DIY Lace Trim Shorts

I am so thrilled that summer is finally approaching.  I cannot wait to clear my closet of too-tight jeans and make way for shorts and maxi skirts.  Although I am sad that layering season is out, I am beyond excited for summer clothing.  Flirty dresses and cut-off shorts are way more comfy than skinny jeans and itchy sweaters.  Not to mention, the fun, flirty color combos you can get away with throughout the summer are way more exhilarating and refreshing than the neutral pallet trends of winter.

My biggest summer go-to for the past three or four summers have been denim cut-off shorts.  They are simple, stylish, and match with almost anything and everything.  I decided I have far too many plain pairs than one girl needs in a life time, so I decided to "vamp" a pair up a bit.  I am loving the lace trend right now, so I wanted to make a quick and easy DIY lace-trim shorts tutorial.  I have seen several versions of this on Pinterest, and I thought I would give it a try for myself.

You know those perfect cut-offs you bought in high school that are too short to wear now, but you just can't seem to get rid of?  Yeah, those will be perfect.  I loved my shorts back then and wore them almost every day.  They are way to short for me to get away with now (and probably where back then as well), so adding the lace to the bottom helps add a little extra length.

I have recently been doing simple sewing projects, so this was the perfect excuse to whip out my sewing machine.  You can also use fabric glue if you don't know how to sew.  Other materials you will need:

Fabric Scissors
Lace Trim
A Pair of shorts
Pins
Sewing measuring tape

Here is the "before" picture of my shorts:

First, measure out the length of the pant-leg of your shorts (mine was 24 inches each side).

Then, measure out your lace trim to the same length and cut at that length.

Turn your shorts inside out and pin the lace trim around the edge of your short's pant leg.  You want to position the lace exactly where you will want the lace trim to lay.

Sew the lace trim to your shorts using either a needle and thread or a sewing machine.  Or, if you chose to glue your trim on with fabric glue, you do not need to pin and you can go right to gluing the trim on.

Next I cutoff the excess trim and put my shorts right-side in.  Below you can see what I mean by "excess trim".  The right side still has the extra trim on while the left has been cut off.

You can see that the stitching appears towards the edge of the shorts (if you used fabric glue, you  won't have this issue).

In order to hide the stitching, I cuffed the shorts at the bottom and ironed over them to make the cuff stay.  You can add a little stitching on the side to help the cuff stay in place when you wash the shorts.  Or, you can use fabric glue to keep the shorts cuffed.

Here are a few pictures of the finished product:

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I love to make themed cupcakes for special events and holidays.  This weekend brings the celebration of every collage-aged person's favorite holiday: St. Patrick's Day.  Although St. Patrick's Day was originally started as a day to celebrate the life of Ireland's most sacred saint, St. Patrick, it has turned more into an excuse for people of (almost) all ages to dress in head-to-toe green and drink way more than they should.  So, what better way to celebrate the life of St. Patrick than with a drunken cupcake.  Why not combine deliciousness with boose?  Since Irish Car Bombs (a shot of Bailey's and Jameson dropped into a glass of Guinness) are one of the most popular St. Patty's Day drinks, I decided to turn it into a cupcake.  I like to think this cupcake tastes better than the actual drink itself.  The cupcakes itself is Guinness flavored, stuffed with a soft, Jameson genache, and topped with a Bailey's buttercream icing.

Please note: most of the alcohol cooks out of the cupcake.  However, the frosting has a good amount of Bailey's in it.  It will not get you drunk, but I would keep away from small children and pregnant woman just in case.

Here are the ingredients you will need:

Guinness Cupcakes
1 Box of Chocolate Cake Mix
1 cup of Guinness
3 eggs
1/4 cup of water (or more Guinness)
1/3 cup of vegetable oil

Genache
2 cups of bittersweet or dark chocolate (use good quality chocolate, not bakers chocolate)
2 cups of cream
2 tsp. of Jameson

Bailey's Buttercream Icing
3 sticks of unsalted, room temperature butter
3 3/4 cups of confectioner's sugar
4 1/2 TBSP of Bailey's Irish Cream

Directions:

Guinness Cupcakes- Preheat your oven to 350°.  Line about 24 cupcake liners into a cupcake tray (I only got 19 out of mine). Using a stand mixer, mix together the cake mix, water, oil, and Guinness on low for about 30 seconds.  Scrape down the sides, as needed.  Then, add in your eggs and mix together on medium for about 2 minutes or until batter is smooth and creamy.  Fill  the cupcake liners about 2/3s of the way full.  Bake for about 17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out smooth.  Let cool for at least an hour and core out the center for the genache.

