Pinterest Challenge - Day 11 - Squash Apple Bake

Day 11 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

Photo by: Allrecipes

My Squash and Apple Bake:

This was my first time attempting to cook squash and I was very impressed. Ive been trying to improve my diet and foods like this make it easier to manage.

What you'll need:

• 1 large butternut squash cut in half with seeds scraped out
• 2 apples peeled and chopped into pieces
•  1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 Tbsp of flour
• Cinnamon

Combine the brown sugar and butter in a bowl and mix together.  Spread some of mixture into scraped out portion of the squash. Top with the peeled and chopped apples. Then add the rest of the brown sugar mixture over top of the apples. Then finish it all off by sprinkling cinnamon over both the squash and apple. Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour - 1.5 hours. The squash is done when you can easily place a fork into it all the way down to the peel. 

Pinterest Challenge - Day 10 - Lazy Girl Workout

 Day 10 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

Photo by: Self Magazine

 My Lazy Girl Workout:

Photo By: Self Magazine

Weighted Lunge:

Stand a few feet in front of couch, facing away from it, a dumbbell in each hand. Extend left leg behind you and rest top of foot on seat. Keeping torso tall, right knee over ankle, lower body until right thigh is parallel to floor (as shown). Return to start; complete reps and switch sides.

Photo By: Self Magazine

Victory press

Kneel on a pillow, holding a dumbbell in each hand. Bring arms out to sides, with elbows bent to 90 degrees and hands level with ears, palms forward. Contract abs as you press arms overhead (as shown). Return to start; repeat.

Photo By: Self Magazine

Torso Twist

Sit on floor with legs extended and knees bent. Hold a pillow with both hands at chest level and lean back at a 45-degree angle. Maintain this position as you contract your abs and twist torso right (as shown) and then left to complete one rep. Repeat.

Photo By: Self Magazine

 One Arm Row

With couch on right, a dumbbell in left hand, place right knee on couch. Lower torso parallel to couch; place right hand on couch for support. Extend left arm to floor, palm facing in. Bend arm and lift elbow back to shoulder level so upper arm is parallel to floor. Extend arm straight back (as shown). Return to start and repeat reps; switch sides.

Photo By: Self Magazine

Incline Push-Up

Start in push-up position with hands on chair or couch. Lower chest toward chair, keeping head aligned with spine (as shown). Push up until arms are straight but not locked. Repeat.

Photo By: Self Magazine

Abdominal Curl

Lie faceup on floor, an arm's length from couch or sturdy chair. Lift feet off floor, knees together, and place a pillow between hamstrings and calves. Reach arms overhead and grip couch or chair leg with both hands (as shown). Contract abs as you curl knees toward chest. Release and repeat.

Photo By: Self Magazine

One-Legged Squat

Stand facing chair or couch about 2 feet away. Place right foot on seat, arms raised at chest level, palms in. Keeping arms lifted throughout, lower into a squat as if sitting in a chair (as shown), being careful not to let left knee creep past toes. Return to start; do all reps; switch sides. 

Pinterest Challenge - Day 9 - Jean Jacket

Day 9 Pinspiration: Click Here and Here to see my pins

Link to Photo

By: Fashion Worship

 

My Jean Jacket: 

 

Pinterest Challenge - Day 8 - Freezer Breakfast Burritos

Day 8 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

Photo from: Are We There Yet

My Freezer Breakfast Burritos:

Just want to start this off by saying these burritos are the greatest Pin I've attempted so far. It makes so much sense don't know why I haven't tried something like this before. Cook a ton of food when you have the time so that the food is ready to go when you don't! 

What you'll need: 

• 10 eggs
• 1 (8oz) package of cheese
• 10-15 tortillas (depends on how big you want your burritos)
• 1 lb of sausage (could also use bacon)
• 1/2-3/4 whole onion
• 1/2 bag of hash browns
• 1/4 cup milk
• salt and pepper

A little prep work,chop onion. Crack eggs into bowl, add the milk and beat the mixture until combined and add the onion.

 

Meanwhile brown the sausage. When sausage is done, place on paper towel lined plate and allow to cool. Do not pour off the grease from the sausage use it to help cook the hash browns. 

After the hash browns are cooked remove them from pan and allow to cool on a plate. Add the egg and onion mixture to the pan and scramble.

Pour the eggs, sausage and hash browns into a large bowl and add the cheese...don't wanna forget that. Mix everything up, add the salt and pepper to taste.

Sorry guys I totally forgot to take a picture of the last step! Don't worry its not a hard one... Spoon some of the burrito mixture into a tortilla and fold up then Saran wrap- throw in the freezer your done!

