Boot the Bucks and Make Your Own Cup

I have been addicted to cold brew coffee for a long time. I kind of forgot about it until recently. It could have something to do with the fact that it's over 100 degrees out 23 hours of the day here.

If you have never had cold brew coffee you are in for quite a treat. Instead of taking hot coffee and cooling it in the fridge or pouring it over ice, the concept here is to brew it cold and strong so it tastes smooth and is highly caffeinated. You can use it to make iced mocha's, frappe's or ices lattes. It's not bitter and you don't need an espresso machine.

What you will need:
- A French Press (they are super cheap and handy to have)
- Coffee beans
- Coffee grinder

Start by grinding your coffee. You want a coarser grind than you would normally do for regular coffee. You can use already ground coffee if you want, I just prefer to use fresh beans and grind them coarse. It's easier to filter that way. Read the instructions for your press, depending on how many cups it is, depends on how much coffee you want to use.

My French Press is 4 cups, and I do about 1 cup of beans. That is quite strong I know, but I make a concentrate out of it. I'll explain later. But basically, the stronger the better with the cold brew.

Now, dump the coarsely ground coffee into the french press.

Now, add hot water to fill the press. Only fill it to the fill line recommended by your press instructions. The water doesn't need to be boiling, just hot tap water, or if you don't want tap water, heat the water in the microwave or tea kettle. 

Next, stir your coffee ground water mixture. 

Cover the top of your press with foil. You will not press the coffee until it's done brewing. Put the pitcher in the fridge. This coffee will need to stay in the fridge for 24 hours to brew. Yes it's brewed cold, hence cold brew coffee. Trust me on this one folks, this stuff is great! Over the next day while it's brewing, you can stir the mixture a few times, but the longer you let it brew the better.

After 1 day in the fridge, press the coffee with the press mechanism that comes with the french press. Pour the coffee into an air tight container (you will most likely not need to use all the coffee now). 

This is the best tasting cold coffee you will ever have. I use 1 part cold coffee 2 parts water and add ice and a little creamer and drink it over ice. If you like your coffee stronger like my crazy husband you can drink it straight. For the first time you try it play around with how much coffee grounds you use and how strong it is. You'll be surprised how strong it is and you don't want a crazy coffee buzz all day. 

Once you get a nice strong mix, try using a few ounces in a blender with some ice and powder creamer and milk. Add some vanilla syrup or chocolate syrup and you have a homemade frappe. 

Add a few ounces of the coffee concentrate with some milk and chocolate syrup and you have an iced mocha. It is really versatile and tasty, you just need to get it strong. Hope you enjoy! Let me know if you try it and how it works out, I am interested to hear feedback on this one :) 

Fun Easter / Spring Nails

Today just a quick tutorial for a great spring or Easter nail. I like this take on an Easter Egg without being too literal about it.

I got this idea from a Pinterest pin, so I cannot claim the creativity on this one. However, I loved it so much I had to try and recreate it.

Start by taking an all over color. Choose something light so that the overlay will show up. I chose Harmony Gelish Seafoam.

After you paint your 1 or 2 coats of an allover color, paint a diagonal line with your thin nail brush with a black.

Fill in the tip of the nail from the diagonal line up with black polish.

Using a dotting tool, make medium sized dots over the black polish.

Use a thin nail brush to create a glitter accent diagonally where the light color meets the black.
Lastly, finish with a top coat!

I will post pictures when I do it next :-( sadly I didn't have my camera while I was doing this.
Enjoy!

This was done with gel nail polish. The base color is
Gelish Harmony Seafoam

Stripe Tip Manicure

Blue gel with gold stripe

Again with the easy. I like quick and easy but something a little different.

Today I went with a shimmer blue and accented it with a gold stripe. I did do this with the gel polish. You can obviously do it with regular nail polish too, just carefully apply the stripe before your top coat. I would do this while your under coat is still a little wet to help the stripe stick.

