New Fave ~ Pink Lipstick

Well, not so new.  I purchased a bright pink lipstick before the New Year (2011) and keep forgetting to post about how much I love it!  It's a bright pink color...but not too bright.  I tried taking pictures of my lips slathered in my lipstick but it's just awkward.  So you'll just have to go to Sephora to buy it and test it yourself :).  It's their Lip Attitude - Glamour collection and the color I have is Poetic Pink (07).  I did, however, pull a picture from Sephora's website of what the lipstick container looks like!

Reasons why I love my pink lipstick:

1. It looks cool.
2. It looks good.
3. It's all the rage in magazines right now (I feel like I started the trend even though I know I didn't)
4. Snooki tweeted about loving her pink lipstick a month ago (major plus obviously)
5. It's pink.
6. It's color is not too bright and not too subtle...it kind of matches with everything.

Love,
Hannah

A "Royal" Engagement and UA Scrubs

Read up on UA's Blog Post Today!  And I'm serious when I say I'm counting down the days to the Royal Wedding...

Love,
Hannah

The Best Thing to Happen to Ketchup Since the Upside Down Bottle

After the advent of the upside-down ketchup bottle that solved the "there's still ketchup at the bottom of the bottle but it won't come out" mystery, I thought ketchup containers couldn't get any better.  I was wrong.  A couple weeks ago, I went to Chic-Fil-A with Ben for lunch and the had new and improved ketchup packets!!!!!

Let me just give you a small background on my love of ketchup.  Honestly, it's more than just a love, it's an infatuation.  No it's more.  It's an obsession.  I put ketchup on everything.  Seriously.  There are few exceptions to the addition of this glorified condiment: it doesn't go on chocolate and it doesn't go on sour patch kids (or pretty much any candy).  But besides candy, ketchup is a great addition to any dish!  I like to think I put food on my ketchup, not the other way around. 

So, when I saw these new (at least to me) little gems shown below, I grabbed a bunch and stuck them in my drawer at work.  And I got a few extra for Jayne and Amy to drool over when they came to visit last weekend.  Each packet holds like 3 of those ragged-edged, pull-to-much-and-your-hands-get-dirty, hardly-anything-in-them packets available at most fast food joints.  They are amazing.  Demonstration shown below:

Obsessed,

Hannah

Fiesta Friday ~ My Liver Can't Keep Up

Okay, my Fiesta Friday posts may be slowing down a bit in the future because my liver can't keep up with my blog.  With that said, email me any suggestions you have for Fiesta Friday posts!  Email lovelittlegems@gmail.com.

I can suggest one thing for this weekend though...buy a nice bottle of champagne and pour it into two cool looking champagne flukes like Jodi's mom got us!  Something about cool looking stemware makes everything taste better :).

Cheers,
Hannah

As Promised...Creativity in the DeGrandChamp Fam

As promised...here is the perfect example of how creativity runs in the DeGrandChamp family.  Jodi made a bridal box out of a pencil box and her mom crafted a gift around the card she got Ben and me!

Creative Correlations:

1. The card has striped stemware...she purchased striped champagne flutes for us from Pier 1
2. There is a beverage on the card...she got us a nice bottle of champagne
3. There is a heart on the front of the card...she got us a bottle stopper with a heart on it
4. Inside the card she wrote "Happily Ever After"...she tied a ribbon around the champagne that says "Happily Ever After"
5. What ended up being accidental, she gave us a gift card to Cheesecake Factory and the gift card holder happens to be striped too!

Thanks Mrs. D!

Hannah

One of the Most Creative People I know ~ Jodi

I kid you not.  Jodi is seriously one of the most creative people I know.  AND her mom is too!  After Jodi found out Ben and I were engaged, she gave me the cutest, home-made little gem ever.  She prefaced the gift by saying she was sorry she did it so fast, but I have no clue why she was sorry.  IT IS SO CUTE and although she says it took such a short time to make, it looks like she spent hours on it.  Take a look:

She took a pencil box and decorated it all beach and bride themed!  Originally, the box was a tiffany-blue-ish color, but she added glitter swirls, stickers, pop-out stickers, letters and jewels to make it into a bridal box masterpiece.  Give me five minutes to decorate a pencil box and it's definitely not going to look like this.

