Category Archives: DIY

Strawberries and Chocolate

Posted in DIY, Food, Fun, Treats by

Strawberries and chocolate are always a good combination. Recently, and more often than I’d like to admit, I’ve been satisfying my sweet tooth with this timeless meeting of flavors. I’ve fine tuned a method (the lazy way) that works to enjoy this as an easy, quick, and healthier late night snack. What I love about this as dessert is the melted warm chocolate against the cool sweetness of the strawberries. I find you only need a few because of the richness of this treat. All you’ll need are clean fresh strawberries, chocolate chips, and eager taste buds.

{Place a small pinch of milk chocolate baking chips in the microwave for about 2 minutes.}

{Stir the warm chocolate until smooth and creamy.}

{Serve.}

{Enjoy.}

Visual Aids

Posted in Breakfast, DIY, Food, Inspiration, Treats by

I’m certainly one of those people who always appreciates aesthetics and very much consider myself a visual person and learner. A friend of mine had fresh strawberries on her desk one day that looked amazing and my taste buds started salivating. It then occurred to me how I could incorporate more fruit into my day and in a more celebratory way. I decided the best way to do it, was to have it in a place where I could see it, smell it, and enjoy it.

When I bring fruit with me to work, I typically just eat it right out of a zip-lock bag or in a piece of tupperware. How boring! I took the time to be a bit more mindful with my fruit intake and work with that side of me that likes things to “look pretty” for lack of a better girly expression. I made myself a small bowl of fresh fruit that I could place on my desk to snack on throughout the day. It was not only a beautiful reminder of the season just outside my window, but was an easy way to have a healthier alternative around me when I was craving something “not so healthy.” Placing the fruit in a nice china dish and arranging it to my liking set a very special tone (and brightened my desk) as I went about my work day grabbing a strawberry here and a grape there. Think of when you see a really intricate and colorful fruit platter at a party: aren’t you more inclined to walk over, appreciate it, and eat it? It’s all about visuals!

It was then that I became even more inspired and by fruit of all things!

Though summer will soon wind down, I’m realizing how important it is to have beauty (natural or created) around you in any capacity as much as possible. The simplicity in some red grapes and strawberries on my desk was wonderful and worked at getting me to ensure I was eating more fruit, but I want to incorporate my new visual aid experiment into other areas. From how I serve my meals, to displaying jewelry at home, to the arrangement of my closet, I find that this matters to me more and more as I get older. It makes enjoying the small things all the more enjoyable. Here’s to the last days of summer fruit, celebrating presentation, and “pretty things!”

Girl Night In

Posted in Beauty, Books, Dinner, DIY, Fashion, Film, Food, Fun by

The long holiday weekend started off on the right note (if I do say so myself). I spent my Thursday night celebrating with a girl night in. Girl night in? Yes, a girl night in. A night to be home alone and do those things that are completely girly, yet make you feel like a million bucks because you took some time to focus on you. I wanted a night to decompress and prep for the next 4 busy, but fun-filled, days off to come. This included an evening dedicated to a little self-pampering, some relaxation, good food, a glass (or two) of wine, the ultimate “girl night in” flick; followed by some reading while the iPod did its thing filling my humble abode with just the right music. By the time I made it to bed, I had completely reset from the work week and was ready for a very special weekend. Posts to come on all the labor day weekend festivities! Here are some of my tricks to the ultimate girl night in:

{DIY hydrating facial using some of my favorite Dermalogica products.}

{DIY mani/pedi. China Glaze nail polish, color: Sexy Silhouette.}

{Girl night in flick: Sex and the City: The Movie.}

{A glass of my favorite white wine, Moscato.}

{Trader Joes’ BBQ Chicken Pizza. Fresh from the oven and super yummy!}

{Current read: The Cider House Rules by John Irving.}

What are your girl night in tricks? Please feel free to leave me a comment below. I’m always looking for new ideas!

Effortless Style

Posted in Accessories, DIY, Fashion, Fun by

We’ve all had those lazy hair days. You know, the days where you’d rather sleep in for another 20 minutes and just throw your hair back and call it a day? I’ve been having those days lately and while I’m all for ease, I do like to make it look like I still put some effort into something that didn’t require a lot of effort in reality. I’m calling it effortless style.

