Rarity Nails

Hello again everypony!

It's another fabulous Rarity post! (for those of you wondering why I haven't gotten to Applejack or Fluttershy yet, don't worry, they are coming)

This manicure is quite easy, actually. Based on the classic French manicure, because you know anypony as fashionable as Rarity deserves nothing less.

Two colors are needed. White (I used one from Claire's, but I do recommend getting something better--I did this earlier today and already my nails are chipping!)
and a deep purple (NYC #205-Midnight Amethyst)

First, paint your nails with the white. You'll likely need two coats.

Then, paint the tip with the purple. To get that beautiful little half-moon shape, use small strokes instead of trying to do one line. It also helps to have your hand flat on a table.

And voila! You have Rarity nails.

Rainbow Dash Nails

What's up everypony?

So you made yourself 20% cooler with the Rainbow Dash Shirt and now you can...you know what, this whole 20% cooler thing has been done a lot. Let's just get onto the nail art.

You'll need a lot of colors for this.
Sky blue for the base.
Red, orange, yellow, green, purple nail art polishes (use fine-tipped brushes if you can't find specific nail art polishes) (why no blue? you'll see why)
All of mine were from a dollar store, so they're not really brand name stuff.
Actually the yellow looked kind of gross in the bottle, but worked out fine.

Anyways!

Paint the nails with the sky blue. If you do like I did and buy the cheap dollar store polish, you'll need two coats and it'll take about an hour to dry.
Or find some quick-drying polish. I timed one of those one time and it actually did take ten seconds flat. Couldn't find it for this color unfortunately.

Use the nail art pens to draw a zigzag line on each nail, each nail with a different color.

Like so. Except not blurry.
I don't have the manual for my camera, I can't change the settings, okay?

And tada, Rainbow Dash nails. Make sure to cover with a clear topcoat if you don't want them to chip.
Also, see why no blue? you only have 5 fingers and if you want your hands to be mirror images of each other...I mean, you could do all 6 colors if you wanted, continue on your other hand, but I didn't really want to do that.

Rarity Cupcakes

It's about time Rarity gets the spotlight, don't you think?

This is the beautiful white velvet cupcake with purple frosting. And of course, you will be making this from scratch. It might be hard work, and if you do it exactly as I did, it will be a huge mess, but it will be worth it.

You will need:
2 c flour
2 tsp baking power
1 tsp salt, plus a pinch for egg whites
½ c (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 ¼ c sugar
2/3 c milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs (whites only
1 c mini-marshmallows
1 can vanilla frosting
blue & red food coloring
dash cocoa powder

 Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they are fluffy and form stiff peaks.

In yet another bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar.

Combine the butter and sugar with the flour mixture and the milk. This will be sticky and quite tough, so you may want to use the beater again.

Fold the egg whites into your dough.

 Add the mini marshmallows and fold in.

Fill your cupcake pans 2/3 full. It won't make a full 24 cupcakes. I was lucky in how many it made--I had exactly 14 papers left!

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Careful, though--you can see the marshmallows dripping out in there! As I said before, this will cause a bit of a mess.

Take them out and let them cool.

Take the vanilla frosting and mix it with the food coloring. It's very difficult to get the deep rich color of Rarity's mane, but do the best you can. Add a dash of cocoa powder for a subtly chocolate flavor.

This is a tricky step I should not have attempted, but I'll tell you how. Spoon the frosting into a ziplock bag, seal it, and cut off a corner. Then you have a makeshift icing bag, and can frost your cupcakes in the delicate way shown on that first cupcake at the top of the post.

Unfortunately for me, the bag popped after frosting that one. There was frosting everywhere. It was really quite disgusting.
I sounded like this:

I salvaged what I could of the frosting and finished the other cupcakes by spreading the frosting with a knife. I don't think I'll be trying an icing bag again.

They don't look so bad, now, do they? If you'd like to have a little extra sparkle, as I chose to do, use silver glitter sprinkles or white coarse sugar. It's just that perfect little touch to make these cupcakes as exquisite as Rarity herself.


The white velvet cupcake recipe is from How To Eat A Cupcake. It's a good blog for anyone interested in baking.

Pinkie Pie Nails

Hello again everypony!

Two Pinkie Pie inspired in a row! She's so lucky.

My camera is supposedly HD so I'm sorry this shot is blurry.
What you'll need!
Hot or light pink polish and dark pink with a nail art brush. both of mine are from Claire's.

Step 1!

Paint your nails with the hot pink. Let it dry.

Step 2!

Use the nail art brush to paint two lines of the dark pink on there. It's okay if they're a little wavy.

And that's it! Isn't it easy?

Pinkie Pie Cupcakes

Hi everypony!

So we're going to make some delicious Pinkie Pie inspired cupcakes!

Don't they look great?