Stay tuned for another post about the gift Jodi's mom gave Ben and me.  Creativity runs in the family.

Love,
Hannah

4 AM Wedding Lessons

Two weeks ago, Jayne and Amy came to Fort Lauderdale to visit!  It was the first time we had all three been TOGETHER since graduation.  That's almost two years ago, so of course I was so so so excited for our reunion!  Jayne came in Friday morning and Amy came in Friday around midnight, and when we made it back to our condo at around 1 AM, the first thing we did was set up camp in the bedroom.  This is where I experienced Wedding 101.  Talk about a situational little gem...a pow-wow with lots of candy, sun chips, peanuts, wine, wedding magazines, late nights and my two best friends from Wake.  I learned a lot that night about how little I know about wedding planning (circular talk but I hope you're catching my drift).  We literally spent almost 4 hours looking at magazines, talking about what weddings should have, decorations, colors, food--the works.

Love,
Hannah

Supermoon Photos

The last time the moon was this close to Earth was 18 years ago!  We are lucky enough to have an amazing view of the ocean from our condo so we were able to see the progression of the "Supermoon" rising from the ocean.

Pardon the poor photography...only had a handheld camera and it was dark!

Love,

Hannah

Fiesta Friday ~ ChocoVine

Alright, I'm starting this one off with a long run-on/stream-of-conscious sentence that I hope you can follow.  (I just can't seem to figure out the right way to break it off into two or three separate sentences without getting my point across haha).  Here it goes:

If you love chocolate, if you love wine, if you love Yoo-Hoos (throwback) and if you love things that could potentially taste really weird but actually make a good flavor combination to some and are ready and willing to actually try the interesting combination, then I suggest purchasing a nice little bottle of ChocoVine!  Recently, I've seen these chocolate-milk looking wine bottles in grocery stores, but I never got up the nerve to try it.  Then, I made a post for Uniform Advantage that asked everyone in the company what their favorite chocolates are and someone mentioned chocolate wine...aka ChocoVine.  I saw this as a sign to purchase the beverage, not to mention it's $10 a bottle--not bad at all.  Last week, I got a bottle for Jayne, Amy and me to try. 

The outcome?  I was a big fan.  Jayne liked it. And Amy pretty much thought it was revolting.

The verdict?  Try it because you are 66.677777777777% likely to enjoy the taste according to my limited sampling pool.

I checked out the ChocoVine site and they actually have several cocktail recipes you can use the wine in.  They sound pretty interesting and I'm thinking about trying a few!  However, I do think it's pretty tastey plain.  It kind of reminds me of a spiked can of Yoo-Hoo chocolate flavored drink and maybe a dash of Baileys?  Maybe?  Either way, I like it!

Cheers,

Hannah

DIMS ~ Wall Paintings

Not sure if you recall, but a few weeks ago I posted about my take on DIY projects.  Instead of "Do It Yourself", I "Do It Make Shift"...like that mardi gras bead necklace with a bow.  Well, two Sundays ago (which I might add is the day Ben and I got engaged...surprise if you didn't know!  there may or may not be some future posts regarding planning...NBD) we had a little DIMS project of our own.  Since we moved into the condo together back in November, we have been meaning to make a painting for the wall in our kitchen or living room.  So, we bought two blank canvases and had them sitting around for about a month or so until we finally found some good time to paint.  Interestingly enough, it only took us 5 minutes to paint the canvases--something we thought would be a day's work turned into the most efficient work of art ever.  We decided to paint something because it's not only cheaper but also it's a little gem we can say we made ourselves...and brag about if someone comments on them.  OH, and because it's something fun to do.