After wearing my hair back most of the week, I decided to put a different touch to my look by adding a simple brown scarf as a headband. It’s a 2 second trick to spruce up a bun or any pulled back up-do. I put on a pair of chandelier earrings to dress up the look a bit more. I then realized this is also a better way to show off chunkier earrings that would otherwise be hiding under your hair. This gave me further confidence in my excuse to be lazy more relaxed. Win, win! I was ready to go in 5 minutes flat, with 20 more minutes of sleep.

P.S. I got more compliments on my look that day than if I’d gotten up and put those 20 minutes into flat ironing and styling my hair down as I normally do. Needless to say, I’ll be on the lookout for more hair scarves and accessories when I’m out and about. I’m loving this newfound effortless style concept. Enjoy the long weekend!

Strawberry Smoothie: A Homemade Jamba Tale

Posted in Breakfast, DIY, Fun, Treats by

I woke up one morning last week wanting something different to start the day. The caveat being that it needed to be quick to make, easy to take with me on the way to work, and ice-cold because I knew a hot summer day was ahead of me.

Thanks to Pinterest, I’ve been collecting ideas for awesome smoothies, but found certain things that turned me off (i.e. Greek Yogurt) within the recipe. So I took a chance, trusted my taste buds, my instincts, and went with an admittedly safe, but very yummy Strawberry Smoothie. My first homemade concoction. Jamba Juice would be proud! Well, maybe not so much. I’m sure they’d prefer I come in and spend $5.00 on one of their smoothies, but you get the point. 🙂

It took 4 simple ingredients:

-1 cup of ice

-1 and 1/2 cups frozen strawberries

-1 cup vanilla yogurt

– 1/3 cup blue agave sweetener

With the press of a button, I had breakfast ready in just a few minutes. I grabbed my reusable travel cup, filled it up, and placed it in the freezer while I finished getting ready for work. 20 minutes later, I made a quick stop to the kitchen to pick it up and out the door I went.

Highlights: The Weekend

Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, DIY, Film, Food, Fun, Treats by

It was a complicated couple of days for me this weekend. Suffice to say I went through a myriad of emotions, for a myriad of reasons. (I think the ladies can understand this feeling every once in a while :)).  As the weather decided to be a bit kinder this weekend, so did my take on everything that was happening around me and within me. I managed to keep an eye on the sunshine! Here are a few highlights that brought many smiles to my face:

{FILM}.
Movie marathon on Sunday. Instant mood booster. We even covered three genres. Sometimes you just need a completely lazy day in bed watching movies.

{FOOD}.
The simplicity of grabbing my two favorites from Starbucks: an iced grande, soy, toffee nut latte & a cranberry orange scone.

My sweet boyfriend bringing a big bag of my favorite candy (don’t judge!)

{FUN}.
They say money doesn’t buy you happiness. In this case, I beg to differ and tend to do so when it comes to flowers. $5.00 well spent!

Fresh Basil

Posted in Dinner, DIY, Food, Fun by

To help get through all of the goodies sprouting from her home garden, a friend of mine has been sharing the fruits of her labor with me recently. Last week, the most delicious and sweetest bowl of cherry tomatoes came my way that I sliced up and enjoyed with dinner two nights in a row. Earlier this week, fresh basil came next.

Cooking for one presents its challenges. I find that I’m not home a lot and end up throwing out food more often than I’d like to admit. Since there’s produce that I have to buy fresh and needs to used within a short window of time, I resort to buying certain things in dried or canned form to avoid having to feel the pressure to eat it right away.

Of course, I immediately got the speech that nothing is better than fresh basil straight from a garden.  I was excited to experiment with it and came home one night deciding to use it in a quick pasta dish.

While boiling noodles; I sautéed some garlic in 2 tablespoons olive oil, adding lots of sliced chicken breast, tomatoes, black olives, and the fresh basil to the skillet. To give the dish a bit more punch, I then added 1 tablespoon of Marie Calendar’s Italian Dressing (this stuff is amazing in salads by the way).

I’m certainly not opposed to working with fresh ingredients, but admit that I would need to plan ahead more often that I do. The ease of working with dried herbs is the spontaneity you get in creating meals.

As for dinner, after placing the chicken sauté over the noodles and adding some parmesan cheese, dinner was served!

