Breakfast, brunch, and lunch for two - cute sandwich and other food ideas!

I recently made a little mini tea time brunch for my mother and me (my sister was at work) and wanted to share what I made in case some of you are looking for food inspiration for your next tea party, fancy breakfast time (need to impress a man?), or lunch gathering!

Menu items including:

• Lemon ricotta pancakes with slice bananas and drizzled honey (Original recipe here)
• Mixed greens salad with strawberries, walnuts, blueberries, and raspberry vinaigrette
• Romaine lettuce mixed with cucumbers, pecans, tomatoes, and homemade pesto lemon vinaigrette
• Avocado toast with sliced cherry tomatoes 
• Toasted smoked gouda cheese sandwich with sliced turkey, spinach, and candied walnuts (my mom actually tossed and toasted the walnuts herself!). Strawberry jam toe tie it all together
• French brioche bread with cream cheese spread, cucumbers, and smoked salmon. Garnished with thyme (but really dill would have been better but I didn't have any at the time!)
• Fruit bowl of bananas, cantaloupe, and blueberries
• Lastly TEA! - "Yummy" by Lupicia. This is strawberry and vanilla flavored smooth rooibos tea; no milk added. It's not overly sweet smelling like some fruit teas and really has an amazing taste to it.

Cream cheese and dill is the perfect spread for a cucumber or smoked salmon sandwich so combining it with both of them was a no brainer. Unfortunately I didn't have dill at the time so sprinkled some dried thyme on top instead and it was pretty good! The freshing flavor of the cucumber really balances the salty smokey salmon and the smooth texture of the cream cheese all on a nice slice of fresh brioche (but any bread will do really). I find for this type of sandwich you don't need to toast the bread.

The lemon ricotta pancakes were SO, I repeat, sooo good. I linked the original recipe earlier but there are definitely lots of recipes online to use. My pancakes weren't bursting with flavor but if you have ricotta lying around, these are a good way to put your ricotta to use (if you're not a lasagna type person). I love how the pancakes are super fluffy and not overly sweet. I added in the lemon flavor by squeezing in some lemon juice and adding fresh lemon gratings over the pancakes. Added a side of sliced bananas but any fruit will do, some maple syrup or honey, and boom - sweet wholesome goodness.

Strawberry jam and honey to top off the pancakes and with sippings of the tea? Can't get much better than that! Having these cute little jars of jam and honey really add to the overall presentation which is why I'm so glad I nicked them from a hotel I stayed at a little while back haha! (Okay I didn't really, someone I was staying with had ordered sandwiches and they came with these jars of jam and honey but they didn't use them so gave them to me!)

Here's a close up of my (basically) cheese turkey sandwich. What makes this better than your typical sandwich is the fact that it's toasted so the cheese is all nice and soft, you have the extra sweetness from the strawberry jam and candied pecans (which also gives a nice crunch!), and you get your daily dose of veggie with that one leaf of spinach ;) Perfect right? This was actually my mom's favorite sandwich. Also can I add how CUTE the little wooden board is? I got it from Ikea for only $2.99!

Cheers to a successful tea time bonding with my momma <3 I hope this gave you some ideas for your next home-baking food excursion! The dining and silverware you use really make a difference in the overall presentation of your food so take your time and pick up random bits and bobs that will really tie together your whole table and the food you make. They don't even have to be expensive (cough my wooden cutting board!) and most of our tea cups and tea plates are thrifted or bought from garage sales. A few are from Daiso, our local Japanese $1.50 shop (most things there are only 1.50 including their glassware!) and some others from Hong Kong or TaoBao (the China ebay). Good luck and leave a comment below if you know any tea party bloggers that could give ME inspiration!

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

It's been a while since my last Disney nail art recreation but I definitely struggled deciding what I wanted to do for Snow White. There weren't too many other nail art designs with her as the theme (compared to other Disney princesses) so I had trouble finding "inspiration"/something to base the look off of. In the end, I found two designs (I forget where exactly) that I liked so I combined them to come up with this look below!

My bow was a bit messy but overall I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together. It's a simple french tip with a twist. It was a little weird putting the red rhinestones at the tips of my nails so if you aren't comfortable with that, you can just dot on red circles instead. I think this is a nice look because having red, yellow, and blue (Snow White's main colors) all over your nails can be a bit overwhelming and this was a good compromise.

 The nail polishes I used to create this look are as follows:
-Forever 21 Nail Polish in Ruby Red
-Revlon Colorstay in Coastal Surf
-Orly Nail Polish in Lemonade

I added red rhinestones that I got from a wheel palette off of Ebay for less than a dollar and drew on the bow using a dotting tool and toothpick (either or is fine). I finished off my nails with (as always) a coat of seche vite (and extra at the ends to really make sure my rhinestones stuck). Below is a step-by-step visual of what I did (sorry it's so much harder to take a step by step of my actual nails when I'm painting them!).

Anyways I hope this gives some of you inspiration for any Snow White themed occasion you might have. If not, well, it's still nice to look at right? ;)

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Aladdin (Princess Jasmine)

I'm not sure why but I've never particularly favored Princess Jasmine or the Disney movie Aladdin. Not that I didn't like the movie or anything, but maybe it was just I didn't like the genie so much. I'm really not sure. But the reason I bring this up is that the nail look I did inspired by Princess Jasmine is actually my favorite out of my entire Disney Princess series so far. I didn't come up with this look myself, I got it from Pinterest so don't give me credit but I seriously just LOVE the look! The tips with the gold accent and single rhinestone are just.. ooh too much amazingness. I got so many compliments when I wore this so I hope some of you try to recreate this nail look too :)

 

You can see that I didn't do the lines perfectly on my thumb but it still looks nice nonetheless. The steps I took are outlined and roughly sketched below (I'm trying be more helpful for recreating any of my nail looks haha).