Here's what we did:

1. Bought two blank canvases.

2. Found some old black paint I had.

3. Grabbed two golf ball from Ben's golf bag.

4. Doused the golf balls in black paint.

5. Dropped the balls onto the canvases and manually rolled them around.  (I'd like to add here that we originally wanted to get marbles to "marble paint" but Ben mentioned golf balls and we thought it would be an interesting twist.)

6. Allowed the canvases to dry.

7. Hung them up behind the couches at wierd angles for a "wow" and "gosh we are so interpretive" effect (to us at least).

 

Love,

Hannah

Concession Confessions: Healthier Hits for your Hips

This Month's SHAPE Magazine had an article on healthier options choose from at the Movie Theater snack bar.  Thought this could be useful since there are lots of good movies out right now (Black Swan...just sayin').  So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

• Small Popcorn: 225 calories for half a bag (Skip the butter, and you have a bag of whole grains...hello, fiber!)
• Edy's Strawberry Fruit Bar: 80 calories (Those frozen chunks of real strawberries count as fruit? Okay by me.)
• Vitaminwater Zero: zero calories (Although counterintuitive because you will be sitting for the next two hours instead of running around in a heated game of tennis, it's still the better option.)
• Icee Slush: 220 calories (Use a spoon so you don't drink too fast.)
• AMC Clip Gummi Stars: 175 calories for half a bag (Yeah, don't think I've ever heard of these, but they are made with real fruit juice.)
• Hot Dog: 210 calories (Probably the only source of protein at a concession stand.)
• Milk Duds: 170 calories for half a box (These duds are lower in sugar than other candies and take longer to eat because they are so freakin sticky.  I buy these at target all the time and stash them in a desk drawer at work because they taste so good.  Now it's good to know I happen to be choosing the "healthier" candy.)
• Junior Mints: 298 calories for half a box (Antioxidant-rich dark chocolate on the really really thin outer shell...)
• Twizzler Strawberry Twists: 263 calories for half a bag (Nibble on a few strands at a time for optimal portion control and slow chewing time I guess?)

Love,
Hannah

Glamour Free Bag

If you subscribe to any magazines, you know that the magazine you subscribe to is probably owned by some corporate giant magazine company that owns several other magazines.  For example, Conde Naste is a HUGE company that owns the likes of Allure, Lucky, Glamour, Vogue, Teen Vogue, and more.  Last year, Isaac was selling magazine subscription through Pine Crest, so like the totally awesome and supportive big sister that I am when I want to be, I ordered a subscription to both Allure and Lucky from him.  A few months after I started getting my subscription in, I received a little notice in the mail which gave me a special offer for Glamour magazine: $12 subscription and a free bag (they found my address through my subscription to Allure and Lucky...since then I've also received a notice to subscribe to Glamour again and Vogue...I was able to control myself).  COUNT ME IN!  I love magazines--not for their content but because I like looking at the pictures.  And now I love magazines when they give me free things.  Take the purse in the picture below--free from Glamour!  It's definitely not made of quality materialn nor is it big enough to hold everything I prefer to carry around with me, but it's cute and it works. 

By the way, I am currently subscribing to Allure, Lucky, Glamour, Southern Living and SHAPE. What offers will they send me next!?

Keeping the paper industry in business,

Hannah

Fiesta Friday ~ Jim Beam (a.k.a. Jim Bean) and Ginger Ale

I hope Kate and I are not the only ones who thought Jim Beam was actually called Jim Bean.  I mean it's much easier to say and sounds so much better.  If you already knew the it was Beam, this is nothing new for you, but I have a feeling I just gave someone reading this an epiphany.  Truth is, it's Beam not Bean, but I still call it Bean (and so does Kate).

Drink of the week? Jim Beam and Ginger Ale!  Up to you how much of each you'd like to add.  For the sake of giving it a catchy name, we'll call it Jim and Ging.  That way, if you think it's Bean and not Beam or the other way around, there will be no confusion whatsoever. Nor will there be an argument as to what name it should really be.  I vote Bean.

