The dairy bomb: getting your nog on.

I'd like to share with y'all my eggnog recipe. I made a few adjustments to it this year, and I believe it to be nearly perfect if you love nog. Real nog, no soy. Hecka eggs. Serious dairy. Crap-tons of booze.  And a bajillion calories. If you are down for all of that, this is the real deal.

The frugal femme's killer nog:
1 dozen eggs
1 quart half and half
1 quart heavy whipping cream
2 cups of sugar
1 bottle of white rum
1 1/2 -2 cups of whiskey
a crap-ton of nutmeg
cinnamon sticks if you got em!

I know what you're all thinking. That's a whole lot of booze and a whole lot of dairy. Yes, yes it is.  And these eggs don't get cooked. So, yeah. The idea is that the booze will cook em! But that's just another reason to use organic cage free eggs. Cuz, uh...good egg karma? There's also a way to check for bad eggs where you see if they floats in water, although, typically, if you crack into a bad egg...you know it.

So, first off, the ingredients. I like to use organic stuff; brown eggs, organic dairy, and turbinado sugar rather than white, or even brown sugar will be better than white. The rum can be any kind, you don't even taste it AT ALL, you can use brown or white, I tend to use white.  The whiskey should actually be of a higher quality, and if you can find one that's both smooth and spicy, that's a good one to use.

Let me just tell you that I do this whole thing by hand, and its a bitch. If you have an electric mixer or a blender (or both! how I envy you!) then this is gonna be way easier for you. Also if you have two pitchers, that's gonna make it far easier as well. I use one pitcher and a wide mouthed jar and several bowls and a colander to strain the stuff. (cheesecloth would be better...if only I could remember to get some in advance) I inevitably get nog everywhere using my method, but by the point that this happens I'm typically half tanked anyway. I season to taste, which involves a lotta tasting, and this is potent stuff, and I'm a lightweight.

Okay!

So, this stuff gets better with age, I typically begin the night before, but may start doing it a day in advance in order to let the spices sit overnight! I'll let you know how that goes...

So! Step 1!
Start by separating the eggs, whites into a tupperware and yolks into a pitcher. Add the sugar and the entire bottle of rum to the yolks and refrigerate that shits overnight!

Step 2.
The following morning you whip the eggs whites till frothy, ditto ALL the heavy whipping cream. That's a whole bunch of frothitude. I know.  ***This is the part where a mixer would come in very handy, but it can all be done by hand. It just takes a minute.

Step 3.
Pour the quart of half and half into the yolk-sugar-rum mess, and *fold in* the whipped up whites and whipping cream. You will wanna really work to blend this, and it may be a bit too thick for your particular taste, if so, go ahead and thin it out with some milk after adding the whiskey. I guesstimated how much whiskey I put in, as I was adding it to taste and getting drunker each time I tasted it. :) lols. Start with a cup, see what you think. You should be able to taste booze, but not only booze. I did add a little milk too, to sorta thin it out. It should be frothy, but not so thick you need a spoon to drink it.

Step 4.
You wanna go ahead and start shaking in some nutmeg while whipping this all together, and if you've got a blender you're probably good to go. You can just blend it. Once that sucker is mixed or blended up well, throw it in the fridge to chill. It should sit and chill with all the spices for a few hours. (like at least 3 or 4)

Step 5.
Once your shit is chilled, its probably gritty from all that nutmeg, and you will want to strain it before serving. 
In my case, since I'm doing all the blending by hand, I find that there are bits of yolk AND gritty nutmeg all up in my shit. Major ick. So I strain it twice, making a huge mess all over the place.

Then I usually add more whiskey to make up for what I've spilled.  :) At this point its a really good idea to ask a sober person to taste it and tell you if you need more whiskey BEFORE adding more.

Once its chilled and strained, serve topped with nutmeg, and a cinnamon stick if you got one!

That's it!

Glamazombies

Finally, it was thrill day, all that practice was going to pay off. The GF and I had thrilled the bloody hell out of her living room on successive saturdays for a month. We put so much time and energy into learning the thriller dance, that costuming was a bit of an afterthought.

My stud GF informed me a few nights prior that I was in charge of all things makeup-related. So I hit some youtube zombie tuts right quick, and went all over my hood on a search of decent stage makeup. I was hoping to find some Kryolan or Ben Nye. This didn't occur.

