Wednesday 11 March 2015

DIY Mothers Day Nail Kit Jar & Personalised Candle

Hi guys,

Since Mothers Day is this Sunday in the UK i thought i would share what me and my sister decided to gift our mum.

My mum never really gets time to paint her nails with looking after my two little brothers and helping my sister get ready for University this September and therefore doesn't own a single nail polish. With that in mind we decided we would buy her some and put them together with all other nail essentials in a cute gift.


Originally the jar was going to contain all of her Mothers Day gifts except for the candle. But because we bought everything before buying the jar, that idea didn't go according to plan We ended up purchasing a jar that couldn't fit everything in that we had bought. So now we are having to find a cute Mothers Day gift bag that can fit in the jar, candle, fluffy socks and her favourite chocolate bars (I live in a small town with not many shops so this is a lot more difficult than it sounds).

Anyway back to the jar situation: i luckily had a cute jar on hand that i haven't used in forever so i popped it in the dish washer and now it looks like i have only just bought it and all of the nail items fit perfectly. In the end we went with four nail polishes, cotton pads, nail varnish remover, cuticle kit set and a nail polish correcter pen. The last two products were a random, awesome find!


 Everything except from the cuticle kit and corrector pen (which both came from Poundland. POUNDLAND!!) came from Superdrug. Every item above cost £1 or less! The nail polish colours are stunning up close and there were so many to choose from it took 10 minutes to decide. The make is MUA which in my opinion is perfectly good brand - more people should give it a try.

Now to the candle. I saw this idea on pinterest and had to give it ago because honestly, i didn't think it would work. And it did! And it's bluddy brilliant!

You draw anything on wax paper, hold it against the candle wherever you would like the drawing to be (i taped it on after burning my fingers with the hairdryer) and then apply heat until it melts (literally!) into the candle. Because i ended up melting an area of the candle more than i would have liked and it was no longer smooth i decided to scratch a pattern all over using a cocktail stick once my picture had melted on.

I wasn't really sure on what to draw, i didn't want it to be anything i wasn't sure on in case it did work, but at the same time i didn't want it to be anything too intricate in case it didn't.
In the end i decided to put mine and my siblings' birth dates in a heart shape. I thought this was very fitting with it being a Mother's Day gift and it didn't take very long to draw out properly once i had done a few practice drawings and found the order of things i liked.

If anyone is stuck for what to get a mum, nan, aunt, sister or even friend one day i recommend making your own personalised candle. It would be great if you had young kids because you could get them to draw a picture to put on the candle as a gift from them.

By the way, i found this candle in Wilkinson's for £2 and already had the bright pink pen and wax paper. :)

Love Jade x

Ps. Please be careful if you do decide to make one of these candles because the wax will melt in places you're not applying the heat to and i ended up ruining my favourite blanket because i wasn't paying attention and wax dripped all over it :( it is also EXTREMELY hot and i would hate for anyone to get burnt.

Thursday 5 March 2015

Choc Chip Cookie Bars

Yup you read the title right. I said choc chip cookie BARS!




A few days ago i stumbled upon a whole page of yummy bars on Pinterest. There were all sorts of treats that people had made into a bar. Now this intrigued me because, being British and married to an American i was well aware that American bakeries sell bars of things (Huge Flour Child Bakery social media stalker) and no British bakeries do. I've always wanted to try a dessert bar, but because i have never been to America i have not got to try any YET.
 So when i stumbled across THIS recipe i wasted no time in getting in the kitchen and baking up a batch. A huge batch at that.



The recipe was so easy i'm tempted to go out and buy every single variety of 'chips' that the supermarket has to offer so i can make a ton of different sorts.... But i best finish the huge plate sat in my kitchen first!

I should have known they were going to be awesome when i saw the finished cookie dough waiting to be put in the tin *baker heaven*. I mean seriously, how can anything that starts off looking like this end up being terrible???


Of course i ended up tucking into one as soon as they had cooled down enough to handle. They were still warm and gooey inside which is just how a chocolate chip cookie should be eaten in my opinion. Next time i may add less chocolate chips as the taste of the brown sugar and everything else that makes a good tasting cookie was lost in the flavour of the chocolate (which isnt necessarily a bad thing). 

Now off to munch one since my mouth is watering after talking about them!

It was a short but sweet (get it?) blog tonight but i hope it persuaded you to give this recipe a try!

Love Jade x


Psst...  to clarify: this is NOT my recipe. (I wish it was haha)