Now with the gel polish, a friend and I tried doing it after the cured top coat. We did this thinking that the tacky color layer would cause the manicure to have imperfections etc. But the stripes did not stick well to the cured top coat, so this time I did this after my second coat of cured polish color. I did not spray with alcohol or do a top coat. As the color was still tacky from the color coat the stripes stuck perfectly.

If any of the edges started to come up, I just used my orange stick to put them back in place, then did the top coat over all nails and cured. Worked great!

Blue gel polish with gold stripe

Criss Cross Nails

Really easy and really cute!

OK did a manicure on a friend last night with the gel polish and decided to add a little bling to it. We did a silver ribbon and randomly criss crossed the ribbon on her different nails.

Do your normal color first. then before the top coat add the ribbons. Then top coat and you've got a little extra bling to you manicure!

Thanks Tiffany for being my hand model :)
We left the pinkies plain and crossed the rest. 

Let's start at the tips...

Too many people have told me that I am frugal. AKA, I am cheap. That's OK, I call it smart shopping. I decided to start a blog and post about ways I like to save money. I won't go and post coupons and tell you how to get all "extreme coupon-er"  on me, but I will post ideas of how you can incorporate saving some $$  in your daily routines.

One of my favorite ways to save is doing my own nails at home. I can't even begin to calculate how much I wasted at the nail salon just to pay too much and wait too long to get my nails done. Now, don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the whole experience; especially when they massage my arms... mmmmm...,  but I would rather invest some money up front and save some dough long term. Plus how cool is it to show off a kick ass manicure to your girlfriends and brag that you did it yourself?

My first post is all about the too-hot-right-now gels. Yep the $35-$50 gel manicure you can get at the salon but do all by yourself at home. You do have to invest a little bit of money up front, but in the long run you will save so much and enjoy it much more. Also, for those of you who have never done gel nails, this manicure lasts chip free for up to two weeks! It's magic and it's awesome.

OK - here's what you will need and my recommendations on where to get the items.

A UV Nail light. I procured mine from amazon and got an amazing deal.

Picture courtesy of  Salon Edge

Salon Edge 36W Nail UV Lamp - This lamp runs about $30 with free shipping and it works great. If you are going to do the gel nails at home, this lamp is the first thing you need, because you have to cure the gel polish. This UV lamp is the way to go as it's large enough for one hand or foot, and it's lightweight and not clunky which is great for storage.

Side note: I love amazon, you may get tired of how much I reference amazon.com. I am in no way endorsed by them I just love that website. It's the best thing since toaster strudels. Oh but not quite as buttery and sweet... Mmm toaster strudels... OK anyway. So yeah I get a lot of my stuff on amazon and you should too because it's awesome. 

Picture courtesy of Harmony

Next, you will need the polish. Now in order to do gel nails you need the special gel polishes. If you are really nice to me I will tell you a secret in one of my other posts of how you can get away with using your OLD normal polishes with the gel system. But, regardless you will need the base gel and the top coat gel. I personally like the Harmony Gelish polishes. I have had great results with them and I love the color options.

Again I suggest getting your polishes on amazon, because last time I wen't to sally's they only had the mini's and they were the same price as the full one's on amazon. Here is a great deal on base gel's and top coat gels. They are about $28 for the set plus about $2 for shipping.

Now, you need a gel color. The gel polish is where this can get pricey. I suggest starting with one or two colors, and over time building up your color collection. Amazon.com is a great place to get the gel polish. You can also try ebay. They also have sites like Trade Design dedicated to gel polish and you can order from them but I find they are a little more expensive.

Lastly, all you need is a little bit of rubbing alcohol, and a nail buffer, and you can do all of this on your own. I have posted a separate blog on instructions of how to do the gel manicure here. For those of you who know how to already - I hopefully have given you some handy tips of where to find the supplies in an affordable manor for this magic manicure that lasts for weeks and does not chip!

                                                 Oh look at my pretty finished product...

This is after two weeks so ignore all the nail growth.
I used Ooba Ooba  blue and topped it with waterfield.
Instructions on how to do gel nails here.