Cheers!
Hannah

LLG Contest Winner!

I had Ben randomly select a number from 1 through 13, and he chose #9....IVANA!  Hahah, I hope you can use the $20 coupon code for your dorm room or something, Ivana!  I'll send you a Facebook message with the code :).

In the end, the contest brought in three new "LIKES" on my Facebook page--better than none!  Please spread the word about LLG Blog!  Follow me on Facebook, Bloglovin', Blogger or Twitter :).

Love,
Hannah

Watching Hannah Zier Unfold...Lesson 1: Photography

Hey all!  I thought it would be kind of fun to continue sharing with you how Hannah Zier is unfolding.  First, I got your help with my Logo, then I shared a little bit of MAGIC from Vegas, and now I learned photography and garment styling!

Last week, Kristen taught me how to use the photography studio at work and how to best style a garment!  With her and Lori's help, I was able to photograph the first two tops that came in.  I can officially call myself a semi-photographer and semi-stylist.  I know how to use a real camera, manage photography lighting equipment, use Apeture and style garments! Here's a pic Lori snapped of us mid-lesson...a little sneak peak at one of our tops too!

Saturday afternoon Ben and I went to the Photography studio so I could take more photos and teach Ben how to use the equipment!  Yay for things coming along slowly but surely!

Baby steppin'

Hannah

Even more reasons to love Fat Tuesday...

First off, today is actually Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras). 

Second, I emailed the Fat Tuesday corporate offices to let them know about my first blog post/review on their bar/restaurant and 190 Octane daiquiri.  And guess what...they actually responded!  I feel like often times big companies never take the time of day to recognize or show appreciation to their customers and fans.  But Fat Tuesday really surprised me.  I received an email from them thanking me for the blog post and asking me for my address so they could send me a couple free drink coupons!  We have a nice guy named Joe to thank for these little gems :).

Third, I recently tried their Mango daiquiri and it is deliiiiiiiiiissssshhhh.  Not too strong and not too sweet.  I'm not the biggest fan of the mango fruit, but offer me a Mango daiquiri from Fat Tuesday and I'm all about mangos.

Love,

Hannah

Love Little Gems CONTEST!!!!

Good morning!

A few weeks ago I put up a post about a company called CSN Stores...a place where you can get ANYTHING and EVERYTHING it seems like for your home or apartment.  Well, they contacted me and gave me a $20 Promotional Code to give out to one of my readers as a thank you for the post! So......I am going to make this into a little contest through my Facebook Fan Page.

Here are the steps to take to be elligible for the $20 Promo Code:

1. Become a fan of my LLG Facebook Page!

That's all! haha...easy enough!  You can find my Facebook page by typing Love Little Gems Blog in your Facebook search nav.  OR, just click on the Facebook box on my blog (just shift your eyes a little to the left).

On Thursday I will randomly choose (I promise!) one of my LLG Facebook Fans to receive the promo code.  I hope you guys want to become fans of LLG on FB, if not for this little giveaway haha.  I think it's a pretty neat prize!  Here's a link to their site: http://www.csnstores.com/.

Let the games begin,
Hannah

Aren't you glad your last name's not...

Fuchs?  Ben and I went to the Broward Mall for lunch last Wednesday, and on our way out Ben noticed an advertisement for an injury lawyer.  So if you or a friend have been injured, just call David Fuchs. He knows what to do.  Some last names are just worth a good laugh :).



Love,

Hannah

fiesta friday ~ Man-O-War Martini

Okay, so I made this one up last weekend, but trust me, you'll like it!  It's more of a beach-y drink, but I live near the beach so it works.  We called it the Man-O-War Martini because it actually looks like the Man-O-War that wash up on the sand.  I took a photo of my in-for-a-good-time masterpiece below along with a recipe for you to try it.  Let me know what you think!  I'm thinking I can make it BIG with this one.  Next thing you know, you'll be ordering it at Happy Hours across the country.  No hurt in thinking big time right?

