Maria Isabel

Friday, July 29, 2016

Eyebrow Routine | Video

It has been a month or so since I have filmed a video and it felt so good to be able to sit down and film one. I absolutely love it, but editing seriously is the worse. But I did it and I am happy to share this video with you all.

This video is all about my eyebrow routine. All the products I use and how I use them. So without giving to much away, here is my quick video on my eyebrow routine.

Make sure to subscribe! :)

Lemon Pistachio Cheesecake Bars

I was so excited when I found this recipe and I even more so when I was able to make these bad boys.

Not only is it as delicious as it sounds, but its super simple to make and its a no bake recipe so that's just awesome. The only down side is having to wait for these to set in the fridge because I just wanted to eat them right away. So please, if you love lemon and pistachios or even if you don't; try this recipe. You are going to love these. They are sweet and the hint of lemon zest in the mix gives it the perfect kick.

So, for this you will need:

For the Crust:

5oz of Unsalted Pistachios

1 cup of Graham Crackers

3oz of Unsalted Butter

3/4 cup of chopped toasted hazelnuts

For the Filling:

2 packs of Cream Cheese

1 cup of Sweetened Condensed Milk

Zest of 1 lemon

To Get Started:

Add the pistachios into a food processor and process them until they are a fine crumb. Once they are crushed, add the graham crackers into the processor until they graham crackers and pistachios are a fine crumb. Then add your butter into the food processor (make sure it's melted!), and blend until your mix is damp and has a sandy feel to it.

Once that is all done, grease a pan that is either a rectangle or square to give them a bar shape at the end. Add the sandy mixture to the pan and lightly press it either with the back of a spoon or with the palm of your hand and cover the bottom of the pan and up the sides of the pan. Make sure that the bottom is completely covered and no pan is showing. Then, place the pan in the refrigerator for at least 25 minutes.

For the Filling:

Beat the cream cheese, zest of one lemon and condensed milk until it is all smooth and well combined.

Take the pan out of the fridge, and carefully add the lemon cheesecake mix until it covers the base of the pan and it is all smooth and even throughout. Then place the pan in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or over night.

Once they have sat in the fridge and ready to come out, its time to decorate! Now, I skipped this part but, you can do whatever you like with your lemon bars. You can add crushed pistachios at the top with the lemon zest, or do as I did, and just add the lemon zest on top for decoration.

To cut these, I used a large kitchen knife to make a clean cut down and make them into bars!

And that's it! Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!

Blog Tips | Add Back to Top Button

So as a new little thing that I have promised myself, I want to start posting more DIY for your blogs and just more post in general. As you guys can tell, I have COMPLETELY redesigned my blog for the millionth time, but this time I think this one is going to stay for a very long time. Anyways, lets get started on our Blog Tip!

If you scroll down on my blog, you will tell that I have a little "Back To Top" Button on the bottom right hand corner and I think it is so handy! I love it. So I wanted to share it with you guys!

FIRST STEP:

Log into your Blogger, go to Template > Edit HTML and find the code <head>. Once you found it, copy the paste I have provided right BELOW that:

SECOND STEP:

Then go to your Layout section > Add a Gadget > HTML/JAVASCRIPT and paste the code below into that section:

jQuery(document).ready(function() {

var offset = 220;

var duration = 500;

jQuery(window).scroll(function() {

if (jQuery(this).scrollTop() > offset) {

jQuery('.back-to-top').fadeIn(duration);

} else {

jQuery('.back-to-top').fadeOut(duration);

}

});

jQuery('.back-to-top').click(function(event) {

event.preventDefault();

jQuery('html, body').animate({scrollTop: 0}, duration);

return false;

})

});

</script>

<style>

div#page {

max-width: 900px;

margin-left: auto;

margin-right: auto;

padding: 20px;

}

.back-to-top {

position: fixed;

bottom: 2em;

right: 0px;

text-decoration: none;

color: #000000;

font-size: 12px;

padding: 1em;

display: none;

}

.back-to-top:hover {

text-decoration: none;

}

</style>

And that is it! You can change the one that is already as default or place your own. Just simply create on, Upload it to a post on Blogger, Turn the "Compose" at the top left hand corner to HTML and copy the image where its starts "http:example" and replace it in the code! Make sure to ONLY replace that. Changing anything else can ruin the code!

Hope that you all found this helpful and that is works!

AU REVOUIR for now!!

Red Velvet Swirl Brownies

I thought it would be cool to post something a bit different from the usual, so here it is! Red Velvet Swirl Brownies with roasted walnuts. I am obsessed with red velvet anything. Cake, cookies, cupcakes, you name it but I had never tried red velvet brownies so when I came across this recipe I knew i just had to try it. I was also excited to see that this brownie recipe also had a layer of cream cheese that went on the top of them and they turned out delicious! So I wanted to share this recipe with you all and hope that you enjoy them!

Brownie Layer

1 Stick of Unsalted Butter

1 cup of Sugar

1 tsp of Vanilla Extract

1/4 cup Cocoa Powder

Pinch of Salt

1 Tbsp Red Food Coloring

1 tsp Vinegar

2 Eggs

3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour

1/4 Toasted Walnuts

Cream Cheese Layer

8oz softened Cream Cheese

1/4 cup Sugar

1 egg

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

Alrighty, so here is what you need to do.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter your baking pan really well too!

