Formal Half Up Long Curly Hairstyle

I found another one of those hairstyles WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS. I think it looks interesting, so I'm willing to give it a try.

Ok, so I had to study the picture a little bit. It looks like a section of hair is pinned at the crown all bumpit style, and a section from each side near the face is pinned next to the creepy bumpit thing.

First, I parted the hair in half from ear to ear and pinned the back half to keep it out of the way.

Then I separated the side and front sections and clipped them.

In the picture, it looks like the roots are "teased". Well, I don't do that. I just twisted the hair and pushed it forward a little. My hair is poofy enough by itself. No teasing necessary. It took at least ten pins before I felt like the hair wouldn't fall down.

I brushed back each side section and attempted to pin them in place. The pins didn't work, so I used a little clip for each side.

Then I let the bangs out and released the back section from the clip. I really liked the way it looked, in spite of the time and all the pins. I should have set a timer so I would know exactly how long it took. The web site says to allow at least two hours for hot rollers and teasing and spraying and pinning and whatnot. Yeah, I'm not doing all that. I don't think I spent more than 15 minutes, and that was only because I was figuring out how to do it.

Style: Updo and Down

I really wanted to try this style, but it totally wouldn't work. I sure could have used some instructions, more than what kinds of pins or clips to use. I hate sites that just show the style and don't give instructions.

Like always, I had to save a section of hair from the front to be pinned back later. In the style picture, there appears to be some hair left out in the back, so I did that, too.

I tried the banana clip multiple times, but it just kept popping open. I guess I have too much hair or too thick hair for those things. Now I know. Instead, I made two ponytails, one at the crown and one in the middle. From each ponytail, I took two small pieces of hair, twisted them and pinned them into the ponytail randomly.

It really just looks like half up half down.

I decided not to pin back that front section. I guess I got lazy.

Yeah, definitely a failure. It would have been much easier with a banana clip. I could have used hair pins, but I don't have time to stick 40 pins in my hair and then take them out before I sleep. That's just ridiculous.

Birthday Cupcakes!

I knew I would be baking cupcakes for my birthday, but I've been feeling a need to make cupcakes with filling. I don't know why. So I found one recipe with the filling added after the cupcakes are baked and another recipe with the filling baked into the cupcakes. I've never done it either way before, so, yes, there were issues.

The recipe said to use cake mix. Alright, I'm not arguing, Plus I was a little pressed for time with the laundry and birthday dinner and dentist.

Here I go again adding too much batter to the cups. This is probably going to backfire.

Yep, they're too big. Also, they're a little burned on the part that's touching the pan. I just put extra frosting there and hoped no one would notice. That's probably because I baked them at 400 for 15 minutes so they would be done faster.

I was supposed to have two full pans, but when I made the first batch too big, I messed up the yield.

Much better size. I'll try to remember to use less batter next time.

I cut a little pyramid out of the top of each muffin and then cut off the pointy part to make more space for filling.

I went to Target for supplies, and they didn't have any lemon instant pudding. I thought about using another flavor, like vanilla or chocolate, but I thought that would be too weird.

There's about 1.5 teaspoons of pudding in each cupcake.

For the chocolate cupcakes, I had to make the cream cheese frosting separately. I didn't read the directions very carefully, so I mixed the ingredients in the wrong order.

I was supposed to cream the cheese and sugar together, whatever that means. Maybe I'll look it up later. Instead, I mixed the sugar, egg and chocolate chips.

It was a little difficult mixing the cream cheese into the chocolate chip mixture. I used neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese, just because I've never used it before. That maybe have been a mistake.

According to the instructions, the filling should be on top of the cupcake batter. Well, that sounds more like topping than filling. I was a little worried, but after I took them out of the oven, some of the "filling" started to sink into the cupcakes. They looked weird, but the frosting took care of that.

I used cream cheese frosting for the chocolate cupcakes and lemon frosting for the lemon cupcakes. Everyone really loved them, but I didn't actually eat one myself. Sometimes after I bake something, I don't feel like eating it. Is that weird? Probably. I'm thinking maybe I'll do scones next.