NOTD - Peach Sparkle

Hello,

Today is my first ever Nails of the Day post, and after trying a number of designs over the weekend, I'm finally happy with the result!

 

For this design, I used two coats of Barry M Peach Melba, and one coat of Barry M Pink Iridescent. I also applied a base coat to protect my nails, and a fast dry top coat to seal the nail polish.

As I have quite weak nails, I like to use a strengthening base coat such as Rimmel Stronger Double Duty Base Coat. It costs around £4, applies well, and has a subtle pink shimmer. For the top coat, I always use Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat. This is a little more expensive, priced around £10, but is by far the best top coat that I have ever used. It dries quickly, has a high gloss finish, and prevents chipping. It is slightly more difficult to get hold of, but is usually available from larger Boots stores, and online at ASOS.

Grace xXx

Label: Nails

Daisy Cupcakes

Hello,

I know it’s not exactly beauty related, but I thought I would share my recent cupcake creations. I do a lot of baking for family, friends and special occasions, and love experimenting with cupcakes. Well today was my friend Clairabelle0306’s birthday tea party, so I got to work in kitchen this morning, and came up with these!

For the cupcakes themselves, I used a basic Victoria Sponge recipe:

4oz Caster Sugar

4oz Butter or Margarine

2 Medium Eggs

4oz Self-Raising Flour

I also like to add a teaspoon of vanilla essence, but it’s not essential. I find this recipe works really well, and it’s never failed me yet! It makes about 12 small cupcakes, but I personally prefer them to rise a little higher, so I often double the recipe. On this occasion, I doubled the recipe and it made 18 large cupcakes.

For the icing, I used Betty Crocker vanilla icing, mixed it with a few drops of red food colouring, and piped it onto the cupcakes. Ideally I would prefer to make my own icing, as the Betty Crocker icing is a little sweet for my taste, but I find it difficult to make butter cream icing that is of the right consistency for piping. I then finished the cupcakes with a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands, and some wafer daisies.

Last but not least, as I was giving these cupcakes as a gift, I placed them in some cupcake boxes. These usually come in packs of two, with room for 6 cupcakes in each. I purchased mine from my local supermarket, and they cost under £3. I would avoid craft stores for these though, as they tend to charge a lot more.

Grace xXx

Label: Cupcakes