Julia Speaks: December 2015

December 30, 2015 8 commentaires

December 25, 2015 9 commentaires

December 23, 2015 10 commentaires

Of course I had to come up with a few Christmas recipes this month! Unfortunately, with uni and exams, I have had a few stressful (and busy) weeks, which is a shame because my mind was jumping from a super Christmassy mood to a 'oh my god I'm going to fail at everything' mood. So this means I haven't had the chance to bake yet, although I have something coming up next week that involves a traditional Christmas treat from the kitchen! ;)

As for today, I'll be sharing with you a recipe for a nice warm beverage. This is a cinnamon-spiced hot chocolate, intense, with yummy black chocolate and a creamy, soft texture. Not a hot drink that we'd have every day (see what it did to Santa!), but a great recipe to try out on Christmas day, sitting around the tree and covered in blankets. I've taken this recipe from a French website and spiced it up (literally, I added spices haha) a little.

Ingredients (for four mugs of hot chocolate)

~ 200g of black chocolate

~ 80cl of semi-skimmed milk

~ 20cl of single cream

~ a teaspoon of cinnamon

~ cocoa powder

~ whipped cream

Instructions

1/ Cut the chocolate in small bits to make it easier for it to melt. Then put it all in a saucepan, and slowly let it melt in a low to medium heat, stirring so that it doesn't burn in the pan (chocolate can be hard to work with!).

2/ Once it starts to melt, add the milk and the cream together in the saucepan. Then keep on stirring and mix the ingredients together, still at that low heat, for about twenty minutes. As you go, add the teaspoon of cinnamon.

3/ When the texture is creamy and the consistency is even, remove from the stove and whisk the mixture to give it a lighter, creamier texture.

4/ When you feel like the texture is right, put the chocolate in mugs (preferably cute and Christmassy!) and cover in whipped cream, then lightly sprinkle some cocoa powder on top. You can add little marshmallows if you want to of course!

There you have it, the hot chocolate of your dreams! If you don't like cinnamon, you can add some vanilla extract instead. You can sip on your yummy chocolate while watching a Disney film with the Christmas lights turned on, in your cute festive pyjamas... At least, that's exactly what I did!

What is your favourite hot drink to have during Christmas time? Have you ever made your own hot chocolate at home?

Lots of love,
Julia x

December 20, 2015 12 commentaires

I think that now is the time of year to take your glitter, your reds and golds and cute nail art tools to create beautiful manicures! This Christmas, I decided to do a post featuring some manicure ideas to help you if you're looking for inspiration. The online shop Born Pretty Store kinldy sent me some items to make my nails look super Christmassy. I have created a few manicures around these items, I hope you enjoy!

The Christmas Jumper

This manicure is the simplest to do, because you only need nail wraps! There are a lot of Christmas nail wraps in the shops at the moment, and I really wanted to try these Christmas jumper print ones. I love the pink shades of these, and the print is very well made. They are really easy to use, just pop them on and remove the excess paper. I applied a base coat to protect the nails, and when I peeled the wraps off my nails weren't damaged at all. If you want to keep the wraps for a long time, don't forget to put some top coat after you've applied them. I haven't done that, and the wraps only stayed on nicely for three days only, then the texture started to feel like it was about to chip. I still have a few of them left, so next time I'll be using some top coat! Overall, this is a really quick manicure if you don't feel like spending hours to do your nails.

Let It Snow

I really wanted to create a manicure that reminded of snow and of a white Christmas (maybe because I know we're not going to have snow this December and that is really sad!). I used this cute sheet of Christmas stickers from Born Pretty, my favourite stickers being the snowflakes that I've used on my nails here. I first applied two coats of the Barry M Coconut nail polish, a creamy white that looks really nice with the highlights of gold. I used four stickers on each hand - two next to each other on my thumbs, and one on each ring finger. Then I finished off with a coat of this silver glitter top coat from OPI, it is a mini version from the New York City Ballet collection from a few years ago. The stickers are of a nice quality, but to make sure they stay on as long as possible, always add a top coat on the nails. I love the silver glitter that imitates the sparkly snow, this is one of my favourite manicures I've ever done! The quality of the stickers is great, the manicure lasted me a full week without chipping and without the stickers coming off, and I'm sure it would have lasted me a couple days more if I didn't take it off myself!

Oh Christmas Tree...

For my third Christmas manicure, I've decided to go for a traditional theme: red, green and Christmas trees! You can never go wrong with this colour scheme, it looks great and you'll most likely get compliments on your cute nails art! So I've used the Chilli from Barry M, a pretty burgundy red colour (two coats are enough to have an opaque finish). On my thumb and on my ring finger, I put little Christmas trees from this set. They do come out quite big compared to my nails, but that is because I have really small nails so most stickers tend to be a bit too big. But that's okay to me, as long as they fit in the nails! This design is one of my favourite from the set. I wish I could do manicures with all the stickers, but I'd need a month more to try them all out! All I can say is that they're super cute and the quality is very nice. To add a little sparkle (because you must know already how I love glitter), I put some of this Kiko glittery red top coat (n°662). I painted my little finger nail entirely, then I did a sort of gradient on my middle finger nail, and I also added some of the top coat on my thumb, just around the bottom of the nail and of the Christmas tree. Gradient effects are always nice to do something a little different than just painting your nail plainly I think! So there it is, my classic Christmas manicure - I'll probably do something like that for Christmas Eve!

Overall the items that I received from Born Pretty Store are quite nice, my favourite have to be the stickers! And if you're interested and you see something you like online, they've created a discount code that will give you 10% off your order! Just type in DOSG10 when you order :D

What do you think about these manicure ideas? Do you like to do Christmas nail art for the festive season?

Lots of love,
Julia x

December 16, 2015 20 commentaires

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