Bring Your Pins to Life : January Recap

One of my New Years Resolutions is to try out more of my Pinterest projects. I love Pinterest and I think it is a great way to give blogger's ideas and projects a platform! I have challenged myself to do a new project every week and they can't all be food projects. Here is my little January recap.

Tikka Masala 

My first project of the new year! I whipped up a big batch of this on a Saturday to eat during the week for lunches. While this was a great recipe, there are some tweaks I would make to it if I made it again. 1. Not use as many tomatoes 2. Use a mix of cream and a good brand of coconut milk. I think next time I would make sure I didn't cook it as long (I wanted everything to be mixed together) but it make the chicken fall apart. Lastly, I would definitely marinate my chicken for a while before in a yogurt sauce, then do a dry rub of spices.

Hair Mask 

 

I've always loved a good at-home hair mask. Always a great thing to do while watching reality TV on a Sunday afternoon. This was a great mask and one that I would try again. I love using coconut oil in my hair and the addition of the lemon juice made it smell great! My hair and scalp felt smooth and full of life after!

Carmel Apple Cheesecake

I made these for a dinner party that Kira and I had with our friends when we exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. Let me tell you - these were a hit! They were really easy to make, and had so much flavor! While it did take some time to make because there are a lot of different steps, it never felt like it was a hard or that the measurements had to be perfect. I can't wait to try other types!

Bacon Cheddar Ranch Pull Apart Bread  

A delicious 1-time-a-year food! I made this for a family event and it was goooooddddd and obviously super healthy! This is really easy to put together and was a huge hit, however I would highly recommend using bread that is more on the stale as it would be easier to cut and stay "standing". My bread deflated and became more life a flat bread!

Check back in March to see what projects I completed in February!!

-A

Bring Your Pins to Life

How many of us are guilty of having thousands of pins on Pinterest and never doing any of the projects, making any of the desserts, or wearing any of the outfits? *Raises hand quickly*

One of my New Years resolutions is to try one thing from Pinterest every week. I want to try different project to see what I like and what I want to incorporate into my every day life! At one point I liked the pin enough to pin it so I might as well try it!

Here are some of my guidelines:

- Has to be something new that I haven't done before
- Try to have at least one thing a month that isn't a recipe (meaning a craft, beauty trend, or outfit)
- Report back on what I found at the end of the month on the blog!

This month I have done 2 recipes and am currently looking for my next couple of projects. Look forward to an upcoming blog at the end of the month that chronicles the ups and downs of this 52 week project!

Make sure to follow along on Pinterest to see what projects I might be doing!

-A

Interweb Goodies

So embarrassing but sooo real! Buzzfeed does it again with this hilarious list of things that stressed out every 90's kid, including us!

Check out our blogger pal and former NFL Cheerleader, Danetha breakdown the ways in which you can gain great business tips from the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. 

Pinterest is so much more than recipes and fashion, check out these beautiful boards to help you organized and on your game at work!

Kira has been pining over these pants for months! It may be time to finally pull the trigger and buy them. Men's clothes are so much fun to wear and make your own.

Ashley recent;y read an article about the 5 love languages, you can take a quiz to find out how you communicate in relationships and friendships - it's really cool!

-A&K

Fashion Fridays: Minimalism

Fashion Fridays: Minimalism by akablog featuring a black white poster

How it is Friday already I am unsure, but I will happily accept it and welcome the weekend!

I have been thinking a lot about life lately and about what I want and all these other great philosophical things. I will not bore you with those details, however, in this search for life's purpose I realize how much unnecessary shit I have acquired over the years. While some items are precious and valuable and meaningful in my life others are simply just there. I want less emphasis on things and more on living. I want my life to be simplified and so I am making a move to MINIMALISM!

I realized over the last year, that when it comes to style I love and appreciate style across the board. I love a crazy print, bold jewelry, bright hair and countless others. However I also noticed myself gravitating to a simpler style. I have such a hard time getting dressed sometimes because I feel like my closet is all over the place rather than a cohesive style.

Through Pinterest, I've really been able to hone in on a look, without even trying. I simply picked outfits I liked, stepped back and realized the clothes I wanted to wear were all minimal looks, very simple, streamlined but fantastic. I wanna build a wardrobe of great basics, but still with signature pieces and personality.

