Thursday, June 28, 2012

tutorial - spiked hairband

Hey guys! Go check out this week's DIY on the Chictopia Blog! Today we tackled the amazing spiked hair band look & it's possibly the easiest tutorial yet! There's no sewing or gluing involved, so anyone can do this :) Click on the photos below to check it out:







Monday, June 25, 2012

sunset nails tutorial

Hey guys! Are you in the mood for summer? I basically live for the warm weather, so I've been loving the heat waves & sunshine here :) Today we combine a couple of techniques, like ombre nails & nail art pens to make an adorable tropical sunset mani on the LuLu*s Blog! Check out the step-by-step by clicking on the pic:







Thursday, June 21, 2012

diy floral sunglasses

The other week, Chictopia posted one of our photos on their facebook page. There's something about a popular page posting a photo of a person-- the fans never hold back their harsh opinions. I'm a big girl. I can take it. But some dude was like "her sunglasses are too much" ... and I thought to myself, WHAT THE HELL. I'LL SHOW YOU TOO MUCH!

So here's this week's tutorial. A "flower crown for your eyes" as I like to call them. Definite summer festival glam :) Click on any of the photos below to go to the step-by-step, oooh baby.






diy floral sunglasses, H&M lace dress



Tuesday, June 19, 2012

lace nails tutorial

Hey guys,

This is a day late, but our latest manicure tutorial went up on the LuLu*s Blog yesterday! We did another Konad tutorial & this time we went with a lace look. Check it out on the blog by clicking on the photo below & if you're a pinner, keep tabs on it on pinterest HERE. :)





Thursday, June 14, 2012

Happy 2nd Birthday sylandsam.com!

Earlier today, I decided to look back on some old posts. I'm not sure what made me do it & why I went all the way to the first posts in this blog, but I suddenly realized that our first post went up on June 14th, 2010. That was exactly TWO years ago! that's when we realized that it's our blog's second birthday & we weren't even keeping track :)

So we decided to be nerds & bake up some rainbow chip cupcakes to celebrate.



This year was our biggest year yet! We grew so much as a blog and as of yesterday, we have 1000+ subscribers via google friend connect, bloglovin, and email subscribtions!



blog by the numbers:
from june 14th 2011 to june 14th 2012
- 90,513 unique visitors
- 30 #manicuremonday tutorials
- 21 #fashiondiy tutorials
- 8 giveaways
- 1 trip to NYC for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week c/o Chictopia

most visited posts this year:
1. Tutorials Page
2. Bjork's Swan Dress
3. Tutorial - Galaxy Purse
4. Tutorial - Ombre Nails
5. Shop Page
6. Tutorial - Dry Water Marble Nails
7. Tutorial - Bandaged Leggings
8. Tutorial - Inspired by Glitter Litas
9. Tutorial - Cupcake Nails

Do you have any favourites from this past year?


Thank you ALL for reading our blog and continuing to support us by tweeting, pinning and liking our posts! It means so much to us that we have such loyal readers that help us share our ideas with others!


diy scarf shorts

With both the rise of all-over-prints and the trend of pyjamas as outerwear, it's a perfect time to make yourself some silky shorts from a designer inspired scarf! This tutorial is SUPER easy and these huge satin scarves are about a dime a dozen these days, so follow along! Click on any of the photos to check out the full tutorial on the Chictopia Blog :)








Scarf prints all over the runway at the D&G Spring 2012 Ready to Wear show! photos from style.com


H&M necklace, vintage bustier, DIY scarf shorts, jeffrey campbell benatar boots


my new Jeffrey Campbell Benatar Booties c/o LuLu*s, Similar here :)

Sunday, June 10, 2012

growing greens

Every year we've been growing herbs, fruits & veggies in our backyard. It's transformed from a little hobby into a big part of our lives. We usually buy little starter plants in May and we transplant them into our garden or into larger pots. This year we decided to take things a step further; we started our entire garden from seeds! Back in April, Matt built a "grow box". He built a rectangular box with a light inside that is mounted on a chain-- as the seeds grew to little sprouts, we could raise up the lamp. It was super cool to grow these little guys indoors & get to watch them everyday as they sprouted little leaves. :)


We started in individual biodegradable pots


These tomato seeds were dyed so you could tell which were which heirloom variety!




our planted seeds in the grow box

AFTER ONE WEEK:

baby spring greens


baby beets

AFTER ONE MONTH:

spring greens growing lots more!


baby kale! Yum :P


thyme


jewel toned beets (you can call us beet farmers now)


heirloom tomatoes

Since these photos, we've transplanted all of our plants outside! We'll post more photos of our garden soon ♥

Monday, June 4, 2012

diy studded nails

So this week is "Stud Week" on the LuLu*s blog, so we were asked to come up with a stud inspired manicure! We decided to go with another microbead technique & this is what we came up with! Click on the picture below to head over to the blog & see the step-by-step instructions :)





Friday, June 1, 2012

Lime Coconut Cake

I've been really food-focused lately & I think it's obvious if you check out our pinterest account. I always seem to forget to take photos of the process of cooking and baking though because I'm usually rushing to make everything as quickly as possible... so that I can eat as quickly as possible. I had a bit of a day off, so I took my time and snapped some pics in between steps.















Lime Coconut Cake Recipe
Gourmet, March 2009. via Honey and Jam
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated Key lime zest
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups self-rising flour (or just add 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to all purpose.)
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup fresh Key lime juice, divided
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon rum (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Generously butter an 8- by 8-inch square or 9- by 2-inch round cake pan and line bottom with a round of parchment paper.

Toast coconut in a small baking pan in oven, stirring once or twice, until golden, 8 to 12 minutes. Cool. Leave oven on.

Beat together butter, granulated sugar, and zest with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir together flour and 1/2 cup coconut (reserve remainder for topping). Stir together milk and 2 tablespoons lime juice. At low speed, mix flour and milk mixtures into egg mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour.

Spoon batter into pan and smooth top. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool to warm, then turn out of pan and discard parchment.

Whisk together confectioners sugar, remaining 2 tablespoons lime juice, and rum (if using, if not use milk) and pour over cake. Sprinkle with remaining coconut.


*note*: I replaced the milk with coconut milk because it was just in the fridge & seemed like it'd work. I also ended up omitting the glaze entirely and just baking the cake with the toasted coconut sprinkled on top. :) This cake was amaaaaazing.

Happy Friday!
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