Fishtail Braid (aka Herringbone) Mani!

I have to admit, I spend way too much time doing my nails. I get angry when my hubby rolls his eyes whenever I explain that I have to dedicate time on a Saturday or Sunday to perfect the latest manicure trend. But this week, I have NO shame in the time it took me to complete this look, because it more than paid off.
Behold - the Fishtail Braid Mani!

I've been stalking this particular nail art for several months on Pinterest, and finally found a suggested way of accomplishing this that actually made sense - and that I knew I could do.
Start by gathering 3 or 4 polishes. Mine are Zoya Yummy (blue), Zoya Mira (purple), Zoya Willow (peach) and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I.

Paint a long strip of each color onto a Ziploc bag. Wait for each layer to dry and build up 2 or 3 layers to get maximum opacity. Then wait a few hours until the paint is completely and 100% dry.

Once dry, use a pair of flat tip tweezers to peel the strips off the bag. Then using a ruler and an X-acto knife, cut the excess off of each strip in order to get an even width.

Cut each strip into smaller pieces.

Paint nails your base color (one of the 3 or 4 colors used for the strips). Let dry.

Sick apron, right?  I was baking with the hubs and never took it off.  :-P

Now comes the tricky part. Because the strips of polish are dry, the may not want to stick as much. But if you warm them a bit between your fingers they should be okay. You're going to start layering.

As you can see, you don't want to place the strip all the way to the edge of the nail. If you do this, they will build on top of each other and become very thick. Keep layering your colors. I tried using a pair of tweezers for placement but found I needed more control so I used my fingers. You'll want to really rub the strips on the nail to promote sticking.

Once you're layered all the way down to the nail bed, use a cuticle stick to press the strips into the edges of the nail, all the way around, and create a crease. Grab your cuticle nippers and start trimming off the excess. Be super careful here as the strips might start to lift, especially the ones closest to the cuticle.

You can also leave a small amount of each strip if you have a hard time trimming. Just grab an angled brush and some acetone and clean up the edges and cuticles like you would after any paint job. Because its just nail polish, the acetone will break it down and dissolve the excess. The top with a coat of Gelous to lock in the strips and provide a smooth layer, the. Add your favorite top coat. I just received HK Girl and I'm impressed so far!

Homemade Peppermint Marshmallows - Take 2!

Needless to say, it's very easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new project and forget all common sense. For instance, when you're trying your hand at homemade marshmallows for the first time, if your instinct is telling you the mixture is finished when it starts to clump inside the whisk, even if the recommended whipping time isn't up, you should probably turn the mixer off.

Case in point:

Lesson learned? Marshmallow mixture is incredibly temperamental.  Marshmallows: 1, Melissa: 0.

But since these were to be part of a (albeit late) Christmas gift, I wasn't going to let the them win the war.

Take two. We're even.

Soft, chewy, fluffy, minty marshmallows!

Peppermint Marshmallows. Adapted from Betty Crocker.

Ingredients:

Butter for greasing
Powdered sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons (3 packets) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon pure peppermint extract (I suggest reducing to 1/2 tsp)

8 to10 drops red food color

 Gather ye ingredients

Combine gelatin with 1/2c of cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer and set aside.

Combine corn syrup, granulated sugar, salt and 1/2cup water in a medium saucepan and set over low heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Then clip a candy thermometer to the pan and set the heat to medium high. Make sure the thermometer is not touching the bottom of the pan! Cook the mixture without stirring until the thermometer reads 240 degrees. Immediately remove pan from heat.

With the mixer speed set to low, SLOWLY, slowly, slowly (I cannot emphasize this enough) and carefully pour the hot syrup into the mixer with the softened gelatin.

Increase the mixer speed to high and beat 8-10 minutes, until mixture is very thick and white and has almost tripled in volume. Follow your gut here! What you don't want to see is the mixture become too thick it starts to stick inside the whisk. Add 1/2tsp of peppermint extract when you have about a minute left to beat. (Side note: I used the recommended 1tsp and it was really strong. So I would cut back.)

While the mixer is running, grease a 9x13" baking dish and generously dust with powdered sugar. Now here's where you need to work SUPER DUPER fast and it would help to have a second set of hands. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had 4 hands? I was thinking that as I was driving tonight and trying to tie my hair in a ponytail at the same time. Sorry. I get sidetracked easily. Using a wet plastic spatula, coax the mixture out of the mixer and into the dish, and lightly pat the mixture down evenly with wet hands.

Drop red food coloring randomly on the surface of the marshmallows. Using a knife, swirl the food coloring though the mixture. Mine pretty much stayed on top because the marshmallows were already setting. But it didn't turn out too bad in the end! Dust the top generously with more powdered sugar. Let the marshmallows sit uncovered overnight to set completely. 

 

Dust a cutting board with powdered sugar (did I mention you need a lot of powdered sugar for these?) and add about 1/2cup powdered sugar to a small bowl. Turn the entire marshmallow block onto the cutting board. Dust the bottom with more powdered sugar. Using a pizza cutter, slice the block into long strips and then into small squares. Toss the squares into the powdered sugar to ensure they are coated on all sides. This will help prevent them from sticking together. 

And voila! You've got yummy marshmallows! Great with homemade hot cocoa!

DIY Christmas Cards

Of course, Pinterest was my lifesaver this Christmas when I had the (way too late) idea of making my own Christmas cards. My hubby had some really awesome photos from Christmas last year that I wanted to print and put on the cards in a really hip, really fancy, really creative way. Really never happened. :-(. When it occurred to me just how much work (and money) it would've cost to put them together, I bailed. But the pics are super pretty, aren't they?

