3 tasty, easy, and photogenic sandwiches

There's nothing better than making tasty food except for tasty BEAUTIFUL food that you can show off on Instagram, am I right or am I right? Just kidding but I'm sure it's one of the top 5 best things in the world (trying to make a reference to the season premiere of Game of Thrones season 5 which just came out last Sunday and oh man I could go on and on about it). Anyways, here are some of my favorite sandwiches of the moment to make that are all so simple and easy to whip up that you'll spend more time taking photos of these than you will spend making and eating them combined. These are perfect for a morning brunch, afternoon tea party, or special lunch party!

1. Cream Cheese with Dill and Smoked Salmon and/or Cucumber
This has got to be one of the best sandwiches out there. You can make these open faced or not (well I suppose any sandwich you can choose to cover or leave uncovered) but they definitely are easy to dress up with a sprig of dill resting on top. I say and/or regarding the smoked salmon and cucumber because both of them go SO well with cream cheese mixed with dill and together they're pretty bomb as well. I know cucumber butter sandwiches are like a thing but those just don't taste good in my opinion. Dill has a nice slightly spicy (but not actually) sharp flavor that really enhances the fresh cream cheese and the saltiness of the smoked salmon or the crisp watery taste of cucumber (make sure to have thin cucumber slices though or else it'll be too overpowering) - all of this comes together to make one of the best sandwiches ever. Honestly everyone gobbles these up when my sister and I make them.

To make this sandwich: I don't actually follow any specific recipe (though there are plenty out there online so feel free to Google if if you're a very exact precise measurement type of person) and just eyeball it. However, if I were to measure it, I'd say it's 1 tablespoon chopped dill to 4 oz (half a pack) of cream cheese. Of course this can be adjusted to your liking but I personally like more dill than less. You can mix these with a fork or a blender (I generally use a fork because less clean-up and since I don't usually work in large batches, a fork does the job just as quickly). Stir it all up, spread it on your bread (this can be a little difficult if the cream cheese is thick/cold/firm but it doesn't have to be an even layer - a nice sort of chunk looks just as nice like in the photo above), and top with smoked salmon or thinly sliced cucumber or both! I generally don't toast my bread for this sandwich but you totally can if you like; I just think a nice soft textured bread works well with the flavors of the sandwich fillings. I like to cut my bread for these type of sandwiches into small squares (usually about 4 squares per one slice of bread) so you get a small tear of smoked salmon and/or a half or quarter slice of cucumber (if your bread squares are large enough or you're making a full sandwich, you can obviously keep your cucumber slices whole and layer them). For open faced sandwiches, it looks nice if you take a small leaf/sprinkle of dill and place it on top as I did in the photo above. The photo right below (from my previous post actually), I didn't have dill so used thyme but I wanted to include this photo so you could get some idea on how to arrange cucumber and smoked salmon on your sandwich. The second photo down shows salmon with dill and cream cheese. I used two different types of smoked salmon in the sandwiches below (if you're wondering why the color difference).

2. Hummus, Pesto, and Tomato 
This is one of my newer sandwich tries and oh my, I'm so sad I didn't try this out earlier. This combination is AMAZING. I initially was thinking just hummus and tomato topped with a basil leaf (saw it on Pinterest) but then I had pesto spread in our refrigerator so thought I'd try it out and golly me, it was heavenly. I would highly recommend toasting your bread for this sandwich because the crunch of the bread helps balance out the soft texture of the hummus and pesto, as well as the moistness of the tomato. Plus, this sandwich looks good with the crust left on so less work for you right?

To make this sandwich: Toast bread (I think wheat or some other non-white bread would go best with the fillings but I used white and it tastes just as good). Allow to cool somewhat before spreading on an even layer of hummus (so it doesn't melt or get weird and soft) and then spread on a less even layer of pesto. Thickness is up to you but I'd say don't be too shy! Top with slice(s) of tomato(es) depending on the size of your tomato and bread. If you're feeling fancy, add a basil leaf on top for some extra photo points (I forgot to but it still looks bomb right?)

3. Melted Smoked Gouda with Turkey Breast, Fruit Jam, and Toppings
The title for this sandwich is kind of all over the place but really there's no specific name for it since I add whatever I have at hand. The basics are cheese (I love smoked gouda but it's not one of the most "melty" cheeses so provolone any other cheese that melts well would work fine), deli meat (I go for turkey breast since it's generally the healthiest and doesn't have too strong of a flavor), and fruit jam (the two photos below, I used strawberry jam but any jam would work fine, you just want that sweet concentrated flavor to contrast the savory cheese and meat). From there, I like to play around with what I have. Usually having something that gives the sandwich a "crunch" is nice like an apple slice, candied nut, dried fruit (try even the freeze dried kinds), or crunchy veggies like romaine lettuce. Having another sweet bite such as a fruit like a blueberry, strawberry, apple, pear, etc also adds to the sandwich.

