Flavored Coffee Syrup Recipe

I LOVE delicious coffee drinks, especially when they have fun flavors!  Coffee houses always have tons of options to spice up your drinks like peppermint, cinnamon, raspberry, etc.  So here is a recipe to help you bring  coffee house flavor into your home!

Ingredients:

1 c. water

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. your favorite flavor extract

McCormick has tons of different types of extract so don't feel like you have to just stick to coconut or vanilla.  When I went to Walmart, I noticed that they had hazelnut, caramel, peppermint, cinnamon, raspberry, and tons more!  Also, don't be afraid to get creative!  You can most definitely do a combination of extracts to make your own flavor.

Directions:

1. Start off by combining the water and sugar in a pot and bringing it to a boil so that the sugar dissolves completely.

2.  Remove your simple syrup from heat and add in the extract.  You can add more or less than a teaspoon...it's whatever you like!

3.  Add a few tablespoons of your flavored syrup to take your cup of coffee to the next level!

and that's it!..so so super easy!

enjoy!

-amy gat

New Room Palette

Hello Everyone!  I'm so so so excited to move into my new apartment in less than a month :)  I've been planning out what I want my new room to look like and I'm even going to start painting my new (well, new to me) furniture tomorrow.  So here's the color scheme I'm going to use for my bedroom!  I think these colors go together beautifully and I would definitely say that they fit my personality really well.

What do you think?!

I'm planning on decorating my room with some DIY home decor projects so be ready for tons of tutorials!

I'll also be sure to post pictures of my apartment as I fix it up and make it my own.

Weekly Favorites

Hello everyone!
So, obviously it's been more than a week since my last favorites, but I'm really going to try to be better about doing these!  So here are my favorite things this week...

Favorite Movie:

Spiderman!  I saw this on the 4th of July and I didn't think I would like it cause I don't usually like movies of this genre, but I LOVED it.

Favorite Change:

New hair!  I've never changed the color of my hair whatsoever, but I was feeling daring.  I let my hairstylist roomie, Shaina, put a little color on the ends of my hair.  

Favorite Purchase:

Steve Madden cosmetic bag from Ross 

Favorite Song:

Lost in my Mind-- The Head and the Heart

Favorite Makeup:

Urban Decay original Naked palette. 

Favorite Scent:

I got this at the semi-annual sale at Bath & Body Works...It smells very very sweet and I absolutely love it.

Summer Thrift Finds

The other day I went to Goodwill and found three clothing items that I thought were very summery and cute. Here are three outfits I put together using each of the items...

Sleeveless Chambray Shirt

As soon as I saw this chambray shirt I knew I had to get it.  I love that it is very summery and can add a little bit of an edge to a really girly outfit.  In this outfit, I am wearing it with a fitted lace dress and a brown braided belt.

Floral Maxi Skirt

I'm not usually a maxi skirt kind of girl, but I saw this skirt and thought "why not?"  I actually really like it and it is the perfect length for a 5'0" girl like me!  For this outfit, I wore the skirt with a white strapless tank and a brown leather belt.  

Fun Printed Sweater

This outfit is really simple, and I love simple.  This is something that I would wear if I was just hanging out with friends at night or going to see a movie or something like that.  I chose to wear this sweater with jean shorts and brown thick strapped sandals.  

-amy gat

4th of July Fruit Tart

In honor of the 4th of July here's a very tasty and very red, white, and blue dessert recipe!

Crust:

1 c. room temperature butter

1/2 c. powdered sugar

2 c. flour

a pinch of salt

Filling:

1/3 c. heavy cream

1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 package room temperature cream cheese

strawberries

blueberries

1. Set the oven to 350 degrees

2.  To make the crust, cream the butter and the sugar together until they are completely combined

3.  Add the flour and salt to the butter mixture until a dough is formed

4.  Press the dough into the bottom and sides of a tart pan and bake for 20 minutes

5.  While the crust is baking, make the filling by combining the heavy cream and powdered sugar and whipping up to a thick consistency (but not all the way to stiff peaks)

6.  In a separate bowl, whip the cream cheese until it is soft and smooth

7.  Whip the heavy cream combination and cream cheese together until they are combined

8.  Before filling the tart shell, be sure it has cooled to room temperature

9. Once the shell is room temperature, fill the tart and decorate the top with strawberries and blueberries

10.  Chill in the refrigerator for a couple hours

That's it!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July!

-amy gat

What's In My Shower

Hello everyone!  I know it's been a little bit since my last blog post but I've been pretty busy these past couple of weeks...It was my birthday a few days ago and I've been busy with school and clinic, but now I'm back with a "What's in my Shower?!" post.  I love watching the "what's in my shower" videos on YouTube, so I thought I'd share what is in my shower!  Let's hop right in, shall we?

This is my shower caddy.  I keep everything that I use in the shower on this caddy except for my shampoo and conditioner because they're too big to fit on this thing.

This is the razor that I use; It is a Schick Intuition.  It has a shave bar around the blades and I know that a lot of people don't really like that, but I do.  I almost never buy shaving cream because I usually just use soap, so I like the shave bar!

I love this scrub.  I've been using it since high school (but not continuously).  This can be too harsh for some people, but I actually like that it has really big grains in it.  You're not supposed to exfoliate every day, so I use this about 2-3 times a week.

On days when I don't exfoliate, I use this cleanser.  This is the first time I've purchased this cleanser and I think that it's decent.  I don't have a lot of trouble with acne, so it's hard to say whether or not it works in that sense, but I bought this because I have really uneven skin tone.  I've noticed a little bit of a difference in the evenness of my skin tone since I've started using this product, but not a lot.

I got this little sample when I bought the Neutrogena grapefruit cleansing wipes.  I've probably only used it a couple of times, but I can say that I usually like a more abrasive exfoliant.  

These are the soaps that are in my shower.  On the top left is Honey, I Washed the Kids soap from Lush.  This is the soap that I like to use everyday just because it smells so so good.  The top right is Porridge from Lush.  I like to use this because it has a little bit of an exfoliant in it; the specks are oats (I think).  The bottom soap is a face soap sample that I got from Lush.  I only used it once or twice and I couldn't really stand the smell of it so I stopped using it.  It just sits in my shower and that's why it looks the way it looks.  

These are the shampoo and conditioner that I use.  They are absolutely massive.  I got these from Sam's Club because I was sick of running out of shampoo and conditioner so often.  These have lasted me FOREVER!  I bought these at the beginning of last semester,  so in January, and they're still going strong.  Usually I buy the conditioner that matches the shampoo, but I guess they were out when I purchased these two.  I've been using Herbal Essences Body Envy for years now, probably since high school.  I just love how it smells and how it makes my hair look so I can't get over buying it.

And that's whats in my shower!

-amy gat

Helloberry Inspired Bracelet DIY

So you may or may not be familiar with Helloberry bracelets.  If you're not, here is the link to their collection.  I think they're super cute, especially for stacking (which I have really been into lately).  I would love to own one of these bracelets, but honestly it is kind of pricey for what it actually is and how easy it is to make...so I decided to make my own.
I think they turned out great and they were really inexpensive to make.  I got craft lace at Walmart for about 80 cents and the chain was from Michaels which ended up being about 3 dollars with a student discount.  I have tons of leftover materials so I'll probably end up making more.  The only downside to making my own is that craft lace colors are very limited and not quite as cute as some of the colors from the actual Helloberry collection.
So here's what I made:

If you would like to make your own, here is the tutorial that I found and used to make mine:

-amy gat