So back to Pinterest I went for other (read: easier) ideas. I came across a few that featured some round "ornaments" created with various papers. So I dug into my old wrapping paper stash, pulled out some rolls, grabbed some silvers sharpies I had on hand, some stencils from a previous project, and a a 1 1/2" round punch that I used for my wedding "save-the-dates", which I thought for sure I would never use again. Glad I was proven wrong!


All I needed was cards! Rather than make my own (I only had navy blue card stock and various shades of white art paper) I went to Michaels and found some pretty maroon cards and envelopes packaged together for cheap and snatched them up.

Supplies

Round paper punch

Pretty little circles!

Glued them on with a glue stick

I ended up freehand drwaing the ornament "caps" and string.  I also had to stencil the letters with a pencil first and then filled in with the silver sharpie.

I need a logo stat!

Here are the two "pinspirations"! If I had given myself enough time I totally would've gotten more creative with the ribbon and bows and jewels, etc. Next time!

Homemade Christmas Cards
Christmas Card Projects

State String Art (or) Heartstring State

Good morning world! Today I have an awesome (and easy) DIY project that makes a wonderful gift, perhaps for a wedding or anniversary. We made it for the former, for my husband's cousin's wedding.

Supplies:

• A large piece of wood, depending on how big you want it
• Stain or paint (we chose to stain)
• String
• Nails (I used gold linoleum nail because of the rounded head, but truthfully they were a little difficult to work with because they were short.
• Wood glue (optional but recommended)
• Needle-nose pliers (optional but recommended)
• Wood burning tool (optional)

Start by locating a map of the state you wish to use. In our case, this was Vermont. I googled a map of the state, copied it into Microsoft Word, added a "heart" shape around the city of Killington as that is where the couple was getting married, printed it out on 11x17 paper and then used an exacto knife to cut out around the edges of the state and the heart. Don't slice anything open in the process!

Next, stain or paint your piece of wood and finish as desired.

 

Lay out the printed state on the wood in the placement you desire and start hammering nails around the state. (See recommend link below for an image of this step. I swear we got photos of this step but they seem to have mysteriously disappeared.) I recommend starting with the inner heart first, and then working your way out. The nails do NOT need to be super close together. In fact, give them a little space. I started in the upper left corner, I didn't quite have the hang of the spacing. We also reinforced every nail in its hole with a little wood glue since there would be so much tugging on the nail with the string. When you're finished with the nailing, remove the inner piece of paper.

Now it's time to start stringing! Pick one corner to start with and tie off one end of the string so it's really secure. You won't cut the string again until you're finished with the whole piece. Each nail of the state itself will only have one loop of string around it. The inner heart, however, gets about 6 or 7 loops around each nail, due to the heart being so much smaller than the state. So pull the string taut and loop around a heart nail, the back up to the state. Then loop around the next nail in the state, pull it taut back down to the heart and loop it around the SAME nail you looped the first string. Repeat this a half a dozen times. When you've looped around the first heart nail that 6 or 7 times, move onto the next nail in the heart and repeat this process.

See how many loops are around each heart nail?

Continue this process until you've looped string around every nail, and you're finished product should look something like this!

I then took the liberty of burning their wedding date into the wood with my wood burning tool.

And that's it! Now you have a beautiful and super personal gift for that special couple! The couple we gifted it to are very outdoorsy and really loved the personal touch it brought to their home.

Recommended resource - http://theharpsterhome.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/heart-in-ohio/

I have some fun Christmas projects coming up! Until next time!

 

Necklace organizer

Hey everyone! I haven't kept up with my promise to do 4 weeks of pink manicures. Sorry 'bout that. BUT! I do have a long overdo post on a project that took me far longer than it should've, ha. This necklace organizer was incredibly intimidating, even though my father and my husband would expect it to be a breeze for me, considering everything they've taught me.

But despite all that, I'm still a girl at heart and all those times they talked about... whatever it is they talk about when they're trying to teach me something... I may or may not have been listening. Clearly.

The good news is, my hubby can't resist my I'm-completely-lost face and helped me anyway. Win. :-D

So I found this on (where else?) Pinterest. I desperately needed a solution for my growing necklace collection and I'm extremely happy with the results!

Supplies you'll need:

• Three pieces of scrap wood cut to your desired length (mine was about 30"). I used a couple pieces of moulding trim from Home Depot and the third piece was to space them apart.
• Wood glue
• Stain
• Polyurethane clear coat
• Nails
• Finishing nails (these are upholstery nails)
• Screw and wall anchors for hanging
• A couple of small clamps (my hubby has these really cool "quick grip" clamps)

Start prepping your wood pieces by sanding them down so they're nice and smooth.

Start staining! This is the stain I used.

Gluing each piece to be set together

Thank God for husbands!

Clamping the whole piece to dry.

Now, if you all could imagine a few things here for me. First, imagine there's a few photos of my hubby driving a few nails through the back of the piece. Then, try to imagine about 3 weeks worth of polyurethane-ing. Every coat I put on wasn't quite enough (per the hubby) and if I wanted it to be done right, I had to do another coat. And then another one. And another. And so on... The reason it took so long is that each coat has to dry completely before the next is put on. SO! Once that was done, I had this!

Now here is where it gets tricky. My hubby used some crazy tools to cut out grooves in the back, which, of course, I neglected to get a photo of. We then put two wall anchors in the wall, added screws to the anchors, but left them sticking out about 1/2 and inch, to rest into the grooves in the back of the holder.

And voila! It's so nice to have my necklaces out where I can see them now!

My next post is going to be on an awesome DIY wedding gift we made for family. Until next time!