To make this sandwich: Layer cheese over bread and toast until cheese has melted. Let cool for 1 minute before cutting into desired size/pieces and adding layer of deli meat. Add thin layer of toppings of choice including sliced fruit, fresh vegetables, and crunchy nuts. Drizzle fruit jam over (if thin enough) or spread over cheese and deli meat before placing all toppings if too thick. Make sure it's visible because it adds a nice touch to the overall sandwich.

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? ;)

Get the [Nail] Look: Floral Friday

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while and apparently all my photos got removed because I think I accidentally deleted the album of photos connected to my blog. So if you notice any posts with broken photos, please bare with me as I am trying to fix them all! It is taking me quite a while to find all the photos again -sigh-.

Without further ado, here is my rendition of my most recent Pinterest find.

 I started off by painting all my nails with Revlon Minted. I let that dry completely before putting 2 coats of the slightly transparent white-pink polish from Julep. I have 3 Julep polishes I got from a free trial for their Maven Box and have to say, they're really quite good! The brushes are a bit fat but the polishes themselves have a really nice gel-like quality. After getting a good semi-opaque coat of the light pink, I let it dry and started drawing on the roses and leaves. I made the roses by mixing two shades of pink and swirling them in a circular motion to make them look like roses. I then used a somewhat smaller dotting tool to make the leaves. I actually used 2 green nail polishes to create extra depth but only listed one below. I let everything dry enough so that I could apply the gold striping tape without lifting up all my hard work if I needed to reposition it.

The nail polishes I used are as follows (from left to right):

-Revlon in Minted
-Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Punk Pink
-Sinful Colors in Easy Going
-Essie in Mojito Madness
-Julep in Ava Bombshell
Overall, this nail look is one of my favorites. It definitely looks detailed and complex but it's really not that bad! All the techniques are quite simple and it just takes some time to let each layer dry. I would suggest watching your favorite TV show or movie while doing this to help the drying phase pass by. I took me less than 2 hours to do this and I finished it off with my favorite Seche Vite top coat. I hope you guys all try this out and let me know how it goes in the comment!

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: The Little Mermaid (Ariel)

I've been wanting to do the Little Mermaid for a while now but could never decide on the right design (or find one that I could feasibly do). There are a ton of wonderful mermaid inspirational nail pictures on Pinterest (which you should follow my Pinterest nail board for photo inspirations!) but some of them are too difficult to use (like how am I supposed to draw fish scales without a nail stamper?! I know you can use like.. fish net fabric and stipple nail polish over it but I didn't have that/couldn't be bothered haha). I did go onto Ebay and found some seashell jewels for super cheap and once they came, I was able to create my Little Mermaid design! It's definitely not a requirement but I think to have some sort of sea jewel like a starfish, seashell, nautical anything really... well it just helps add to the look.

Summer always seemed like the right time to do mermaid nails but I never got around to it so now in the fall it does seem my nails do look a bit little misplaced or out of season. Nevertheless, they are definitely super bright and will catch anyone's eye ;) I highly recommend you have a good strong top coat or nail adhesive so that your jewels don't fall of though. I used my standard Seche Vite topcoat without any problems.

The nail polishes I used are as follows (from left to right):
-Forever 21 Nail Polish in Red
-Barry M Nail Paint Gelly in Greenberry
-Covergirl Boundless Color in Gold Rush (discontinued)
-butter LONDON 3 Free Nail Lacquer - Marbs

I blotted on the gold nail polishes by wiping off any excess nail polish and also painting some of the gold polish on a makeup sponge and dabbing it onto my nail. If I were to redo this look I would get a thicker larger and chunkier gold glitter nail polish though as the gold glitter I have was way too fine for the look I was going for.

Well that's my nail art rant/post of the day (week? month?). I hope you guys enjoy and try to recreate it! If you do, please tag me on instagram or twitter (@creamydinner) or leave a comment below!

Get the [Nail] Look: A Pastel Galaxy

Everyone loves the good old classic galaxy nail, but adding pastel? Well that's a match made in heaven! (Okay maybe not really but you get my enthusiasm). I saw some pastel galaxy nails on Pinterest and just had to recreate them and share them with you! Honestly they're the same technique as a normal galaxy nail, you just need to pick out all your favorite pastel or light colored polishes - they can be shimmer, glitter, or cream. You can also choose only a few colors to create a different effect (maybe a more cool-toned sky or a warmer one or if you want to be fun, choose them all like me! Although I think I ended up with a more cool toned galaxy nail).

Please excuse the messiness/dryness of my cuticles. My hands were super dry the week I did this and a little on the shorter side but as you can tell, the nails still turned out beautifully!

