Easy Christmas Nails - Santa Suit

There's only 10 more days until Christmas, crazy thought! So, it seemed fitting to paint my nails Christmas-y
So I came up with this easy santa suit design.

I used four nail polishes:

- Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar (a really beautiful metallic red, it's very solid so only needs one to two coats)
- Jordana Black - (I personally don't recommend this one because it takes a very long time to dry, instead use opi's black onyx)
- Opi Crown me already ( love it because of the amount of sparkles and thickness. Although for the purpose i'm using it for this tutorial, it would be better to use a nail polish with finer sparkles)
- Opi Top coat

I applied two layers of sugar sugar, waited for that to dry then applied a horizontal black line of jordana black. Using a fine paint brush I applied crown me already in a square shape over the belt to create a buckle. To finish off I applied a layer of Top coat.

Hopefully this post gave you a little bit of inspiration!  Have a Merry Christmas!

Infinite x's and o's

Elena

Chocolate Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

Brownies are one of my favourite things to make and every time I go to someone's house, the request is always "bring brownies". There are sooo many types of brownies, but I think I now have a new favourite. The tangyness of the cream cheese cuts through the richness of the chocolate and combines two loves, chocolate brownies and vanilla cheesecake. I mean, need I go on. For Directions on how to make these gorgeous little morsels, the recipe is below. 

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Brownie:

- 200g Butter (salted or unsalted), cubed.

-200g Dark Chocolate

-3/4 cup soft brown sugar

-3 eggs

-3/4 cup plain flour

-1/2 tsp baking powder

For the cheesecake:

-250g cream cheese

-1/4 cup caster sugar

-2 tsp vanilla essence

-1 egg

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (350 fahrenheit)  Grease and line a 20cm Slice tin with baking paper.
2. To make the brownies:  In a medium sized saucepan over low-med heat, combine Chocolate, Butter and Brown sugar and stir until melted. Allow to cool for 5 minutes
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, stir with a whisk. Then sift over the flour and baking powder. Stir until combined. Spoon entire mix into the slice tin and smooth.
4. To make the Cheesecake: In the bowl of an electric mixer combine cream cheese and sugar and beat until light.
5. Add vanilla essence and egg and mix until smooth.
6. To assemble the brownies: Place the cheesecake mixture on top of the chocolate brownie mix in dollops, evenly placed, still leaving some chocolate exposed. Then taking a toothpick or skewer swirl the two mixtures together to create a pattern.
7. Bake in pre-heated oven for 35-40 minutes until soft to touch and no longer wiggles when moved.
8. Mmmmm brownies. (also, word of advice, wait until the brownies are fairly cool before you attempt to cut them, as tempting as it is.)

Happy cooking!


Infinite x's and o's,

Elena

Easy Nail Art - Reverse Gradient Glitter Nails

I was looking through tumblr and pinterest for inspiration, which I only occasionally do.. *cough*.. and came across a photo of these beautiful reverse gradient glitter nails. The photo I saw was in tiffany blue but I decided to be a little bit different and use pink instead, mainly because I don't have a tiffany blue nail polish....  which considering tiffany blue is my favourite colour is unacceptable.

How did I do it you ask? Well, it was incredibly easy. Obviously, because I did it.

I used three nail polish's:

-Opi Isn't that precious  ( I love this colour because with some pink nail polishes it can be overly pink, does that even make sense. I have noticed with opi's pink friday it's a tad too.... barbie for my liking)
-Opi Crown me already! (love it, because of the thickness of the sparkles, the extra sparkles... and again... sparkles. Need I say more. Though it is a total douche to take off so brace yourself for lots of nail polish remover and *facepalm* moments)
-Opi Top Coat

I applied three layers of Isn't that precious, waited for that to dry then applied crown me already from the base of my nail working up more towards the outer corners. After that was dry I finished off with the topcoat.

Over-all I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, well... anything with sparkles I'll be happy with.
Hopefully this post gave you a little bit of inspiration to get your glitz on and I even made a video on youtube how to do it. (see above)

Infinite x's and o's,

Elena