Birthday Cake

There have been a lot of friends and family with birthdays this week. To celebrate, I made this classic white cake with this easy buttercream frosting.

The cake is sweet and has the perfect touch of almond.

I filled my cake with some buttercream frosting mixed with toasted almond slivers and added an additional layer of raspberry jam.

So good.

Happy Birthday!

Favorite Friday...LOFT

I love LOFT. They have great pieces that can be worn for work or play at affordable prices! I put together a few outfits I'm dying to put in my closet...I have yet to cave on buying a jumpsuit, but I think the time is coming. Especially paired with a floral scarf and heels to add the right touch of femininity.

Also, can we talk about that coral chambray shirt with those camo pants? Hello, Spring!!

What is your favorite LOFT look?

Favorite Friday...Forever 21

Here are some of my favorite items for us ladies on a budget from Forever 21! Grab some on sale winter items or something for Valentine's Day. I am especially eyeing that black fringe dress for a night out :)

Season of love...No Sew DIY pillows!

I love decorating for the holidays. It's fun and festive and just makes my heart happy. Speaking of hearts...let's talk about these pillows!! I grabbed my bestie, Abby, and we got to work!

Today we will show you how to make this striped heart pillow and this sequin arrow pillow!

Materials for the Striped Heart pillow:
           1 pre-made 18" pillow case for a throw pillow. We found these at Hobby Lobby and chose the               light tan.
           Iron on black rick-rack
           Heat N' Bond fusible adhesive
           1 8.5 x 11 sheet of red felt
           iron
           scissors

Step 1: Lay out your pillow case and iron out the creases. Keep the iron on, you will need it again!

Step 2: Lay out your black rick-rack and plan where you want to put your stripes. Then iron your stripes in place and cut the excess.

Step 3: Fold your red felt in half and draw 1/2 a heart along the folded side. When you cut it out, you will have a full, symmetrical heart!

Step 4: Grab your Heat N' Bond fusible adhesive.  Lay your heart on the adhesive sheets and then cut out the adhesive sheet so you have enough to cover the felt. Identify the "rough" side of the adhesive and place that side on the felt. Iron the adhesive sheet to the felt to adhere. Do more "pressing and holding" of the iron rather than moving it around a bunch.  After cutting the extra adhesive sheet from the heart it will look like this on the backside:

Step 5: Final step! Flip your heart over so the adhesive side is on your pillow case and centered. Iron the heart to the pillowcase. Again, use more pressing and holding.

Hi Abby!!!

After you are finished, insert an 18" pillow into the case and admire your work!

Materials for the Sequin Arrow pillow:

           1 pre-made 18" pillow case for a throw pillow. I chose light tan again.

           1 spool of gold sequins and 1 of red sequins

           No-Sew fabric glue

           Cardboard or plastic for the inside of the pillowcase

           scissors

Step 1: Lay out your pillow case and iron out the creases. Then place the cardboard inside the pillowcase. This will prevent the glue from seeping through and adhering the pillow together :)

Step 2: Plan out your sequin arrows. Get creative!

Step 3: Once you have planned and cut your sequins start applying glue. I put the glue directly on the pillow a little bit at a time. It seemed more manageable for me that way.

Step 4: I doubled up the sequins on the arrow heads to make them stand out more

Step 5: Let the glue and sequins dry flat, step back and admire your work! Insert an 18" pillow form and enjoy :)

We hope you love your new pillows as much as we enjoy ours!! 

xoxo,

Britttany

       

Life via the Camera Roll--plus a recipe!

Ah, life gets a bit busy sometimes, huh? I promise I am not ignoring any lovely readers out there! I am still trying to learn the ropes and get my feet wet. Isn't that what new journeys are about?! Comment and let me know what you guys would like to hear about :)

Here are a few things that sum up my past week!

I decorated for Valentine's Day! I love this lighthearted holiday full of red, pink, and hearts. It isn't 100% finished and I have some crafts up my sleeve to share!

Who doesn't enjoy a glass of wine with your besties? #winenot?

This is one of my little snuggle-muffins, Shorty. He's adorable and not the only time he will make an appearance on Bright Eyed and Bushy Kaled! Doesn't he look so peaceful? :)

We booked our honeymoon and got our passports! We are thrilled to head to Couples Resort: Swept Away in Negril. Dreaming about it already!

Now that we have booked the honeymoon it is SERIOUS tone up/slim down time! Above is a portobello fajita served with some black beans. Delish and fiance approved. Recipe below!