Pinterest Challenge - Day 7 - DIY French Manicure

Day 6 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

 

My DIY French Manicure: 

I was so excited to find this on Pinterest because I never go get my nails done, its expensive and my nails get trashed at work because of how much antibacterial alcohol I have to use. This seemed like a great way for me to get a salon look for free! However I was very dissapointed, the tip color bled under the sticky onto the base nail color and the whole thing looked messy. Attempted a second time with a not to flashy color (silver) and It looked better but again not perfect like it does in the Pinterest version. So bummer here, but this Pinterest fantasy was... BUSTED

Pinterest Challenge - Day 6 - Lasagna Pasta Pies

Day 6 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

My Lasagna Pasta Pies:

Ingredients: 

• 1 package biscuits
• 1lb sausage
• ~1/2 jar pasta sauce
• 1 cup uncooked noodle
• shredded mozzarella

Heat oven to 350°F. Cook and drain pasta as directed. Meanwhile, in skillet, cook Italian sausage until no longer pink; drain. Stir in pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese and pasta; cook 1 minute.

Meanwhile separate dough into 8 biscuits; press each biscuit to 5 1/2-inch round. Firmly press 1 biscuit in bottom and up side of each of 8 ungreased jumbo muffin cups, forming 1/4-inch rim. 

Fill with sausage mixture; sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from pan. Top with Parmesan cheese.

I love this recipe because its delicious and it uses basic ingredients that I usually already have around the kitchen, no need to run to the grocery store, perfect!

I cooked more than a cup of pasta for this recipe so I could save some and use later for another batch or a different recipe.

Pinterest Challenge- Day 5 - Golden Smokey Eye

Day 5 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

 My Golden Smokey Eye:

Ok I have now learned that my camera sucks and the lighting is horrible in my bathroom, so sorry everyone for the last couple of pics that are dark and fuzzy. Anyway I pretty much followed this tutorial for this look however I used less of the gold and more black on my eyes.

Also they show just a dark black eye shadow for the dark parts, I took it a step further by lining my eyes with heavy black pencil liner all the way acros top and bottom lids and then taking a smodger brush (you could use a small defined brush if you dont have a smudger) and smudging up the liner the whole way across my eyes on both lids but really focusing on bringing out the liner on the outer edges of the eye. then split my eye in half like they did and did one side gold and one side black, I used a darker gold color in between to blend the two shades together.

dotted line showing how much to smudge out eyeliner

So here's my finished product, sorry again that its so dark and cant really see much. But I was really happy with the way it turned out. I think the dramatic eye paired great with the simple bun from my last post.

Pinterest Challenge - Day 4- The Fun Bun

Day 4 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

 

My Fun Bun:

 

I tried to follow the steps as shown in the pins above but unfortunately the example shown doesn't work well for shorter hairstyles so I had to improvise. I also have bangs so I chose to leave those out of the updo. So if you have shorter hair follow my steps:

1. Just as seen above pull your hair into a tight pony either on the top of your head or just pretty high. 
2. In the above tutorial she said if you have straight hair curl ends before putting in the ponytail but I found it much easier to curl after the pony tail. so after up in a pony divide your hair in 1/2 upper and lower sections and curl the ends of the upper portion up toward your face and curl the ends under and back toward the ponytail. The bottom sections of hair curl toward base of neck and curl the ends under and back toward the ponytail. This will help the hair form the bun shape. 
3. Divide the top 1/2 of the hair you curled into right and left sides. Take the right section and loop the ends in toward the pony tail and bobby pin the section so it starts to form the bun loop. Pin the hair tighter and smaller loop then you want so you can reshape a little later. Repeat with the left side and divide bottom 1/2 of hair into right and left and pin sections just light top 1/2 of the bun.
4. Once all your hair has been formed into the bun shape, pull gently on the hair to spread it out so there are no open spots present in the bun and the bun is the size you want.
5. Top off with hairspray and your done!

Pinterest Challenge - Day 3 - Fridge Mats

Day 3 Pinspiration: Click here to see my pin

My DIY Fridge Mats:

I hate cleaning out the shelves in my fridge (actually just cleaning in general), so this cleaning tip suggests to line the shelves in your fridge with plastic place mats, something spills or liner gets dirty just take it out and rinse off in the sink SUPER EASY!

 

When I went looking for a cute place mat that would work for my fridge I had a hard time. Didn't seem like there were to many decorative options available in plastic place mats mostly just kid decorated kinds but I ended up finding some plaid neon plastic place mats at Walmart that would work well enough. I got two green for the shelf in the bottom of my fridge and two blue for the fridge drawers. It was so quick and easy to cut the mats to fit and I think it turned out pretty good for a project that cost me $4.