Recipe: Pancakes

Mmmh pancakes! I don't think I know a single person who doesn't like them. Pancakes are super quick and easy to make, they taste delicious and you can jazz them up by adding small apple pieces or nuts to the batter, spreading nutella or jam on them, or how about some berries and vanilla ice cream? There are so many different ways of enjoying your pancakes, and I really fancied some nutella pancakes this morning. Keep reading to find out how I make them...

 

 For three pancakes you will need:

• 60g plain flour
• 25g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 small egg
• milk
• oil or (unsalted) butter for frying

Depending on how many pancakes you want to make, you can simply double/triple/etc the recipe :)
Like I said above, these pancakes are incredibly easy and quick to make. First of all, mix the sugar and egg in a mixing bowl, add the flour and baking powder and then the milk - add a little at a time until the consistency is right. Your batter is perfect when it can easily be poured without being too runny - aim for a smoothie-like consistency! Let a frying pan heat up, add a little oil or butter and then fry your pancakes on medium heat, flip them over every now and then until they are golden brown on both sides. Done! :)
All you need to do now is enjoy your yummy pancakes - I love spreading on lots of nutella and then rolling them up.. mmhh!

Dior Garden Party

How beautiful is Dior's Spring Look for 2012? I'm in love with the purple eyeshadow palette and the lipsticks but my favourite products are definitely the Garden Clutches, especially the grey/pink one called 'Milly Garden'. The packaging is just stunning and the colours are so pretty! I don't think I have to mention that I'd like to have all of these little beauties..?

Beauty Lust List #1

I need each one of these beauties in my life! Topshop's beautiful Pillow Talk lipstick from the current Smoke&Mirrors collection is the first thing I will buy when I'm uptown on Wednesday. It's such a stunning cool toned baby pink and the packaging is lovely as always. Barry M's dazzle dusts are brilliant and I think 'Silvery Grey' would be great for a smokey eye, and some glitter is always a plus - especially with the festive period coming up! Same goes for the Silver Black palette from The Body Shop. Mac's Well Dressed blush has been on my wish list for so long and I could slap myself for not picking it up at the airport where it was cheaper than usual! I'm really keen on the Topshop blush too, I haven't tried any cream blushes yet as I was always a bit worried it might look patchy on top of foundation and powder, but this is such a great shade and I don't have a peachy blush like this in my collection yet - I don't think I can resist it haha! And as for the two nail polishes... they are just beautiful! And a girl can never have enough nail polishes right? :)

Hello Scotland!

Hello dolls! I got back to Edinburgh last night after spending five amazing days at home in Germany with my family and friends. I had such a brilliant time - delicious family dinners, shopping with my mum, nights out with my best friends (who I haven't seen for half a year)... Safe to say those five days went far too quick and I'm missing everybody already but Kev is doing a great job at cheering me up :)
Here are a couple of pictures from my time at home, I didn't actually take a lot - too busy enjoying myself ;) However, I bought a couple of new nail polishes and pretty clothes, a post about that will follow as soon as I get the time to! Love, Mona xx 

Lemon Cupcakes

Hi dolls! Do you remember the Rainbow Velvet Cupcakes I made last week? I absolutely loved the way they turned out: so fluffly, soft and just lovely. I had one lemon left and I can't get enough of cupcakes anyway, so I decided to make some lemon cupcakes with the same recipe. I simply added the zest of a lemon and a little bit of lemon flavouring, and oh wow, they are truly delicious! As you can tell from the pictures, they rose surprisingly well and look more like muffins, which is why I only covered them with some milk chocolate and sugar sprinkles rather than proper buttercream icing.
I had three of them for my breakfast and Kev adored them as well which is always a good sign... I will definitely make these little treats again :) xx

NOTD: Starry Night

This is a manicure I wore last week after getting my hands on Rimmel's amazing metallic silver polish called 'Your Majesty'. It's beautifully glittery and shiny, very opaque and it does look great on its own. However, I decided to combine it with Barry M's Navy polish: I used two coats of Navy, sponged a bit of Your Majesty on top and added a little bit of Essence's Nail Art Twins Glitter Topper for some extra sparkle! It really does remind me of a starry night and I couldn't stop looking at my nails - you can see how sparkly they were by looking at my pinkie in the picture above! I will definitely be using Your Majesty for a similar look again as I think it looks great dabbed on top of a plain colour :)

You might have noticed the amount of times I mentioned Essence's Nail Art Twins Glitter Topper in my nail posts... But just look at it, isn't it beautiful? This is without a doubt my favourite topper ever! I have got a blurry close-up for you just so you can drool a litte - who can resist some holo glitter?!