Genache:

In a small pot, bring your cream to a slight boil.  Pour the cream over top of the chocolate and let sit for about a minute.  Whisk together until the chocolate melts completely into the cream and the genache turns to a smooth, milk chocolate color.  Add in your Jameson and continue to whisk together. The Jameson should add a nice shine to your mixture.  Let cool for a couple of minutes.  Using a spoon or small ladle, add your genache to the center of the cupcake.  Put in the fridge and allow genache to cool for 30-40 minutes.

Bailey's Buttercream Icing:

Using the whisking paddle of your stand mixer, cream the room temperature butter for about 4-5 minutes on medium-high, scraping down the sides when necessary.  It should become light and airy.  Then, slowly add in your confectioner's sugar, continuing to mix on medium high.  After the mixture becomes light and fluffy, add in your Bailey's Irish Cream.  Top your cupcakes with the buttercream however you like and enjoy!

Here is a picture with the gooey, genache-filled center 

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High Calorie-Burining Treadmill Workout

Winter blues screwing with your workout routine?? Yeah... me too.  I love to workout and run outside, but the cold weather here in the Northeast has been disastrous to my workout routine.  I have been forced to stick to the stationary bike and treadmill to get my cardio on, and I have NOT been happy about it.  Doesn't it seem like time goes so much slower when you are checking out the same scene for a good half and hour?  You can only look at the same meat head benching triple your body weight for so long.

I decided it was time to switch things up a bit.  I developed a treadmill routine that allows for a mix of speed and incline training that will increase your heart rate and improve your calorie burning efficiency, while simultaneously creating a more "interesting" workout.  Switching up your speed and incline will allow you to burn more calories than just running at the same moderate pace and incline.  Here's the deal:  if you stick to the same pace and incline all the time, your body becomes more efficient at the workout, thus burning less calories.  Think of it this way- your body is in cruise control mode- when you stick to the same pace and incline, you begin to flat line the energy needed to keep going.  When you fluctuate your speed and incline, your body will become less efficient and will burn more calories.  Make sense?

The below workout starts off with a warm-up, works into speed training, followed by a quick cool-down and amps your body back up with incline training.  Lastly, there is a sprint at the end to reach your peak, and slowly decreases in speed to get your heart rate back down at a healthy pace.  This part is crucial because you do not want to just stop, especially after a sprint.  If you do so, you could pass out.  Your heart needs to stay elevated to allow your blood to flow properly. Restricting blood flow can cause a lack of Oxygen to your brain- thus causing you to pass out.

Anyway, follow this routine to switch up your cardio routine.  This workout is for moderate runners.  If you are a beginner, I would suggest decreasing the suggested pace and incline by at least 1/3. The entire routine is 25 minutes and you will probably burn between 175-275 calories.  Enjoy and happy running :-)

Strawberries and Champagne Cupcakes

What do you think of when you think of Valentine's Day?  Chocolate, Strawberries, Champagne?  Well I have a special cupcake recipe that combines all of these delicious treats.  These strawberries and champagne cupcakes are a sure fire way to your "special someone's" heart.  But, I have to warn you, they are very time consuming.  I spent almost an entire day creating these bad boys, but they are definitely worth it!  This recipe calls for a homemade strawberry cake batter, strawberry champagne filling, topped with a champagne buttercream and chocolate hearts.

So... let's start with the the cake batter.

For this recipe you will need:

1 1/3 cups of frozen or fresh strawberries (I would only use fresh if they are in season)
3 cups of flour
2 tsp. of baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cups of whole milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup of butter at room temp.
1/2 cup of coconut oil
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line two cupcake trays with 24 liners.

