FOOD - FLEUR DE SEL CARAMELS (SALTED CARAMELS)

I have been doing a lot of cooking this holiday season! I plan to do a few DIYs before I start up school again in late January, but for now, lets talk about how to make candy!

I love love love salted caramels.  I have one of those grandmas that always carries Werther's butterscotch in her purse, so I have loved that smooth buttery taste of caramel almost all my life.  (I saw my gma yesterday, and now she carries around the coffee Werther's, also very delicious, I'm glad things in Hawaii don't change too much.)  As I grew older I switched to Rolos, and then as my palate matured I ditched my love of store bought candies, and moved onto fancy salted caramels (I do still enjoy Werther's with my gma).  Salted caramels are often a bit expensive in stores so I do not get to enjoy them very often.  Then, I found out how simple it is to make homemade caramels!

I followed this recipe from Ina Garten, and it is beyond delicious!  It also has really helpful step by step pictures.  One major thing I did differently was I only heated the sugar to 300 degrees F before adding the cream mixture.  If you follow the recipe closely you will yield a very dark candy, I wanted mine to be a lighter color and found out that is due to how long you cook the sugar.  Also, this recipe says to heat the caramel mixture to 248 degrees F for firm ball, you do not need to have it exactly at 248, but for firm ball candy it must be between 245 and 250.  Lastly, I cut my caramels into much smaller bite sized pieces!

P.S. I cannot stress how important it is to watch the thermometer the entire time.  The first time I tried to make these I walked away for 2 seconds and the temperature shot up and my caramels were very hard, almost inedible.  I saved them by putting them in some cookies.

Now I'm off to the beach! 

BEAUTY - CUTICLE CREME

I hate having dry, peely hands!  Even while growing up in Hawaii, a very humid place, I have always had dry skin.  It might be from too many beach days as a kid without any SPF (I used to lie to my mom and tell her I put it on, but didn't cause I wanted to tan more) or it might just be the way my skin is.  Regardless, my skin gets unbelievable dry and gross in New York winters.  My hands especially take a beating.  To make matters worse, I have a horrible habit of picking at my nails and cuticles, which gets worse the dryer my hands get.  I carry lotion with me everyday and moisturize at night, but haven't found a good way to keep my hands moist, until now!

I know I'm not the only person with this problem and have seen many solutions from various sites, so I decided to up my nightly moisturizing routine and give some new products a try!  I researched different cuticle/hand creams and decided to try Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Creme (it was the most economical with positive reviews).  This one is a Vitamin E based creme.  I also invested in a pair of moisturizing hand gloves.  They are really just a thin pair of cotton gloves to wear at night to lock in your moisturizers.  So before I went to bed the other night, I massaged the cuticle creme on my cuticles and nail beds, applied a generous amount of lotion to my hands, put my gloves on and went to bed.  It was only one night, but my hands were significantly improved from the night before! If one night worked that well, hopefully I can keep my hands nice and supple for the rest of winter!

Some other more luxurious options I want to try are L'Occitane Cuticle and Nail Cream, this one is made of shea butter, and Dior Crème Abricot Fortifying Cream For Nails.

Have you tried any cuticle creams? What do you do to combat winter dryness?

ART - DIA: BEACON

Today I traveled up to Beacon, NY to visit the awesomely cool Dia: Beacon museum.  Since the museum is upstate (where there is endless space) and housed in an old Nabisco factory it can hold a lot of large scale art work that can't really fit or work with the spaces here in the city.  It was a never ending maze of installations, some awesome and some not so much.  (If we have ever had a conversation about art you would know I am not a lover of most contemporary art.)  I did however find a lot things I enjoyed at Dia, especially a large spider by Louise Bourgeois.  I wasn't supposed to take any photos in the galleries, but it was so cool, I had to!

Dia: Beacon is a perfect mini day escape from the city.  Its only a short ride way on the Metro North!    

BOOKS - CORALIE BICKFORD-SMITH (THE GREAT GATSBY)

I love decorating with books!  Over the years I have been trying to collect beautiful books to display around my apartment that both reflect my style and are interesting for our guests.  My boyfriends has a thing for buying "conversation pieces", but we usually don't agree on those so right now our apartment is a combination of comic books (we all have to compromise sometimes), fashion, craft, and these books.

I know these books have been out for a while now, and I do have a few, but I just needed to write about how beautiful they are.  Coralie Bickford-Smith is the mastermind behind these books that have been featured all over the blog-sphere.  I found her covers on Amazon when I was taking an initiative to read more classic books like Pride and Prejudice.  She also designed hardback covers for many of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books, including The Great Gatsby!!!  I had been looking to purchase a copy of my own, and finally bought it for myself as a tiny Christmas present so I can re-read the book over my winter break!  Hopefully I'll get some of the others ones in my stalking!

PS. Even though the movie keeps getting pushed back, I'm really excited to see it.

LIFE - AHH FINALS

I haven't been out of school long enough to not remember that horrible time of the semester known as finals.  And although I have gone through them 8 times in the past, I am still incredibly unprepared for the two weeks of intense reading, studying, paper writing, and test taking I am about to endure.  I'll be back to awesome stuff like blogging and fun when I finish my finals on December 19th and get to fly back to beautiful Hawaii for a white sand beach Christmas!

But for now I'll be cuddling up with these books, a lot of coffee and of course Earl Grey (the cat).

Here's whats been going on in instagram land!

My childhood stalking and a DIY felt ball garland 

This was my attempt at being a scary hockey player, PS I can't skate at all

Lots of kale! Getting in some healthy eats before yummy holiday food!

Earl Grey looking adorable as always in some of Eric's comic books