Portobello Fajitas with Mango Salsa

Makes 4 servings

Gather up:

      4 portobello caps

      1 red bell pepper, sliced in long, thin strips

      1/2 onion, sliced in thin strips

      1 TBS coconut oil

      8 large lettuce leaves

      1 avocado, sliced

Marinade:

     1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

     2 Tablespoons olive or grapeseed oil

     1 lemon squeezed

     1 lime squeezed

     pinch of sea salt

Mango Salsa

      1 mango, peeled and diced

      1 tomato, diced

      1/2 onion, finely chopped

      1/2 red bell pepper, chopped

      1 Jalapeno (optional...take out seeds to make it let spicy)

      Cilantro, chopped

     1 tsp cayenne pepper

     1 tsp black pepper

     1 lime squeezed

Step 1: Wash your mushrooms and remove the stems. Place these in a 9 X13 or similar size baking dish

Step 2: Mix all marinade ingredients together in a small bowl and then brush marinade liberally on both sides of the mushrooms. Put extra on the underside of the mushroom cap--that is where they absorb the most flavor! Save any extra marinade for later.  Put the lid on your baking dish or wrap in plastic wrap and allow the mushrooms to marinate in the fridge for at least 1 hour (I did mine overnight since I prepped these during my Sunday meal prep!)

Step 3: While mushrooms are marinating chop up all salsa ingredients and stir together. Allow these flavors to marry in the fridge as well. 

(TIME SAVING TIP: I used some leftover pico from taco night instead of chopping a tomato, onion, and cilantro! Then added the remaining ingredients) 

Step 4: When you are ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425 degrees.  Next, heat coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place all 4 mushroom caps on the skillet, cover, and let cook for 5 minutes on each side. After they are finished cooking in the skillet, move the mushrooms back to your baking dish, brush with extra marinade and bake for 5 more minutes.

Step 5: While the mushrooms are baking, sauté your onion and bell pepper in the skillet you just cooked your mushrooms. 

Step 6: Slice mushroom caps and place in a lettuce leaf then top with the mango salsa, avocado, and sautéed onion and bell pepper. Serve with black beans! Enjoy your healthy meal!

XOXO,

Brittany

New Year's Resolution #1: Meal Prep

Who else falls into the "I had a long day, I don't want to cook, lets eat out" cycle? We do! And we usually don't pick healthy options and it also costs us way more money than if we just ate at home. So, to kick of the New Year right I did a healthy grocery haul complete with a meal plan and meal prep!

I have always been pretty good about meal planning. I have followed the Tone It Up  exercise and nutrition plan for a few years now. If you see on my instagram posts tagged like #tiuteam or #tiuapproved that is what I am referring to. There is a HUGE  Tone It Up community of supportive women out there in the social media world. Check out Tone It Up if you have time and I'll do a more extensive post on them in the future. I have a bit of an obsession :)  ANYWAY, I bring them up because most of my recipes from this week are theirs!

So to start off my week I always sit down and meal plan and make my list. I usually use the chart from this post by Eat Yourself Skinny. It allows me to include my workout plan (which Tone It Up posts every Sunday!) to make my "health schedule" visible at a glance.

Then I make my list and head to the grocery store and leave with a cart looking like this:

Love seeing it full of healthy colors!

When I get home I throw on my cute apron. It makes the food taste better. :)

Then I like to gather my ingredients per recipe in little piles. Of course some recipes will share ingredients, but this at least cuts time from constantly going back to the pantry.

Then I dig in! You can either start my chopping up everything you will need all at once and then going back into the recipes or you can work through one by one. I tend to work through each recipe one at a time.

After just a couple hours I had:

Tone It Up Black Bean Soup It is a crockpot recipe so I just went ahead and put it in the crock and into the fridge. Now I just have to pull it out and turn it on!

I also prepared their Hearty Mushroom Soup by chopping all my veggies and placing them in a gallon size freezer bag.

(It's snowing outside and apparently soups sounded delish to me when I planned!)

Here is a Baked Mexican Brown Rice side to go with either some tacos or a chicken breast later this week. I prepped all the way to the baking part. I will do that the night we want to eat it!

Shrimp tacos are so easy by tossing some raw shrimp with chili powder and olive oil in a freezer bag. I'll just throw them in a skillet and cook through. Then the toppings are really no prep if you just pull out some greek yogurt (my sub for sour cream) some lettuce, salsa, and avocado!

I got a whole chicken that will cook in the crockpot. I did all the veggie chopping (carrots, celery, onion) and lemon juicing now and put it in a freezer bag. Now I just dump it all into the crock with some veggie broth and go!

Finally I did some quinoa and veggie enchiladas. So much simpler to pull them out of the fridge and into the oven!

Even though this does take a couple hours in one shot I feel it saves me some stress and money later. Worth it in my opinion. I always like to make meals that make great leftovers too. Another money saver. You can do meal prepping with many recipes you have in your Pinterest boards! I know we all love that site :) Feel free to follow me! The Pinterest button in the side bar will take you straight there.

I hope this simple idea sparked some inspiration! I am sure there are a lot of busy bees out there. Let's try to make at least one part of our week easier on ourselves!  What are some of your favorite recipes??

xoxo,
Brittany