I used the striper brush from LA colors gold nail polish but because that gold is too sheer, I would dip the brush into my more opaque gold polish (I used Butter London's The Full Monty but you can use any brand really) before using it. I used a dotting tool to create the circles and also used it to drag the dots inward to connect them with the other lines (see nail image 5 below). I lastly added a green/turquoise gem in the middle and applied my Seche Vite top coat to make it look like shiny gel nails <3

The nail polishes I used were:
-Barry M Hi Shine Nail Paint in Green Berry
-Butter London's The Full Monty Nail Lacquer
-LA Colors in Gold Glitter

Well I hope this inspired some of you to recreate this look! It looks complicated but it's really not! It does take a bit of time and steadiness but practice makes perfect right? :) Also I think it looks nice that my finger nails were somewhat rectangle rounded shaped instead of the usual oval/circular edge that your nails naturally grow at. Which Disney Princess should I do next? Frozen, Little Mermaid, or Tangled? Or any other princess! Comment down below please! ^__^

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Sleeping Beauty (Aurora)

In the next installation of my Disney Princess themed nail trend, I decided to do Sleeping Beauty, also known as Aurora. It's weird, the last time I watched it (which was a while ago but I still remember quite clearly), I remember thinking it was a little creepy the way Aurora gets possessed. I mean like it just looked super scary, but as a little kid, I don't remember being scared at all when she was walking to the spindle and pricked herself.. so who knows haha. Maybe I'm just a bigger scaredy cat now ^__^;

Unfortunately the photos I took of these nails aren't the best quality (I blame my phone's poor camera quality) but hopefully you get the gist of the nail look and feel inspired to do a better recreation. I got inspiration from a photo I saw on Pinterest but later added something that makes this look more my own and really adds to the overall look.

I  added strips of gold nail striping tape between the two colors but that was after I had taken photos and I realized it was missing something. The bit of gold definitely tied the entire look together so much better so if you do plan on recreating the look, I highly suggest you use the gold tape (it's super easy to use!) or, if you don't have that, use a gold polish and line the borders. You can see in the below photo the gold a little bit (sorry it's not clear, it's from another photo a friend took where the focus wasn't the nails). Doesn't the extra gold really tie this whole "princess" look together?!

I used the following nail polishes to make this look but remember you can use whatever you have! This looks is great because it only uses two colors. The hardest part is just getting that sort of triangle tip and even if you're not great at doing it, having the gold striping tape really helps to cover up any mistakes and make it LOOK like you had perfect straight lines (:

-Sally Hansen Xtreme Hard as Nails in Fuchsia Power
-Essie in Ballet Slippers
-Seche Vite top coat (the usual)
-Gold striping tape on ebay (as listed above)

Anyways I hope you guys are all enjoying the summer weather (it's so hot where I am!) and these nails are the perfect summer color so if you do recreate this look, please link me or send it over! :)

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Beauty and the Beast

If I didn't put the princess/movie in the title would you be able to guess which Disney princess this nail look was inspired by? I went around asking a couple of my friends and almost no one would know right away like my Cinderella nails unless i told them it was Disney princess inspired and then they would get it then haha. Anyways I think I liked these ones a bit less out of all of the "princess-themed" nails I've done because my flower didn't turn out that nice and I ended up using a lot of stickers so this nail look isn't as recreatable as I would like. Also the yellow that I used has a weird quality to it that just makes it look kind of blotchy no matter how I apply it? I'm not sure but leave me a comment of what you think! By the way sorry my nails were really dry the week I did this so you can totally tell in the pictures :(

I used the following nail polishes if you want to try and at least recreate the same color scheme. If you don't have stickers like I did, you can definitely still just use a gold glitter and apply it at the tips or in a half moon at the bottom or draw more red flowers (and better than mine). I really hate how blotchy my red rose was sigh but I think my right hand flower also had ugly leaves so that didn't help.

-Zoya in Piaf
-Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear in 180 Monarch-y
-Essie Mojito Madness
-Forever 21 Ruby Red

Anyways I hope you at least found some inspiration in this nail look. If not, the following picture offers the main color palette of Beauty and the Beast and you should try creating your own nail look based on Belle! If you do, please link me or send me your look :)

Nails on Nails: The Signs of Freedom

As many of you know, I recently was in Hong Kong for bout 2.5 months doing research in a lab as well as visiting my relatives and of course, seeing the sights of the country. I also got to spend time with a lot of my aunt's friends, one who was quite skilled in the art of doing nails ;D So we got together and today, I wanted to share one of the designs she created on me. We chose to use the combination of a pink and nude beige nail polish (from the brand 3CE which is a popular Korean high-ish end brand - I'm planning on doing a review of their nail polish as I picked up a good amount of them!). I've listed pictures of them both down below for your reference if you want to pick them up (the numbers/names are #BE02 and #PK08) ^__^

Anyways all of the birds are hand drawn and I love how the white birds contrast the beige background and the extra bling at the bottom of my nails also added the glamor of the nails. Please excuse my terribly dry cuticles in the photo, we had just removed a previous set of gel nails so my nails needed some TLC. What do you feel about this design? I hope it gives you some inspiration if you were looking for some sort of bird or feather designed nail art. Let me know if you have any other designs you want me to recreate and I might do a tutorial on it! Till next time xx.