First you want to cut up the strawberries and put them into a food processor.   Combine until you get a fairly smooth texture (it is okay if it is a little chunky).  It should look like this:

You can set the strawberries aside.  Then, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.  Then cream your butter and coconut oil until light and fluffy using the paddle attachment on a standing mixer.  (Note: I normally put the coconut oil in the microwave for about 10 seconds to let it get a little soft.  It does leave a very slight coconut taste, so you can always remove the coconut oil and replace with butter.  I really like the moisture that coconut oil brings to the recipe, so I like to use it.)  Next, add in your sugar, one cup at a time.  Take your strawberry puree and mix it together in a separate bowl with the vanilla and milk.  Take your dry ingredients and add about half slowly into your mixer.  Then, add in you strawberry mixture.  Lastly, slowly add the rest of your dry ingredients.

If you used fresh strawberries, your mixture will be a normal vanilla color with chunks of red.  However, if you used frozen strawberries, then you will have a slight pink color to the batter.

Take your batter and fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way.

 Pop in the over and cook for about 22-24 minutes.  Here is what they will look like:

Let cool and core out the center for your filling. 

Next you want to make the filling:

Here are the ingredients:

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup champagne
2 1/2 cups frozen or fresh strawberries
4 tbs. cornstarch
3/4 cups of sugar

In a medium saucepan, whisk together your water, champagne and cornstarch.  Allow to thicken until it is reduced to about half.  Then add in your strawberries cut into bite size pieces and add in your sugar.  Cook at medium high heat for about 10 minutes and allow to thicken.  Then set aside and cool.  Note:  you may want to make this first because it does take about an hour to cool.

Fill your cored cupcakes with the filling.  They should look like this:

Next comes the champagne buttercream frosting. You will need:

2 sticks of butter
3 1/3 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup champagne
1 tsp. vanilla
4-5 drops of red food coloring (optional)

In a standing mixer, again with the paddle attachment, cream together your butter.  Slowly add in 3 cups of the powdered sugar, stopping and scraping down the sides with a spatula when necessary.  Then add in your champagne and vanilla.  Then, add in the last of your powdered sugar to thicken up a little.  Mix on medium high until the mixture is light and fluffy.  Then add in your food coloring and mix on low until you get the desired color.

I applied my frosting using a piping bag and Wilton's Open Star 1mm tip (my favorite :-))

Lastly, you can make your candied hearts.  I also managed to spell out "love" for V-day. I melted my chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute at medium power. Stirred and put in again for 30 seconds.  That did the trick!  Then allow the chocolate to cool for about 5-10 minutes and put into a piping bag.  I then let it cook for another 5 minutes so the chocolate wasn't too runny and hard to work with.  It helps to run under cool or warm water to get the right texture you want.  Then cut the tip of the piping bag about a quarter of an inch up and pipe your shapes onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.  See below:

Allow to cool int he freezer for about 20 minutes or so and they should pop right off!  Be sure not to make the lines too thin or the chocolate will break.  Top your frosted cupcakes with the chocolate and ta-da!  An impressive V-day treat is ready to be served.

Layering with Chambray

Lately, I just cannot get enough of chambray as a layering piece.  I feel like it goes well under almost anything... a printed cardi, structured blazer, casual sweater, etc.  Top the look off with a scarf or statement necklace, and you're golden!  I was never really a fan of chambray until I took on a holiday job working at a Coach Outlet store.  Part of our dress code at the time was to layer a navy or black cardi over top of a chambray shirt.  I was a little hesitant at first, but after finding the perfect shade, I was hooked!  I love pairing it with a mustard color or some sparkle.  Here are some examples of how you can layer in chambray via Pinterest.

Chambray under sequence and a blazer done by Penny Pincher Fashion

Chambray under stripes with colored skinnies via unknown

Chambray under a cardi with gold accents by Chelsea Lane

These are all really great examples of how to layer with chambray.  I have also seen it done as a top on its own with a patterned skirt, or as the top layering piece with a patterned top underneath.  Either way, you can't go wrong!

Here is my take: Chambray & Cheetah with pearls!

Please ignore the horrible Instagram photo... I am working on my photos 



About/Contact

Hi!  My name is Natalie Cawley and I am new to the blogging community.  I currently reside in Philadelphia, but I am orginally from Pittsburgh (Go Steelers)!  I work in database marketing and I have always had an "itch" to do something creative; so here it is!  I love fashion, fitness, cupcakes, gold jewelry, coffee, my family and my boyfriend :-).  You will see all of these love and passions flare through my posts.

Enjoy! If you want to contact me further, fill out the little form to the right!