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Not Exactly Plain Jane is now on twitter! Be sure to follow for links to new posts as well as special deals from some of my favorite places to shop and more! "Sharing is caring" and if I find a good bargain or something I am really enjoying, I will definitely share it:)
@NEPlainJane

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Picture This

There are always those times when all you want to do is sit in bed or on a couch and scroll through pages and pages of pretty, inspirational, or just plain cute pictures. I've found three tumblr pages that are my go to's for those times.

The first is called "Obervando". Some of the pictures have nice quotes while others just look cool. It's run by a guy called Axel from Argentina. He posts pictures that he has found online as well as his own texts. 

"Obervando"

The second one is "Salt Water Whispers". All the pictures posted are so beautiful and also good quality! There are also really lovely quotes around the pictures from time to time. I'm not sure what else to say about it other than the pictures are gorgeous!

"Salt Water Whispers"

The final page is called "The Pink Diary". All the pictures she posts are taken with an iPhone 5 so it just goes to show you that an expensive camera is not necessary for nice pictures. The pictures are kind of "ootd's" or "what's in my bag" but different than how you would expect. I love looking at these!

"The Pink Diary"

The Best Cookies

Hello everyone! For this post I'm going to share one of my favorite cookies recipes. I first saw these cookies in a video by Tanya Burr. I thought they looked delicious so I searched the web to find the actual recipe. It turns out they are based off of Ben's Cookies. There were a few different versions of the recipe so I'm going to give you the one that seemed to work the best for me. The measurements may seem a bit random but that's because I converted them from grams to teaspoons (tsp) and tablespoons (T). Hope you give these a go and enjoy them as much as I do!

Ingredients: (Makes about 16 cookies)

-14T butter

-1 1/3 cup baker's sugar

-1 egg

-1 1/4 cup self-rising flour

-5T 1 1/2 tsp cocoa

-1 splash of milk

-3 chocolate bars

First place softened butter into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and mix the two until it is creamy. 

Then add one egg and mix well. Next, gradually add the flour and mix after each addition. Add the cocoa, also mixing well after each addition. Pour a splash of milk into the dough and mix. 

Now for the chocolate bars! Break them into bite size pieces and fold them into the dough. I wouldn't recommend mixing them in because then it breaks up the chocolate and you won't have the gooey chunks to bite into after they have been baked:) 

After folding in the chocolate, you can use a scoop, a spoon, or your hand to make balls of dough a little larger than a golf ball (obviously you can make them bigger depending on how large you would like them) and place them on foil covered tins. The cookies tend to spread so make sure to leave space between them!

Place them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. I find that they are done at around 11 minutes. 

When you take them out, they will appear not done but let them sit for 2 minutes before removing them from the trays and they will be done. Now all that's left is to enjoy these delicious cookies! 

100+ views and counting!!!

Not Exactly Plain Jane has reached over 100 views and the number is continuing to increase!! Now I know that some people are probably reading this and thinking, "Psh my first blog post got over 100 views by itself!", while I know this is true for some, to me this is an accomplishment! I just wanted to say a quick little thank you to anyone who has looked at one of my posts or all of them, even if you just looked at the pictures:) I am enjoying this blog and have many more posts planned. I hope that you continue to follow Not Exactly Plain Jane! Thank you again! Xx

July Favorites (Random things)

August has just begun so I don't think it's too late to post this. These are just some random things that I have been really liking during the month of July. A few are more fashion related so I will begin with those.

Phone cases. 

I love phone cases and there are so many cute ones out there. When I first got my phone case I looked all over the Internet trying to find the perfect one. (My phone was without a case for quite a while and I was definitely paranoid during that time that something would happen to it) I looked on etsy link which has tons of options for all styles and price ranges. I had found a few but decided to see what the shops had before I ordered something and I am so glad that I did. I ended up getting a case from the Apple store, which surprised me because when I looked on the Apple website they did not have many that I liked. (Is anyone else not a fan of their site for tech accessories I feel like they should have the most options yet they don't?) Anyway, the case that I got is by Cath Kidston and I LOVE it! It is exactly what I had been looking for. I've had it for about six months and it's stayed in great shape. The color was off white so it stays clean looking and it feels almost soft. All in all I just really like how it looks and I think it protects the phone well. 

More recently I bought another phone case just to have as a back-up or if I want to switch things up. It is by IZAK and I think it's super cute and fun! I first discover IZAK when he did a range of products with Sephora. I bought the makeup bag and I adore it and still use it. His illustrations are amazing. If you haven't ever heard of him definitely check him out! Back to the case though, this one is white and pretty much everything on it I love. There's bows and shoes and makeup brushes and fashionable looking girls holding balloons and shopping bags there's little gems and well you get the idea. 

Sunglasses.

I got these sunglasses a couple months back and they are great! They are by Oscar De La Renta and are a brown tint with brown auburnish frames. The reason I like these glasses so much is the shape and the weight. I have had sunglasses in the past that have a really nice shape but feel quite heavy on my nose and ears and end up giving me a headache. These sunglasses are so so light! They literally weigh almost nothing and sometimes I forget I'm even wearing them (yes I promise that has really happened). I also like the shape because they are a bit bigger which I prefer for my face shape. 

House Hunters International.

I am obsessed with this show right now. Everyday I set it to record and then I watch it at night. It follows people who are moving internationally, a real estate agent shows them three houses trying to cater to their need or wants and then the people must choose. (I probably made it sound way more boring than the show is because it's not boring at all but I'm not sure how else to describe it:) I'm always interested to see what house around the world look like and how it is similar or different to where I am. If you love traveling or homes you will enjoy this show! 

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Songza. 

Songza is a music playing app and it is FREE. When you first open the screen it will give you options of what type of music to play based on the time of day or you can search artist or other playlist. I really like this app because of the selections and suggestions of playlists. The pictures and screen are a.so very HD. There are few adds which recently I have been having issues with on pandora (they play almost every time I change stations!) so now I stick to Songza! 

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I hope you liked seeing some random things that I enjoyed in July. Do you like any of these also? Are there any random things that you liked in July? Let me know in the comments! Now let's see what August has in store!

Not Exactly Plain Jane is now Multilingual!

Just a quick note, I was looking at the page views recently and saw that there are a number of views from countries that may not speak English so I've added the translate option to the side bar on the right. You simply click it and a menu will appear with different languages that the blog can be translated into. Hopefully this will allow anyone to enjoy this blog! Hope everyone is having a lovely day!

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