The Summer Braided Updo

Hey everyone! I hope that you're having a great thanksgiving! We enjoy Corned beef and Cabbage at my house for thanksgiving and it was delicious! :)

Anyway, I wanted to look nice for the big dinner, so I used this ^ video

And here is how it went down

 First you braid the sides, and then pull out the braid a little to make it look thicker.

 Right about this time you look REALLY attractive ha ha

Coil it all up and bobby pin! Done! :)

Happy thanksgiving! Hope that your holiday plans all went wonderfully :)

A More Personal Relationship with the Savior-12 Week Study

I should probably start off this post by saying that I am LDS, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or as you may know us the "mormons". This is my mormon.org profile if you want to know more about what we believe.

Anyway, another reason why I joined pinterest was for things like this

I am currently on week 7. By the way, here is the original pin. You can print off your own there if you want :)

Anyway, this has been fantastic. I've been really caught up in myself lately. Especially this month because of NaNo  and each scripture has helped refocus me. Some of the scriptures I already knew pretty well, like the first one, Helaman 5:12, which is one of my favorite scripture mastery scriptures.
However, most of them have been scriptures that I haven't known as well. Like 3 Nephi 13:14-21. That one really hit me for a couple reasons. I've been thinking more about "laying up treasure" lately, but also because of the part about forgiveness. I've always been one who thought that everything was black and white. Very justice oriented. I've tempered that a lot, but sometimes it still likes to sneak out. It's hard for me to forgive, but it's something that still needs to be done. For my sake as well as theirs. This journey has really helped me to become more like I should, especially when it seems that everything is pulling me the other way.

Anyway, I encourage you all to try it out! Let me know if you have any questions :)

So-Easy Chocolate Souffle (AKA the super cheater souffle)

So today I crossed off a bucket list item... Actually not really, but I made souffles. Which is on my bucket list, but I don't think I'm counting this one.

Here is the original pin


Basically I am in love with the food network and ever since Chef Ramsey said that even professional bakers quake at the thought of souffles, I had to do it!

So I prepped...

I even did the awesome "put every ingredient into separate bowls already measured out so we can feel like we're on a cooking show" thing. Which made me feel pretty epic. But I did not take a picture of it. Also, in case you were wondering, the bear tin is what we keep our sugar in.

So I microwaved the chocolate and cream. And ended up with

this.

Looks tasty right? I divided it in half like it said to and put the part I was adding to the egg whites in the fridge.

The half that I didn't put in the fridge ended up getting powdered sugar because it was kind of bitter :)

That's me whipping the egg whites. I'm not ashamed to say that I used 5 eggs because I broke the first egg yolk. Thank goodness it was the first egg yolk instead of the last.

I ended up cooking mine in 10 oz. Ramikins and only did two. I had a lot of left overs though!

I cooked them for probably 16 minutes, and here was the result :)

uncooked

 cooked

 After I spooned in the other half (let's be honest, they're kind of glorified lava cakes, still delicious though!)

Try it out and let me know how it goes for you guys! :)

Warrior Braid Tutorial

So this is a braid that I made up about a year ago. I got the idea from watching once upon a time, Mulan's hair. I liked that it was poofy on top and tight on the sides. This was the result :) Funnily enough you have probably seen something very similar to it on Once Upon A Time In Wonderland. Alice's hair is just like this, except dutch braids going into a fishtail.

Supplies:
3 hairties
a comb
maybe some lotion (my little sister's hair had a lot of static)

Step 1: Brush out hair

Step 2: Separate your top section out.  Step 3: French braid the top section

           

Steps 4 and 5: French braid both sides (I braid all the way down for convenience). I also try and angle the braid up toward the top of the head. Although you don't have to.

Step 6: Undo top braid to the point where you can start adding in hair. I usually have to braid just a little bit farther than I did originally before I start adding in the side braids.

Step 7: French braid the rest of the way down. I take out the hair ties for the side braids when I get to them at the bottom of the braid.

And here is the finished product! :)

Here is a picture from my very first attempt at the braid a year ago

And just so you know, it can be done on yourself, it's just way easier to have someone else do it. This is the best I could do. I did it like this for Halloween 2012

Good luck!

Twisted Half Up and Half down

Today was the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who. So I wanted to look nice for the party of course! I found This Pin

Simple, pretty, perfect :)

I don't ever back brush my hair because of the damage and I didn't curl the ends or anything. I just put a little mouse in to make sure my already naturally curly hair held the curls.

 The before, with wet hair :)

The after :)

Just in case you were wondering, the party was fantastic.

The Carousel Braid

This is one of my first attempts at the carousel braid. And by one of my first attempts I mean that I did this braid maybe 15 times in one night. I couldn't decide how I could get it to look the way that I wanted it.

Once again, I only had a picture to go off of. This picture in fact.


How I did it was just a dutch french braid, but only adding hair into the top, not taking any hair from underneath. Then I just wrapped it around. I obviously looks a lot different than the picture. I'll have to try this version. It looks like just a regular french, mixed with a lace braid. Let me know if you guys want a tutorial :)

Update: November 25, 2013
So I kind of lied, this is actually the picture I went off of. Its been bugging me for days why mine looked so different!

As you can see, this one follows more of the same idea that I did.

The lace braid

Ok, I did this a few weeks ago, back before I decided to blog this stuff. Also, I'm procrastinating writing right now... we'll just pretend that's not happening.
So this is the picture of how it's supposed to look.

Here is a link to the tutorial. Lace braid tutorial I only had the picture to go off of. It's kind of like a carousel braid from what I could see in the picture.
Here's how mine turned out :)

 Now that I've found the tutorial though, I'll try it again and let you guys know how it goes! :)

Mini Cinnamon Rolls! (And Swan Princess)

Once upon a time I was little and watched Swan Princess. Before the movie starts the pillsbury doughboy tells you to get a treat before the movie starts. For some reason, I always thought it was cinnamon rolls. So, yesterday I made some cinnamon rolls.
These ones

I made a little adjustment though. I didn't use any maple in my syrup because my family isn't in love with maple. But they were definitely in love with these cinnamon rolls! So tasty and they weren't too sweet, just the right amount of sweet. I never would have thought of using cresent rolls!

I used a cutting board to roll out my dough because I hate putting things straight on the counter.

Also, it doesn't say in the recipe, but I used floss to cut my rolls! It's a family trick :)

The frosting was really easy to make! It took me less than a minute. For reals.

Here is the tasty product! My family ate every single one! I got 18 in total out of the roll of dough :)