I am excited to edit my current wardrobe. I mean most people have closets that are overflowing with items they never wear. To me that is a waste of time and money. So I shall instead, have less, wear more and enjoy the process of getting dressed.

*Images via Pinterest

Here are a few great sites, bloggers that can teach you a thing or 2 about the minimal life!

13 Bloggers With the Best Minimal Style via WhoWhatWear

a minimalist approach to personal style

My fave minimal style instagram: @b_minimalistic

Happy Friday and have a beautiful weekend!

-K

Bring Your Pins To Life

How many of us are guilty to pinning projects, recipes, and fashion inspirations on Pinterest and then never actually trying them? We definitely are! There are just so many fun finds that it can be hard to complete all of the Pins that you like!

This summer our plan is to try to complete some of these real life Pins! Our series "Bring Your Pins To Life" will get started soon and we will attempt to recreate some of our favorite Pins from Pinterest! Below are some Pins that I am excited to try!

I'm loving this DIY folding chair - who knew they could look so chic? 

These glitter vases are so fun for tall flowers 

Rainbow veggie pizza, fresh and colorful!

This up -do looks effortless for summer

Zucchini pasta is a great way to watch carbs  while enjoying some great flavors!

These meringue cookies look almost too pretty to eat!

Check out our individual Pinterest's for some fun pin projects coming up! 

Also, make sure to follow along on Instagram and Twitter! 

-A

Welcome to the new AKA BLOG!!!

Hello everyone!!

At a friend's Valentine's Day party

Welcome to our new site!! We are still in shock that we won a re-design contest. It was such an exciting time to really think about all that we wanted to feature on our blog and how we wanted it to look.

We couldn't have done any of this without the help of Chris over at Hubby Jack. He did a wonderful job with the re-design! Don't you agree?!? He designed all of our new social media buttons, our header, and our new "grab button" on the right side of the screen as well as did the entire layout of the site. We are so grateful and appreciative of all his hard work.

We took our time while working on our redesign to really think about what we wanted to write about and feature on AKA. We decided that we wanted things to be more organized as well as to feature more content. We want to start different weekly or monthly series, start writing about fashion more, and showing more of our day-to-day discoveries.

Exploring wine country 

Here are some things to look forward to:

- Fashion Fridays; we are going to write about our favorite fashions from the week. Sometimes it will be us, sometimes friends, and sometimes someone we just saw on the street.

- We're Obsessed; a fun way to find out about little things we are "obsessing" over. From makeup, to TV, to music and fashion!

- AKA Bookshelf; a little mini book club. We will talk about what we are reading and hopefully our readers will help us find new books.

- Interweb Goodies; we will feature some of the fun things we have find weekly on the web; bloggers, articles, funny things!

- Amazing Aps; our favorite and most useful apps for our phones.

- Monthly Mood; a space for us to talk about what is inspiring us for that month and what we are looking forward to.

- Bring Your Pins To Life; what we are crafting/cooking/DIY-ing/styling from everyone's fav website Pinterest.

Kira's delicious muffins - recipe to follow 

With this new layout, some of you maybe thinking - where do I find everything? Well let us tell you!
At the top of the page under our beautiful new header you will find our different tabs. Everything will be in the main blog but we will organize most posts into one of the tabs:

-Series; everything that you saw above will be in this new tab

-Wear; fashion, make-up, accessories, beauty, hair

- Explore; our travels and adventures

- Cook, Create, Celebrate; a fun place for everything that we are cooking and eating, crafts we are making, and parties we are planning and attending!

Painting in the park

With all of these new fun changes we also are going to be using our social media a lot more! Make sure to follow us on our Twitter, Instagram, Bloglovin, Ashley's Pinterest, and Kira's Pinterest! We are constantly putting up information about our blog, things that are inspiring us, and our fun adventures!

Additionally, with the switch to Blogger it is really easy to follow our blog! On the right hand side of the page under "followers" you can sign up to follow along with us!

Thanks for all of the constant love and support we are loving this whole blogging thing and really excited to see where it takes us!

-A&K

Pie for Pi Day!