Okay, here's what you'll need:

Funfetti cake mix (or generic brand 'confetti', but funfetti is so much more fun to say! it's got 'fun' in the name!)
Vegetable oil
Eggs
Pink vanilla funfetti frosting
Sprinkles! Lots of sprinkles!
Cupcake pan
Cupcake papers
Mixing bowl
Spoon
Measuring cups
and you'll also need some red food coloring.
aaaaand ignore those strawberries there, we'll get to those.

Preheat your oven to 350. (Mine wouldn't get there for some reason!)

Make the cupcake batter according to the box.

Make it pink! Add some red food coloring, 4-5 drops.

Pour the batter into the cupcake tray. It might not make as many as it says, but that's okay! They'll still be tasty and sweet!

Bake them for about 20 minutes. They don't look really pink right here, but they are on the inside!

Now, the funfetti frosting directions say to sprinkle the confetti on top, but there's no fun in that! Stir in the sprinkles!

Frost the cupcakes!

And add sprinkles! Pink sprinkles! Aren't they delicious?

Now what about the strawberries from earlier? I decided to make two recipes, since I just couldn't make up my mind on those! So read on to make PINKIE PIE STRAWBERRY SURPRISE CUPCAKES!

Chop up about a pint of strawberries. But set the very best looking ones aside for a garnish for later.

Stir the strawberries into the prepared cupcake batter. (Use the same funfetti batter! I set aside half just for this.)

Fill up the cupcake tray, and bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut your garnish strawberries in half.

Don't forget to let the cupcakes cool before frosting!

Use the same pink vanilla frosting, but no extra sprinkles this time.

Put your garnish strawberries on top, and they're done! Eat them or share them with all your friends!

Twilight Sparkle Nails

I've had long nails for all my life, but I've never really painted them. I read a lot about how to paint them and watched instructional videos, but I never bothered to make complicated designs.

So since all my knowledge comes from reading, why not start with Twilight Sparkle?

(Sorry for the bad lighting--I'm still learning how to use a camera!) You'll need the following colors:
Light purple (I used Milani 06 Violet Dash)
Dark purple (NYC 250 Midnight Amethyst)
Pink (NYC 238 MoMa)
Clear top coat (Sally Hansen)


This is what it should look like:

Except a little neater. I'm still learning. (and you know what I said up there about long nails? I just cut them. feels weird, actually.)

Really, all this takes is a steady hand and patience. Do one color at a time and try to make the lines as straight as possible. I did try using scotch tape to tape off sections, but it pulled off the color as well.

Cover everything with the topcoat because the seams between colors will be uneven, and that would lead to chopping. Nopony wants that.

It did take me around an hour and a half to do these nails, but I'm proud of them.

Rainbow Dash Shirt

What's up everypony?

So, you want to be 20% cooler? You need this.

Yeah. That's a Rainbow Dash shirt. You want one.

So here's what you need:

One sky blue T-shirt, large on you
One white T-shirt, fitted
6 colors fabric paint, red orange yellow green blue purple (a rainbow)
Brushes
You'll also need measuring tape, cardboard, needle & thread (blue or white preferably), scissors, and a pencil.
...okay, so I didn't think of all that when I took the picture. so what?

Cut the sleeves off the white shirt. You'll be layering these, so you don't want too much bulk. You want to be streamlined.

Lay out the white shirt and get a piece of cardboard that fits inside. With a pencil, mark 7 horizontal lines on the shirt that go over the cardboard.

Start painting the lines of the rainbow.

The paint will take a while to dry, so to save time, do alternating lines. Paint the red, blue, and yellow, and let it dry. Go read some pony fanfics while you're waiting. Tell your brony friends about the awesome shirt you're making.

Then, when it's dry, come back and paint the other colors. Looks pretty cool now, doesn't it?

When all the colors are dry, measure the dimensions of the rectangle your rainbow's in. Also measure the distance from the neckline.

Measure that same rectangle on your blue shirt. Keep it the same distance from the neckline so they'll overlap. You can turn the shirt inside out if you want to hide the pencil marks later (but they'll wash out, too.)

Cut slits about 1/2 inch apart horizontally the length of the rectangle you've measured. If you had turned the shirt inside out, turn it right side out now.

Start looping the strips into each other. Strip 2 goes through strip 1, and strip 3 goes through strip 2, continue.

Here's maybe a better view if you need it.

And this is what it will start looking like when you get to the top.

Sew the top loop to the underside of the shirt.

Wear the white shirt under the blue. They may need a little readjusting to make the rectangles line up.

You are now wearing a Rainbow Dash shirt. Enjoy.


If the explanation for the loops was not clear enough, or you want to get your own ideas for pony-inspired shirts, check out Generation T. The looping was from project 101 in Generation T: Beyond Fashion. Both the books are fantastic and worth buying if you're interesting in redesigning your own T-shirts.