Pita Pizza

Posted in Dinner, DIY, Food, Treats by

Summer nights. Summer cooking. I’ve been afraid to turn on the oven over the last few nights because my apartment has been so H.O.T. You can only use the “let’s eat out because I don’t want to turn on the oven” excuse maybe once a week (and I used mine already). When the hummus I bought at the farmer’s market expired and I still had an entire pack of pita bread left over, I threw it in the freezer until I could figure out what to do with all the leftovers. So I took advantage of a little treat that my boyfriend will sometimes make while we’re hanging out on the weekends, tailored it to my taste buds, and turned it into a quick dinner item. The best news? The oven only needs to be on 20 minutes max.

You’ll need pita bread and toppings of your choice. I went with pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, monterey jack cheese, black olives, tomatoes, pineapple and olive oil.

Spread olive oil over pita bread and assemble toppings to your liking.

Place directly on the oven rack at 425º. I like to line the bottom of my stove with foil to catch any toppings that fall off during baking (and it always happens).

In 10-15 minutes you’ll have:

Grab yourself a glass of ice tea and some parmesan cheese and you’re good to go! YUM!

Weekend Cocktails

Posted in DIY, Food, Treats by

While I like cocktails as much as the next girl, it turns out I’m not a big drinker on the day-to-day. Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine with dinner every once and awhile, sip a midori sour during girls night out, or grab a margarita over Mexican food; but ice tea is my liquid of choice (passion-fruit iced tea if I’m feeling especially feisty).

Fun fact: this past weekend is the first weekend I can recall in quite some time having a cocktail on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday.  What a lush I’m turning into! Perhaps it’s the vibe of the season and cradling a sweet drink in your hand makes the days of summer all the more sweeter.

It all started at happy hour with the gang from work on Friday evening. Followed by two super delicious and well-presented homemade concoctions that I can’t take credit for (thanks Ryan!) other than the bellini peach-raspberry syrup that I buy by the bottle every time I hit the Olive Garden to add to my iced tea because I’m obsessed with it. Don’t laugh,  I admit I have a very strong affinity for the Olive Garden.

If you’re looking for a good summer cocktail,  I just had to share the deliciousness I experienced every single day of the weekend with you. Try it at home yourself! While you do, I’ll be seriously rethinking the frequency of my cocktail intake!

Friday Night 
White Tea Cooler

Ingredients: wild tea vodka, st. germain, mint, fresh lime juice, luxardo maraschino cherries, soda water.

Saturday Evening

Homemade Concoction #1

Ingredients: Olive Garden’s bellini peach-raspberry syrup, vodka, club soda

Sunday Afternoon
Homemade Concoction #2

Ingredients: Olive Garden’s bellini peach-raspberry syrup, vodka, 7-UP, sugar-coated rimmed glass

Making Arrangements

Posted in DIY, Fun by

The older and wiser (fingers crossed on the wiser aspect) I get, the more I appreciate real-live natural beauty. One of the smallest pleasures I like to give myself are a quick homemade vase of flowers. I truly share the sentiment that having a simple bouquet can instantly change your mood every time you walk into a space or even glance in its direction. It’s a great way to energize your home or your desk at work as you scowl at all those urgent-marked (but not really that urgent in reality) emails.

I recently found a new web series from Lauren Conrad, who seems to be trying to dethrone Martha Stewart herself with these DIY craft-based videos. Goodness, has she come a long way from “The Hills.” This girl is in the thrust of building an empire. More power to her!

As much as I LOVE flowers, they can get pretty expensive. Especially, if you hit a flower shop and buy them piecemeal, which I have yet to do personally so it’s on my “to-do list.” While doing my weekly Trader Joe’s run, I stopped and grabbed a small bundle of yellow roses ($4.99) and purple mums ($3.99) to try out this trick I learned from Lauren:

My Results?

My home not only looked and smelled better; but I got to entertain my crafty side by using a different object as a vase, which I usually use in my pantry to store packets of tea bags. It took a good 10 minutes to tape the grid, then cut and rearrange the flowers to my liking.

The beauty of making arrangements is that you can use any type of flower or any object as a vase. I’ve been seeing lots of creativity with using teacups, pitchers, and mason jars as a holder for a blooming bouquet.The sky really is the limit. More posts to come as I continue to explore my floral making side.