For the Brownie Layer: Melt the butter in a saucepan or in the microwave until completely melted. Remove the butter to a large bowl and add the sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder, salt, food coloring, and vinegar mixing between additions. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and stir it into the cocoa mix. Fold in the flour until lightly combined. Stir in the walnuts and pour the batter into your prepared baking pan, saving 1/4 cup of the batter to spread over the top later.

Cream Cheese layer: Blend together the cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Gently spread the cream cheese layer on top of the brownie batter in the pan. Dollop the remaining brownie batter over the cream cheese layer. Using a skewer or the tip of a knife, drag the tip through the cream cheese mixture to create a swirl pattern. Bake the brownies for 30 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before cutting.

And that should be it!! To find a video about this recipe CLICK HERE!!

My Morphe Palettes

I feel like its not just me that is currently with everything Morphe. Morphe brushes, concealers, and of course their palettes. Over the past couple of months, I have been obsessing over their palettes and to be honest, they are the only eyeshadows that I currently use. I have abandoned all of my other palettes for these. Not only are they cheap, but the quality of the product is really awesome. There is seriously nothing better than a great product for a great price. I could go over how amazing all of these different palettes are, but that would take ages and it would be a really long post.

The thing is, all Morphe palettes are great. Their shimmer shadows and matte shadows just work amazingly. No doubt about it. They are really pigmented and really easy to blend. If you haven't tried out any of these palettes, I really recommend that you do. Here are the Morphe palettes that I currently own but of course, I plan to own more very soon.

PS: My favorite one (and maybe everyone else's) is the 35O Palette.

Links to where you can get these palettes are below each image! :)

Their newest one, the 35F Palette.

Their 35W Palette

35E Palette, which I cant find on the site..

The 35O Palette

New at LovelyParis

You may or may not know that I have a blog design shop. It has been a while since I have really done anything with the shop itself. I do a lot of blog templates, extras and other things for my customers over on Etsy, but I haven't been giving my shop the best attention. I am still making some changes and adding more things which I will get into in a second. Anyways, the past couple of days I have been doing just that. Changing the look and adding more things on my website which I am really excited about! Anyways, Lets talk about the changes!

NEW LOOK

So the first change that I made was the look of the site! The old look wasn't too bad, but I felt like it was missing a couple of things. It was too plain and the slider on the main page was giving me problems when the page would load. It would take a while to show up and the quality of it was bad. I only had a couple of tabs and I also didn't like the quality of the site so it was time to give it a change!

NEW FEATURE | THE BLOGGER PACKAGE

Now! Now, I have a couple more buttons and options to click on. I created two new pages that explain Blog Installation and support for new bloggers seeking help with creating their blog. If you are a new blogger or know of someone who wants to start a blog, we now offer that type of help! The details are all on the new page and you can check that out HERE!

NEW PAGE | TEMPLATE INSTALLATION

The most asked question or the thing that customers need the most help on is Installing things onto their blog. Whether it be installing the template, making the header, the welcome image, ect. It is the one thing that most people have trouble with, and from the beginning I have offered FREE Tech support. I have never minded doing free technical support because I understand that what I find easy might not be for others and sometimes its better to just do it instead of explaining somethings that may not make any sense at all. But, I added a couple of new rules to this also. I will be limiting the days I offer tech support. For more information, you can click HERE!

NEW PAGE | SUPPORT

This is one of the pages that I have had up for a while now, but haven't really added anything new than just what has been on there since I made the page. This page only includes 2 posts that offer support for customers that had purchased designs and need help with installing gadgets on their blog. Now, I will add extra support for each individual template. Templates usually have different instructions to follow and I want to be able to provide assistance on how and where to install or put everything so I will be laying all of that out on the support page.

The other thing that is new on this page is the password needed for access. Before, anyone could just come on the page and look at all the support that I had on my page, but now it is exclusive to my customers only. I feel like if you purchased a design from LovelyParis, that you should be offered this featured exclusively. Customers will have the password that will open the file to their purchased template only that includes all of the instructions needed to put their template together properly. This feature is still on the works so It will take a while to put all of the information together, but I cannot wait to make it live!

So those are the new and exciting things that are on lovelyparisdesigns and I cannot wait for you all to see the final result when everything is ready to go. You can still go on the site and shop around or go to our store HERE!

Blog Tips | Removing Sidebar From Pages

I had posted this same post a while back, but I wanted to re-publish it since it just go lost in the other millions of other posts I have done.

Today I am going to show you guys how to remove your sidebar from your Pages. So if your on your blog and click on your pages they will only have your content for that page and thats it. No sidebar to make it look like another post( Thats what I felt they looked liked).

My blog actually has this code in place, so if you click on any of the pages, there will be no sidebar and the content on the pages is centered. ( Go click any page to see what it looks like).

Go Dashboard > Design > Edit HTML.
Back Up Your Template!!
Find this code in your template HTML:

<body> - If you are using Layout Templates

<body expr:class='"loading" + data:blog.mobileClass'> - if you are using Designer template.