What you need:

• 1 part Passion Fruit Vodka
• 1 part Blue Curacao
• 2 parts Lemonade

Then:

Add ingredients plus ice into shaker, shake and pour :).

Cheers!

Hannah

Banana Pound Cake

Here's another one of Ben's mom's recipes that I love to use!  I make this Banana Bread (sounds healthier than saying pound cake haha) fairly often and this year alone I have already made it three times!  Just to give you an idea of how good it is (the pictures below won't do it justice), I made it for my family for the first time about a year ago, and within a day the entire bundt cake was gone.  Since then, they've requested the banana cake over and over again.  I make a banana bread (my gamma's recipe--although it's been a while since I made that one) and banana crumb muffins (allrecipes.com recipe I tweaked) too, but for now I'm just going to post about the Banana Pound Cake since it's our most recent bake. 

This last time we made it, we decided to do muffins instead for our friends, Jessica and Steve (who are getting married 11.11.11 actually!).  Because I didn't want to take the chance of making it in a bundt pan, having it stick to the sides and presenting them with a mangled cake, muffins seemed like a much safer option. 

Here's the recipe...it's easy and the batter is just as delicious as the final cake!

Ingredients:

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 (3 ¾ oz or so) pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup water
• 1 1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 or 4 bananas)...(we used frozen bananas, allowed them to thaw, then mashed away)
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix until blended.  The recipe suggests beating at medium speed for 4 minutes, but we skipped that step.  Ben's arm was fast enough haha.  Below I've showed you what we did...

Dry ingredients



Adding eggs and vanilla

Stir part 1

Add mushy bananas...looks errr, nice

Mix part 2

Once all the ingredients are mixed well, pour the batter into a well greased and floured (or powdered sugar) bundt pan.  Here, we used muffin cups instead and poured batter about 3/4 full in each cup.




 

If using a bundt pan, bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.  Once done, allow cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn it onto a rack to cool completely.  We just eye-balled the muffins and took them out when the a knife came out clean from the center of a muffin.

Gone bananas,

Hannah

Smokey Bones ~ BBQ, Birthdays and Boneisms

Two weeks ago I went to dinner with my family at Smokey Bones to celebrate Joshua's 16th birthday (unbelievable how fast he's growing up!  I feel like his voice just changed and now he's almost driving alone).  I love this restaurant not only because of their ridiculously good barbeque, but also because the one in Davie has Trivia Nights (no matter how bad you are they're still fun--Ben let's go again).  Oh and another thing is that they have a great atmosphere that's perfect for big families like mine! 

About their food: If you're looking for some good barbeque at a good price, then Smokey Bones is a gold mine.  I'm not usually a pig person (I do the turkey bacon thing and I'm really into veggies) but Smokey Bones is my exception.  Their ribs are amazing, and the meat just falls right off the bone.  And everytime I'm there I have to have their smoked turkey and/or pulled pork plus their corn bread appetizer.  They have these great platter combos where you can pick two meats and two sides, which together make the perfect sized meal plus leftover potential, so this last time I got two of my faves: smoked turkey and hand-pulled pork.  Their sides are also delicious: fries, sweet potato fries (so hard to find), coleslaw, baked beans, salad, steamed broccoli--all good.

One thing I noticed this last time we went, was their "Boneisms" which were posted throughout the restaurant.  You'll have to go for yourself to read them all, but I decided to take note of the ones they have in the women's restroom.  I was laughing so hard when I was reading them, here they are:

Bathroom "Boneisms"

1. Restrooms are a great place to freshen up hair and makeup.  They're also a great place to go to the bathroom.
2. Mirrors are awesome because they point out when you have food stuck in your front teeth.  Although they'd be more awesome if they had pointed it out about an hour earlier.
3. Hovering takes a lot of skill and coordination.  Not to mention an exaggerated fear of germs. (on the inside of the stall door when I closed it)
4. There's nothing wrong with asking the person next to you for toilet paper.  Unless you stuck your head under the stall to do so (the other stall door).
5. When you're in the stall, hang up the call
6. Courtesy Flush.  It's the right thing to do.

