Date night~!

I recieved a call from an old friend from highschool today, asking if we wanted to go out for dinner. It gave me an excuse to dress up! We're going out to the Keg, a steakhouse.

Ah, I love these earrings so much! These are the ones I posted awhile back from Joanniel's etsy shop.

Eyes:

Brazen Cosmetics for ever (candy hearts collection)

Fyrinnae damn paladins

MAC satin taupe

NYX black

I purchased this dress when I was in Toronto, for something silly like $21.00! I love it, but this is the first time I've worn it out. It's from a local store called Katie, which I guess, sells wholesale korean fashion.

And a obligatory glasses shot!

Baklava made with local cinnamon honey

Thursday night we had a BBQ with old family friends. I made Baklava the night before to have as a desert. It's one of my all time favorite desserts, It's actually quite easy to make yet tastes delicious.

•1 pound frozen phyllo sheets

•1 cup melted butter (I used margarine)

•2 cups finely chopped walnuts or blanched almonds

•1/2 cup sugar

•1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

•3/4 cup sugar

•3/4 cup honey

•1 cup water

•1 tablespoon lemon juice

I thaw the phyllo pastry overnight in the fridge, so it's all ready to go the following day. Remove pastry, depending on the size of your baking dish (mine is an old casserole dish I believe) you can fold the pastry then rip it all in half so the pieces will fit evenly in your pan. You can either choose to use half your pastry, then have one layer with the nut mixture, or have 2-3 layers in between the phyllo. I usually do mine in 3 layers.

Have a damp dish cloth/tea towel ready to go when you start using the phyllo. It can dry up pretty fast, or the sheets will stick together. Grease your pan with some butter, and lay down the phyllo sheets two at a time, brushing each sheet with the melted butter. Keep on layering the pastry until you want a nut layer; combine the nuts, sugar, and cinnamon and spread evenly over the pastry. Repeat; brushing the sheets with butter and however many layers of nuts you want. Make sure to have a good layer of pastry on the top.

Cut the finished baklava pastry into diamonds (I usually cut 8-10 pieces in it) before baking.

Bake at 400°  until brown; 30-35 mins. While this is baking, combine the honey (I used locally bought cinnamon honey, but you could easily add a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to this mixture), brown sugar, water & lemon juice in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring often until it is like syrup. Once the baklava has cooled from the oven, pour the entire mixture over.

White chocolate macadamia nut cookies

A while ago, I picked up some similiar cookies at a local bake sale. They were thin, and *so* delicious, I had to try making them for my family at home. These cookies are really tasty, even Matt's mother who isn't a fan of sweets loved these.

Ingredients

•1 cup butter, softened

•3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

•1/2 cup white sugar

•2 eggs

•1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

•1/2 teaspoon almond extract

•2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

•1 teaspoon baking soda

•1/2 teaspoon salt

•1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

•1 cup white chocolate chips

 

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Combine all ingredients. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. The cookies spread out quite a bit, so if you want them thin, space them out quite a bit. I had mine quite far apart and some spread out together.

3.Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

 

Enjoy! If you try out my recipe, please let me know what you think :)

Butterfly Flowers

I'm going out for lunch today with a girlfriend from school. I decided to play with lighter colors, inspired by the flowers on a new shirt from American Eagle, 9.99$ on sale!

Eyes:

MAC gorgeous gold

Fyrinnae Meerkat

Fyrinnae Darling Misfit

Fyrinnae Fyre & Ice

Rimmel stay matte pressed powder in Transparent

Jane bronzer in Tahiti

MAC creme d'nude lipstick

Woodland Elf

Matt & I are going out to Oak Hammock Marsh today; It's a nearby  marsh with a little mueseum and all sorts of things to do. They even have critter fishing! Photos later. Anyway, so I wanted to do an neutral eye with a little bit of green in the crease.

Eyes:

Fyrinnae Polar Bear

Fyrinnae Half Elf Hottie

Fyrinnae Avian Shapeshifter

Fyrinnae Dressed to Kill

Brazen Oath

Cheeks:

Brazen bronzer & Charisma blush

Lips:

Brazen Hype lipgloss

Sunset FOTD

I wanted to do a "beachy" sort of look using summer colors for today. The sun is shining, what more could you ask for?

I found this necklace amongst my pile of jewlery last night. It was given to my mom from my grandmother, and passed down to me. If I remember correctly it's from one of her first trips to Hawaii. Matt and I are planning to go on a vacation during my Christmas break to either Mexico or Hawaii, but I think this necklace changed my mind a bit.

What I used:

hifi three libras

hifi sunset in aries

fyrinnae avian shapeshifter

mac satin taupe

nyx odyssey

brazen bronzer on cheeks, nose, forehead

mac creme de nude lipstick

June Cabin Adventure

The second week in June, Matt rented us a cabin at Riverview Lodge. It was about a 45 minute drive, and it was great to get away from the city! We stayed five nights and enjoyed relaxing and basking in the sun.

We brought Pepper with us, who was very excited to be outside. He's so fluffy, and this is after we took him for a haircut to get thinned out before our trip!

We visited the nearby Hydro dam. The water was flowing very fast, and was very high. We have had record levels of flooding this year all over the prairies.

During our walks, lazy Pepper stopped multiple times to roll around on the ground.

The resort area nearby our cabin.

A beaver dam! I thought this was so neat.

Needless to say, I took a ton of photos. We picked up a really neat Outdoorsy scrapbooking kit at Michaels, and plan to put some of our favorite photos in there.

On our last day at the lake, Matt spotted this guy swimming by. At first I thought it was a log until I zoomed in on my camera. I still think it may be an otter, which would make sense since we are beside Otter Falls.

...Until I took this photo, if you click the photo, tell me it doesn't look like a bear! At that moment I had a little panic attack but stll proceeded to take photos.

Then I saw him dive under, look at those legs! I'm still clueless as to if this is an otter or not!