 I used the following nail polishes (listed below) but honestly any light or pastel colors you have will work. I also used one of those cheap makeup sponges that you can get from Ulta or Sephora to stipple on the colors. I first cut the sponge into roughly 0.5 cm by 0.5 cm squares and used a cheap tweezer I got from Hong Kong to hold the sponge pieces to hold the pieces while I stippled color onto my nails. You want to make sure you have a good white base nail polish by the way to avoid any sort of dimpling or weirdness which you can tell sort of happened with mine.. -shrug- Oh well haha.

From left to right:
-L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer, White
-Pop-Arazzi Nail Polish, Icing On The Cake (cheap nail polish from CVS but any white will do; I'm not sure I would recommend this.. it's not terrible but you need at least two coats and it can be thick..)
-Covergirl Coral Silk
-Orly Spark
-Revlon Minted
-Sally Hansen Breeze Blue
-H&M Beauty Bandit (not sure if this is sold anymore since they appear to have changed their packaging)

I should also mention that when I was finished, I used one of those shimmery top coat add on nail polishes (not really sure how to describe it but its super iridescent)  from Skin Food (a Korean brand). I can't seem to find a photo or name of it online so I'm not sure if it's still available but it's not necessary to get the galaxy effect. You can coat your nails with a fine white glitter nail polish if you have one to save yourself the trouble of having to spot on white 'stars'. I finished my nails with my usual Seche Vite top coat which gave them the perfect gel finish. I used dotting tools from Ebay to draw my stars but a toothpick of bobby pin will work fine.

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: 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 :)

Disney Princess Series Nail Art: Cinderella

So it's been a while since my last post but I wanted to share with you all my latest nail art creations. I'm currently doing a Disney Princess theme of nail designs and today's nail art design is inspired by Cinderella! It's a really simple look but I got so many compliments on it and I absolutely love it! If you don't already, I highly recommend you use Seche Vite as your top coat. It's what gives all my nails this beautiful glossy finish that looks like gel nails. You have no idea how many people have asked me if I got my nails done at a salon since I started using Seche Vite.

I cheated and used some stickers I got from China/Hong Kong which added the extra bling to my nails but honestly it's not necessary! Even simply having the baby blue and accent silver glitter nail is enough to make this look Cinderella-themed. You can buy nail stickers for real cheap off of Ebay like these but if you don't want to wait the 3-6 weeks it takes to ship from China, then I'd suggest just using silver glitter and decorating more nails if you wish. You can take larger glitter chunks and create a curve line like on my pinky (in the above photo) or do a glitter gradient starting from the top or bottom of one or two nails. It's really up to you!

I used the following nail polishes to create these Cinderella nails:
-Revlon in Blue Lagoon
-Essie in Set in Stone
-Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Showtime
-Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

I only used the Sally Hansen silver nail poilsh as a base to apply Set in Stone over so I wouldn't have to use as many coasts of the Essie glitter polish to get a more "opaque" finish. You can use any silver really though. The Revlon nail polish only took two coats and its a relatively thin formula so they dry super quickly. After that I let my nails dry for at least an hour (I actually waited a whole day if I recall correctly, just because I didn't have time to finish the day before) before applying on the extra stickers. I then sealed it all in with my Seche Vite top coat. 

I hope you all enjoyed this and please send me your recreations! This look is so simple and perfect for anything like a ball (or more modernly known as prom/dances/etc) :)

Get the [Nail] Look: Vintage Roses

Once again, based on a Pinterest inspiration photo, I have tried out this vintage looking floral nail look. Wow that was a mouthful. 

I loved how class it looked from the polka dots to the black and white stripes to the addition of that one plain red nail. Everything about this look is PERFECT to the t (is that even the right saying?) Anyways, moving on, here's my rendition of the look :)

Obviously not as good but hey I liked it. I'm working on filing my nails to get that square shape but in the photo,this person's nails were actually somewhat rounded (FINALLY!) so i think that made my nails match the photo even more. I used my dotting tools I got from Ebay to make the polka dots and the flowers but definitely using the back of a toothpick or a bobby pin will work fine (trust me I've done that!).

I used the following nail polishes
-Orly White French Tips Nail Polish
-LA Colors Art Deco in Black
-Forever 21 Nail Polish in Tomato
-Revlon Colorstay Nail Enamel in Cafe Pink
-Essie in Mojito Madness

Hope you enjoy and let me know if you want to see like actual step by step instructions. I've been thinking about it but usually when I'm painting my nails, I get so into it and having to take pictures each step seems kind of a hassle =3= Plus I don't have a tripod or anything with me so having to take the photos by myself would definitely be a struggle haha. But I'm sure it'd be more helpful so next time I might do picture step by step tutorials!