I'm sure you can. Note to self: be sure my nails are COMPLETELY dry before doing dishes. 

Left to Right: Kiss in White, Revlon in Eclectic, Finger Paints in Don't make a Scene, Sinful Colors in Starfish, Sinful Colors in Candy Coated, and Sally Hansen in Golden-I

Last week, Walgreens had a great sale on Sinful Colors nail polish (only 99 cents each!) so I made a couple trips to pick some up, including a few from the Spring 2013 Collections Sugar Rush and Almost Famous. I'll be back a little later to share which of those I got (one of them was used in this nail look).

Happy Monday!

Today's accesssories - H&M scarf + armcandy

Today's accessories =).

People that know me know how much I love scarves! I wear them all year round-- winter, spring, summer, and fall. I have a tendency to purchase oblong scarves more than any other cut. Square scarves make me feel like a cowboy when I wear them. Infinity scarves aren't as versatile. If I'm in the mood for an "infinity" scarf, I'll simply take an oblong scarf and tie the two ends together because I like the look of the knot. It adds a little more oomph. But I broke my oblong-scarves-only rule when I found this beauty.

I got this about a couple years ago from H&M (I LOVE H&M scarves!). It's a square scarf but it's HUGE. It is 54"x54" which is larger than a lot of other square scarves I've seen. I can tie the ends together without looking like a cowboy and I get a really nice drape from it. The fabric is thin (you can see through it) and it tends to stick to itself-- all the fabric softner and static remover sheets in the world couldn't help it-- but I love it.

The pattern and colors on the scarf were the thing that first caught my attention though (the size of it was an added plus). There's pale orange, burnt orange, eggplant, royal purple, light gray, dark gray, and pink and the interesting design brings them all together perfectly. 

So since it's chilly but sunny in L.A. today, I decided to wear my lovely scarf along with my light pink/vitrail light crystal & gold chain and brown leather & gold bracelets which I made. You can get your own crystal bracelet here.