Instagram #2

1. View from our balcony on a lovely sunny day 2. How cute are these little knitted hats on the Innocent smoothies? Makes me want to buy them even more often! 3. This is a tape manicure I did at the beginning of last week - unfortunately it didn't turn out the way I wanted to at all :( Definitely giving it another try though! 4. Tesco's Chocolate Brownie Popcorn, oh my god! I think it took me less than two minutes to eat every last bit.. mmmmhhh!

5. I finally ordered some dotting tools from ebay and used them for this polkadot mani 6. Lots of pretty nail polish! 7. My mum sent me a huge parcel full of sweets and other lovely things from Germany, like these Milka chocolate advent calendars :) Roll on 1st of December! 8. Another thing my mum sent over were a few boxes of German gingerbread which I've been nomming nonstop - so yummy!

9. Pasta is definitely my favourite food ever! It's so easy and quick to make and simply delicious, and I really wouldn't mind having it for my dinner every day 10. I have really enjoyed wearing my new kitty cat dress recently, teamed up with some tights and warm cardi though.. brrr! 11. Hello! 12. Another picture of food... My newest addiction: Aero mousse dessert ♥

17 Mirror Shine Lipsticks Peace&Hollywood

I have always been a huge fan of 17. In my opinion, they offer a great range of very affordable products which never fail to impress me. What I also love about 17 is that there always seems to be some kind of offer on - most of the times it's 3 for 2 across everything or a free gift bag when you buy two or more of their products! Today I am showing you tell you a little about 17's Mirror Shine lipstick range...

Last year I bought three of the Mirror Shine lipsticks as they were part of the 3 for 2 offer, and I simply couldn't make up my mind about what shade to buy - I ended up buying three of them: Hollywood, Peace and Belle. Unfortunately, I lost Belle on a night out (but I will most likely repurchase it) which is why I can only show you swatches of the other two shades. On the left you can see Peace. This colour slightly confused me as the lipstick is bright orange - swatched on my arm and applied to my lips, it's actually a very lovely pink colour though. On the right hand side you can see Hollywood, a classic red which I can recommend for girls who aren't too sure about wearing bright red on their lips yet - this is quite a sheer and glossy lipstick and perfect for warming up to red lips!

The Mirror Shine lipsticks are very sheer and glossy but they can be built up a little. I love the light and glossy formula, they glide on so easily and feel great on my lips! But as a result, you obviously won't get the staying power of a matte lippie - I usually have to reapply after about two hours, which for me is totally fine though. Having worn and loved them for about a year now, I can say that I well and truly love them. For £4.59 they are a brilliant bargain and I would even go as far as comparing them to the Dior Addict lipsticks. I only own one shade (Diorkiss) but it really does look and feel so similar to 17's Mirror Shine lippies... Thumbs up from me!

Hello Germany!

Hello my lovelies! While you are reading this post I will be a few thousand feet up in the air on my way home to Germany - I'll only be away for five days but I'm so excited to see my parents, brother and friends for the first time again after almost three months. As you can imagine I have got lots of things planned, including long shopping trips of course... Can't wait to lay my hands on some new nailpolishes and other goodies ;) Because of that, I won't have a lot of time to blog but I have got a few posts prepared and scheduled for you! See you all on Sunday, lots of love xxx

NOTD: Pastel Polkadots

I have finally gotten round to ordering some dotting tools! Don't ask me why I waited so long and spent years using bobby pins or wooden skewers for my polka dots... These 'proper' dotting tools are so handy and incredibly cheap - I got a set of five on eBay for a mere £1.50! I also ordered a wheel with 2400 rhinestones for 99p... Such bargains!

 

Being impatient as usual, I had to try my new dotting tools right away and chose a couple of pastel nail polishes to create this lovely (and very easy) polkadot manicure. The polishes I used are, from left to right (on the picture above): Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, p2 Colour Victim Charming, Barry M Peach Melba, p2 Into Lace Lust (LE) and Barry Mint Green.
I simply painted each nail in a different colour and then added some dots in a different colour, easy peasy! I think it's super cute - what do you think? :) xx

PS: Check out the massive tear on my thumb nail! It's really low down but I can't get myself to cut my nail as it's soo sore :( Help!!

Sneak Peak: Glossybox November

It's Glossybox time again! When I got up this morning, I found my Glossybox on the kitchen counter waiting for me! I was really excited to open it and find out which products I got this month as I really didn't like the October box - it was my first ever box and the only two products I actually liked and used were the Dermalogica masque and lipbalm (which only lasted about three days as it was a tiny 1ml sample). Because it was my first box, I thought it would only be fair to give Glossybox another chance with the November box, and I'm quite happy with the products so far :) And here they are..