After taking pictures of the Boneisms in the bathroom so I could remember the great lines, I took a bunch of pictures of the food we had at the table.  Only three pictures turned out good enough to post!  The lack of photos is by no means an indication of their lack of food quality--food was delicious but my camera skills and the lighting in the restaurant didn't work well for my blogging purposes.

They have some of the best cornbread I've ever had, and what makes their's even better is the honey-butter spread.

Delicious full-rack of ribs Josh and I were working on, and the leftovers two days later were still just as good.  So good Ben and I ate them cold.

Mini Mixer: It comes with 9 sliders in total.  Three with shredded pork, three with shredded beef and three with bone-less buffalo wing tasting things.

The next morning, my mom and three brothers were flying out to visit Sarah and Ivana, which meant--lots of leftovers for me and Ben!  We filled to the brim three boxes of leftovers, which fed us for a day and a half.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, and thanks Josh for your birthday dinner.

Love,

The Scavenger

Oscars - Faves and Flops

In my opinion, this past Sunday the Oscars didn't have any HUGE suprises when it cames to winners, WOWs when it came to outfits, or HAHAs when it came to humor from the hosts.  Well, I take that back a little.  There was one thing that shocked me: Anne Hathaway's incredible voice.  I'm not kidding you, I really think she sung live and it sounded amazing.  She's come a long way since The Princess Diaries--great movie and you know it.  Now back to the purpose of this post: The Red Carpet.  Some pretty, some weird, and I think I all the older stars can take some great fashion tips from the youngest star on The Red Carpet...Hailee Stenifeld.  Here are a handful of outfits I thought were worth noting:

 Amy Adams in L'Wren Scott...Pretty out of this world--pun intended.  Intergalactic vibe if you ask me.

Anne Hathaway in vintage Valentino.  I love vintage pieces that don't look over worn and musty, and this dress is far from that.  Bright red, roses, and a pretty train.

afl;skjdf*&Sdgjasd##?@

Gwyneth Paltrow in Calvin Klein.  This dress is actually silver.  I thought it was gold!  Anyway, it's not a bad dress but I posted it because of the gold/silver aspect.

Hailee Steinfeld in Marchesa.  Yay!!!!  I think she looks pretty, age appropriate and sweet all in one.  Plus she is wearing heels, and when I was 14 I'm pretty sure I couldn't walk around in heels--let alone fit my wide feet into them.  Props to her.

Halle Berry also in Marchesa.  I'm starting to think I'm a fan of this Marchesa.  While I don't like it as much as Hailee's outfit, Halle looks amazing.  A little gift-wrappish at the bottom, but gorgeous nonetheless.  Oh, and it's funny that both wore Marchesa and both their names start with H and sound very similar.  My name starts with an H. I want one... 

Hillary Swank in Gucci Premiere...eehhhhh, if seaweed were always silver, I wouldn't hate it as much when I was in the ocean.

Jennifer Lawrence in Calvin Klein.  Very simple and classic, red dress.  And according to Camille Grammar (from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills...once married to Kelsey Grammer who went to Pine Crest.  NBD), Jennifer's stylist said nipples are in.  Interesting trend.

Mila Kunis in Elie Saab.  I've been liking her outfit choices a lot lately.  The color is beautiful against her skin tone, and the dress does a great job combining lace, tulle-looking fabric, and some sheerness.  My favorite part of the dress is hard to see here, but it looks like she is wearing a lace bra.

Natalie Portman in Rodarte.  Still making preggo look good.

Award season is pretty much over, so until next year!

Love,
Hannah