Advent Challenge D5 – Christmas Cake Ideas

Baking is always on my mind, even more so with Christmas approaching! For the last couple of years I have been making ‘alternative’ cakes for Christmas day, as I’m not a fan of the traditional fruit cake! However, I always try to do something a little different, peek-a-boo cakes, pop cakes, fancy decorations and this year will be no different. At the moment I’m trying to work out what kind of cake to bake and how to decorate it, for this I’ve been scouring the internet for ideas and have made a Top 5 list (in no particular order). Hopefully this may help others who are looking for Christmas cake inspiration!

Reindeer Cake – Any form of decorated cakes always works well at Christmas and there are a lot of options to chose from! This one stuck out the most for me due to its simplicity! Chocolate icing piped on, chocolate antlers and simple icing balls for the eyes and nose! It looks so good though and gives you the freedom to use whatever kind of cake mixture – a classic Victoria sponge would work well like this, or coffee, carrot…endless flavor options!

Advent Day 4 – DIY Baubles

I came across this neat little idea which searching for DIY Christmas decorations and it really caught my attention – its super simple, creates a great effect and can really be personalized!

So, what is it? – Clear baubles filled with whatever you want! Seriously. There are loads of clear plastic baubles on the internet and in stores (Asda is a good example) which split in half to allow you to place what you want inside them. A lot are sold as ‘Photo Baubles’ but really you can use anything, below is a selection of some of my personal favorite which I found online from a simple google image search.

Fillings: glitter, tinsel, beads, sequins, sweets, smaller christmas decorations, text/coloured paper, lavender, buttons, chocolates, feathers, dried flowers, seashells, coloured strings – and anything else you can think of!

DIY filled baubles is definitely something which I plan on trying this Christmas, just to see how much I can experiment with it!

Hopefully this may have inspired some of you to go out and make your own filled baubles – speak to you soon! x

Bonfire Night – Nail Ideas!

‘Remember remember the 5th of November!’ – Tonight in the UK is Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night, Fireworks Night, there are many names – held to commemorate the Gunpowder Plot on the Houses of Parliament on 5th of November 1605.

I’ve actually not made any plans for the night this year, I normally go and see a display but with work did forget completely about it – so instead have decided to make another nail inspiration/ideas blog all themed around fireworks! – enjoy!

(I really need to find some glow in the dark nail varnish – looks amazing! Wonder if it really works that well….)

Hope this has given you some inspiration to fireworks nails! – Speak to you soon! x

Halloween Week – Nails – Part Two

Here it is, my second installation of Halloween themed nails! Today I looked for a few more specific designs, thinking about different categories and styles, some looking more easier than others!

As of starting to write this I still have no idea what I’m going to do for my own design but hopefully after finding and compiling the images together I will have some ideas!

Pumpkins – Great little idea if your short on colours but have orange and black and can be easily personalized with glitter top coats if wished!

Blood – Whether flicked on, dripped on or carefully painted blood nails are great and go with just about any outfit!

Halloween Week – Nails!

Halloween is fast approaching and so I couldn’t resist the temptation of creating a couple of Halloween themed posts – which will be looking at different nail designs! This will mainly just be a mini nail art gallery, looking at some of the easiest and most effective Halloween nail art designs to some of the more flamboyant ones!