In the end I was forced to use my own stuff and make do with what I could find in my kit.  So, I dug up some foundation that I haven't worn in years. Something paler and heavier than my usual one. I used the same Origins foundation on both of us. I figured it'd be easy to make my lady look pale and dead that way, since my skin is way lighter than hers anyway.

I buffed on a crap ton of foundation, then did much more than my usual amount of powder, using a Stila semi-sheer powder. I ended up adding the highlight from the Stila countour kit to 'whiten' the highlighted areas; forehead, nose, chin, and also added a tiny bit of green into the highlighted areas, for that necrotic look.

Now since I was using regular makeup, not stage makeup, I ended up making some very odd uses of mac eyeshadows.  I used sketch and carbon for shading, and started with the kind of countouring one would usually do (just under lower lip, cheekbones, just under jaw, above the brows). In addition to the typical contouring, I also added harsh looking lines around my nose, eyes, and mouth.

A great way to 'deadify' is to deepen smile lines and around the nose and eyes; making you look 'drawn' and slightly grotesque. For my eyes I used blackground as a base, sketch as the lid color and carbon in the crease with blacktrack fluidline gel liner and urban decay skyscraper mascara. I used juxt for that extra bit of green as my highlight. 

The GF's makeup ended up far less subtle than mine, because she bitched and moaned and squinched up her face the whole time, and even complained that I'd somehow injured her eye while shadowing.  I assure you I did no such thing. She wasn't too keen on the fake blood at the end either, so while I went to town with smeared fake blood, with her I had to content myself with just a smidge. :( Ah well, it looked pretty good anyway, although she could have used more blending. 

 Happy Halloween!!! 

a quick tip from the frugal femme

If any of you have ever scuffed your favorite pair of black patent leather pumps, you probably already know this one. Scratches, scrapes, and scuffs can be easily covered by black nail polish. So keep a cheap brand from the drugstore handy in case of emergencies. :)                

femme necklace has arrived :)

bachelorette crafting

So, I've been making favors for a dear friend's bachelorette party. I got this awesome stencil on etsy and decorated plain bags with stencils of clara bow. That was fun, and now I totes want more stencils!

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/82634929/clara-flapper-stencil-reusable-plastic

 I also constructed a crap-ton of feather hair fascinators. They're super easy to make so I didn't take a ton of step by step pics. Basically all you need is some felt, fake flowers, feathers, alligator clips, and a glue gun. Start with a rectangle of black or white felt, glue the feathers you want, clip the stem of the flower and glue that on, add a clip to the back et viola! Flower hair fascinators!  I took some pics of some of my favorites, so keep scrolling for pics. You can also add glitter to the flower at the end, keep in mind its easy to go overboard :)happy fascinating, y'all.

 And here's one of the bride to be rocking the bride-y cocktail hat!!!

best bday present ever

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty pleased with this one. I've been researching vintage pocket watches for at least a month.  I managed to luck out and get a great deal on ebay, the seller said this one belonged to her grandfather. Hilariously enough, a butch friend immediately confided that her gf had gotten her a pocket watch as well. Either it truly is the perfect gift for a quirky, dapper type; or perhaps the gf and I read the same blogs? My sources are big on watches, and true to form, my GF does looooove a watch. In fact, the only thing better than a watch, is a pocket watch.  :) File this under: great gifts for studs.

cocktail hat part 2

So, we left off at attaching millinery wire, I sewed that on with an extra thick millinery thread, using a whipstitch around the edge.

 Then I added bias tape around the outside edge to hide the wire, I didn't do a layer of felt on the top because I worried it might 'muddy' the line of the hat; however, in future I think I will cover the top as well.

 I used a somewhat thick raw silk to cover the hat, I cut out the same shape, about half an inch bigger, pinned it from the backside and sewed around the edge. All the stitching ended up getting covered later by the trim anyway, and the stitches helped affix the bias tape securely.

 Once that part is sewn on, you trim off the excess, cut out the same shape and neatly sew that onto the bottom to hide the felt.

 Once the top and bottom are covered, you can add a trim around the edge, I used a glue gun to attach the trim, some silk flowers, feathers, birdcage veil and one pretty little button. This is the easy and fun part; deciding how you want the final hat to look. Once the decorating is done you glue an alligator clip or comb onto the bottom to hold it on et voila! One handmade cocktail hat. :)

 I put a lot of birdcage veil on this one, I wanted it to be understated but still fairly dramatic, as its meant for a friend's bachelorette party. This hat should shout "I'm getting married!" And, well..I think it does. :)