4. Once you find that, copy the code below right AFTER/BELOW the code you found in Step 3:

<!-- PAGES CODE STARTS HERE-->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<style>
.blog-pager, .footer, .post-footer, .feed-links, .sidebar { display:none !important;}
#main-wrapper {width: 95%; float:none; margin: 0 auto !important;}

.main-inner .columns {width: 100%;padding-left:0 !important;padding-right:0 !important;}
</style></b:if>
<!-- PAGES CODE ENDS HERE -->

5. Save it, and test it out!

Note: If it doesn't look well try removing this part of the code:

.main-inner .columns {width: 100%;padding-left:0 !important;padding-right:0 !important;}

That part of the code is only if you are using a Designer Template. (Mine has that bit of code attached to it still).

There are times where on your blog posts or blog pages, you might want to put two pictures next to each other, but the template or Blogger just won't let you. This is something that I have always struggled with especially on my Design website, where I want to put the Template pictures next to each other, but really couldn't. Until Now!!

So, to put two pictures next to each other (like you see in the picture above), all you need to do is follow the instructions below! Let's Go!

1. Copy and Paste the code below in your blog post or blog page:
<table><tbody>
<tr><td>PICTURE 1
</td><td>PICTURE 2
</td></tr></tbody></table>
2. Copy your images URL and paste them where it says PICTURE 1 for one image URL and the other image URL goes into the PICTURE 2 slot. Make sure to replace the text that says PICTURE.

Your image URL can be found by uploading your image on the post page, and turning your post into HTML (Top left hand corner, next to Compose on Blogger). Copy the entire <img border="0".../> code.

3. Make sure to do that for both images! Save your post or page, and you should see your images next to each other!!

Hope you found this post helpful! Let me know if you would like to see more post like this. More Blogger Tips.

FOR MORE BLOG TIPS, TYPE IN "BLOG TIPS" IN THE SEARCH BOX AT THE TOP!

Current Make Up Favorites

So the past couple of weeks, I have bought these few things that have become some of my favorite make up products that I currently own. I wanted to share with you all what those where. I have left links at the end of each picture to find the products!

The first ones are this Morphe travel kit brushes. I love these. Not only do they work great, but they are small and come in a case so you can take them with you anywhere. I don't really travel that much, but I really like how they are not too big and i can honestly say that I use them everyday. Morphe, if you didn't know already, has amazing products for even better prices, and I am not gonna like I though that these where not going to be as good as their other brushes because they are travel size, but they work amazing.

The ones that I use the most are the contour brush which is the one at the bottom of the above picture, the powder brush which I use for blush, and the concealer brush. The other ones I use most when I am doing my eyeshadow, which I know only do on special occasions.
You can find this Morphe Brushes Travel Kit, HERE!

The next one is this Benefit "They're Real" Mascara. This mascara is so amazing. I have tried so many mascaras from cheap drug store ones to expensive ones like this one many times, and I always come back to this one and the Roller Lash one they have too. This is such an awesome formula and truly gives your lashes that volume and length. If you are looking for a cheaper alternative, try the Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara. Find this mascara, HERE!

This next product is my ride or die. My one and only. My favorite product ever pretty much. The Anastasia BeverlyHill Dipbrow Pomade. Since finding this product about a year or two ago, I have never gone to anything else for my eyebrows. I have tried her pencils, but those don't last as long as the pomade does. I can honestly tell you that this pomade when used moderately, will last you about a 8-9 months or more. When it is running low, the product gets just a little bit dry, but if you add a bit of contact solution it will work great until the very last drop of product. I highly recommend this product if you want your eyebrows to look amazing 24/7. Find the Pomade, HERE!

These other Anastasia products are the first liquid lipsticks of hers that I have bought and I am already obsessed with them. These two that I got are Stripped and Ashton. I am in love with these colors. The more nude one, which is Stripped is a perfect everyday nude and Ashton, which has a brown hint to is I like to wear to go out. I have gotten so many compliments with the lipstick on. It looks amazing on and they last all day. Beware, liquid lipsticks are very dry. That is just the way they are but nothing to horrible. Great products over all. Find them HERE!

Last but not least is the new Morphe 35F Palette. I love the colors in this palette so much. It is mostly shimmer shades and 7 matte shades. This palette is one of my 5 Morphe Palettes and seriously, I haven't been using anything since I bought my first palette because they are just that amazing. Not only is the product great, but it is a great price too! That's why I think everyone loves Morphe so much. Great products for Great Prices. As you can tell from the picture above of the palette, I haven't had too much time to actually play around with it, but I am looking forward to creating new looks with this palette! You can find the palette, HERE!

Maria Isabel

Friday, July 29, 2016

Eyebrow Routine | Video

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Lemon Pistachio Cheesecake Bars

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Blog Tips | Add Back to Top Button

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Red Velvet Swirl Brownies

Friday, July 15, 2016

My Morphe Palettes

Friday, July 8, 2016

New at LovelyParis

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Blog Tips | Removing Sidebar From Pages

Blog Tips | Putting Two Images Next to Eachother

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Current Make Up Favorites