Nailed it!

It seems as though Shawna and I took turns being sick the past two weeks, and now that we are both feeling better it is time you show you what has been going on in these recent weeks.

In the recent months I have become addicted to pinterest.com. I find myself staying up way to late endlessly scrolling through a world of creation and inspiration. One on my favorite things to look at on these boards are nail art, and I have been very inspired to recreate, duplicate and put my own twist on what I see. I have two manicures to post that were inspired by fellow "pinners."

The first was inspired by one of my new favorite blogs thebeautydepartment.com. After I saw this Valentines mani I wanted to create something similar for myself, but am not a huge fan of pink. I went with black, gold, and purple for my colors; here is how it turned out.

I used the purple glitter as a base coat and let dry. I then used paper reinforcing stickers (those little doughnut looking stickers), and stuck two of them together so they created a "v" in the middle. I positioned the stickers on all fingers of one hand and painted the gold to the tip of the nail. After completing the other hand and letting the polish dry completely I reused the same stickers and applied them towards the top of my nail bed and painted on the black. After it was all dry I applied the top coat.

inspired by thebeautydepartment.com/mani-monday-double-feature

I loved the way it looked, but for some reason this lasted only a few hours before the black and gold started rubbing off. Since that isn't a cute look, I changed it up a couple of days later to something that I was really happy with.

I have admired the look of gradient nails, and loved the look more when I saw it done with glitter. After doing a little research and checking a few blogs I decided that the easiest way to create this look was with glitter polish. 

 The picture doesn't do this look justice, and it was so easy to create. After applying a base color and letting it dry I started painting on very thin layers of glitter polish starting half way up my nail. After that layer dried I added a second layer to the top third of my nails, and repeated this step of the top fourth. When it dried it created this fun gradient look.

 Hope you enjoy, and give on of these a try!

-Bailey

Adventures in Cooking

Monday nights is dinner night with Bailey and Mike. One week, we will cook dinner (by we, I mean Dan) and Mike and Bailey bring dessert (Bailey) and the following week we switch. Its a fun way to get together and show off our culinary skills for the week. Nothing big. This week was our week to make dessert. I came across a Baklava recipe from my FAVORITE food blogger, "The Pioneer Woman". She is truly a food genius. She makes pure comfort food and its actually recipes that are do-able. I have made her enchilada's before and they were simply fantastic if I do say so myself. If you ever get a chance to go through her blog...its AMAZING and drool worthy.

You will need:

• 1 package Phyllo Dough
• 4 cups Chopped Walnuts Or Pecans
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1-1/2 stick Butter, Melted
• 2 cups Honey
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Directions (straight from the pioneer herself). The bold part is me talking

Remove phyllo dough package from freezer and place in the fridge for 24 hours to thaw. Remove from fridge 1 hour before using.
When working with the phyllo dough, only remove the sheets you immediately need, keeping the other sheets covered in plastic wrap, then a damp cloth. All I did was rip a piece of saran wrap and cover the top of the sheets with it and then put a wet paper towel on top.
Toss together the chopped walnuts and cinnamon. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly butter a rectangular baking pan. Make sure the sheets of phyllo will generally fit the pan (if they're a little bigger, that's okay.) If they're much bigger, just trim them with a sharp knife.
Butter the top sheet of phyllo with melted butter, then grab it and the unbuttered sheet below it. Set the two sheets in the pan, buttered sheet face down. Press lightly into the pan. Repeat this twice more, so that you have six sheets of phyllo in the pan, three of the sheets buttered. Butter pan, lay phyllo sheet down, butter the top of that sheet and then lay another one down. Do this a total of x4.
Sprinkle on enough walnuts to make a single layer. Butter two sheets of phyllo and place them on top of the walnuts. Add more walnuts, then two more buttered phyllo sheets. Repeat this a couple more times, or until you're out of walnuts. Top with 4 more buttered phyllo sheets, ending with a buttered top. Cut a diagonal diamond pattern in the baklava using a very sharp knife.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until the baklava is very golden brown.
While the baklava is baking, (I would not start this step until the Baklava is about half way done. Otherwise the liquid will just sit there longer than the 15min) combine 1 stick of the butter, honey, water, sugar, and vanilla in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.
When you remove the baklava from the oven, drizzle half the saucepan evenly all over the top. Allow it to sit and absorb for a minute, then drizzle on a little more until you think it's thoroughly moistened. You'll likely have some of the honey mixture leftover, which you can drink with a straw. Just kidding.
Allow the baklava to cool, uncovered, for several hours (turns out the several hours isnt a suggestion. Its what needs to happen, otherwise the baklava will be very honey tasting because the liquid hasnt set yet). Once cool and sticky and divine, carefully remove them from the pan and serve with coffee (or give as gifts!)

**I am sorry that I do not have a picture for this post. I honestly did not know how much I would screw up the process. It did turn out delish though. Its super perfect for that little something sweet you crave when you get home. Its actually a very simple recipe. If I can do it...no doubt that you can too!

Here is her website. Enjoy!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/12/baklava/

-Shawna