I haven't tried anything yet but these are all products which I would definitely give a try! You can't really go wrong with bath salts, moisturiser and hand cream (which smells really quite nice!). The red black lace design of the nail wraps is lovely and I'm intrigued to find out if the Nail Rock wraps actually work - I have used a few nail wraps from various brands but they never turned out looking nice and tidy or only stuck to my nails for about ten minutes! The perfume samples are the only thing I'm not really keen on as they are described as unisex scents. I love sweet and girly fragrances and these seem to be exactly the opposite - but like I said, I haven't tried them yet, so they might be quite nice!

I'm quite excited to start using all of these products - a full review will follow after I finished trying and testing everything... And now it's time for a hot bath with my new bath salts :)
To all my lovely readers who subscribed Glossybox - which products did you receive and what are your first impressions of this months box? Love, Mona xx

An old favourite: easy nail art with stripes

Long before I even thought about blogging myself, I have always taken pictures of my nails after painting them. Looking through some old photos on my laptop, I came across this nail design I used to wear again and again - it's so quick and easy and turns every plain nail colour into something a little more special within seconds! All you need is a nail art pen or striper brush - draw a few lines in a V-shape onto each nail (I loved using white on dark colours to make it stand out) and add another line with a glitter polish. Obviously you can vary your design with different colours, thickness and amount of stripes and so on... I have got two examples here for you, the top one shows my 'birthday nails' from last year and the bottom one was my very first attempt! Do you like it? Mona xx

 

Obnoxious

I'm still having lots of fun with my new Sleek Bad Girl i-divine palette! It was time to finally try out the beautiful blue eyeshadows - they are incredibly well pigmented and just so fun to use - silky, smooth and easy to blend. For my eye make up I only used the two blue shades Obnoxious and Abyss, and a thick layer of Maxfactor False Lash Fusion mascara. What do you think? :) Mona xx

Essence Special Effect Topper Circus Confetti

I finally got round trying one of Essence's Nail Art Special Effect Topper which I had lying around for months. Circus Confetti is a clear base packed with multicoloured hex and round glitter in varying sizes. I wore one coat over a plain black polish (p2 Colour Victim in Eternal) which worked really nicely I think, but wearing Circus Confetti on its own could be a little more challenging as it would require quite a few coats to be fully opaque. Application was really easy: the glitter spread out evenly, dried fast and the finish was surprisingly smooth! I really enjoyed wearing Circus Confetti and I'm looking forward to layering it over some other colours. For only 1.79€ (about £1.50) I think this is a really nice and fun topper and I would definitely recommend it :)

 

Review: Dior Addict 'Diorkiss' lipstick

When it comes to make up I am definitely more of a high street girl - not because I don't like the more expensive brands like Dior or Chanel (in fact, I would probably buy every single one of their product if I could...), but simply because I can't afford them right now. Rather than spending £25 on one single product, I would much prefer to buy a couple of different things instead! However, my lovely boy handed me a Debenhams voucher his aunt gave him for his birthday, because 'there is nothing he would want to buy there anyway'... But obviously, there are hundreds of things I would love to lay my hands on! Trying to make up my mind wasn't that easy though haha! I decided to go for a lipstick in a shade I would wear every day as I wanted to buy something that I would actually use. The Dior Addict lipsticks have always interested me and there is an incredible amount of shades to choose from... I spend about 15 minutes at the counter trying to pick a colour! In the end, I treated myself to '578 Diorkiss', a stunning pink which Kate Moss wears in the promo pictures.

The lipstick is moisturising, super shiny (almost gloss-like) and very lightweight on my lips - it feels just like wearing a lipbalm which I love! The Dior Addict lippies are quite sheer but you can build them up - don't expect them to be opaque though. Even though the formula is very light and glossy, I still get around 3 hours of wearing time before I have to reapply, which is pretty good in my opinion.

I absolutely love the shade I picked - Diorkiss is an amazing pink which is perfect for every day wear, it's so easy to wear and goes with almost everything. And to be honest, I have worn this basically every day since I bought it. Like I said before, the formula is brilliant too. It keeps my lips feeling hydrated and smooth, it glides on easily and stays put for a good few hours and most of all, it's super pretty! And also, the packaging... How can you not love it? All in all, I still think £22 is quite a lot for a lipstick but it's definitely worth it! I can highly recommend these and I am definitely going to lay my hands on another shade when I have some money left over at the end of the month! Love love love!