Jewel Pants

These jewel fashions are easy to have for your own. WhoWhatWear tells you how. The Inspiration After spotting Oscar de la Renta's Bijoux Faille Low Waist Skinny Pants ($1390) on the runway earlier this year, we couldn't get them out of our head. These were just the kind of trousers we needed to elevate our cold-weather wardrobe, as they're at once both elegant and playful. While we could style them with a chic cashmere sweater and ballet flats for more casual occasions, we can just as easily take them to night by adding a silky button-up and sleek stilettos. And the best part? No jewelry required—they enrich an ensemble on their own. Accordingly, you can imagine our excitement when D.I.Y. expert Erica Domesek of P.S. I Made This said she could help us craft our very own inspired-by pair. The process was simple, requiring only a handful of ingredients and five easy-to-follow steps. An excellent option for holiday party season, this is one project you don't want to skip. Read on for all the important details.—Jessica Baker Ingredients -Flat-front pocketless pants ($13) -Oscar de la Renta Jewel Earrings (Note: if you're on a budget, Forever 21's Rhinestone Teardrop Earrings ($6) will do the trick too.) -Avery Dark T-Shirt Transfers ($20) -Iron Directions 1. Place the jewelry you want to feature on a flat surface and take photos of each piece with a digital camera or your phone. 2. Print the images onto a dark fabric transfer sheet. (Note: you may have to repeat the photo depending on how many pieces you use.) 3. Cut out the jewel transfers and place them on the pants to create a pattern. 4. Peel the backside of the jewel transfers and iron onto the pants as directed by the Avery Dark Fabric Transfers packet. Optional Step 5. The Oscar de la Renta pants feature the print on the backside too, so if you're feeling really adventurous and would like to do the same to your pair, repeat Steps 3-4 on the back. To avoid any awkward positioning, limit the jewel transfers to just the calves.

Ways to Make a Manicure Last

Step One Prep the surface. Swipe clean nails with a cotton bassl soaked in nail polish remover. Pure acetone removes the most residue but if to drying try nonacetone remover without hydrators like lanoline. Step Two Chose the Right Base. A base coat is sticky and soft so it can expand and contract with your nails and grab color. Step Three Pick a Pearly Polish. Shimmery polishes have the longest staying power. Pearlescent powers with fine mica particles are likelier to withstand wear . Apply two thin layers rather than one heavy layer to prevent chips and dings. Step Four Top it off. Quick dry topcoats are not as durable as slow drying ones. Step Five Oil your nails to keep them from peeling and chipping. A few drops on your nails before bed prolongs your manicure.

Thrifty Thursday

Win an American Express Gift Card from LTD

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Fun Friday

Here's a bit of humor for Banned Book Week Mark Twain said in reference to the challenges of Huckleberry Finn “Apparently, the Concord library has condemned Huck as ‘trash and only suitable for the slums.’ This will sell us another twenty-five thousand copies for sure!” Read some other savvy responses by authors to challenges of their books. http://www.flavorwire.com/333790/famous-authors-funniest-responses-to-their-books-being-banned?all=1

Fun Mouse Tricks

You use your mouse for just about everything: you drag, you drop, you highlight, you scroll. But even if you click your mouse a thousand times a day, I bet I've got a few secret mouse tricks you've never heard of. Click Tricks You surely know that double clicking highlights a word, and you might even know that triple clicking highlights a paragraph. But have you ever wanted to select a column of text in a Word document, without getting all the text to the left and right of it? Here's how you can: Hold down the alt and left mouse button (on a Mac, option-left mouse), and drag the cursor over the section you want to select. The coolest thing about this trick is that the text you are selecting does not even need to be formatted as a column for this to work. [Related: 8 Microsoft Word Shortcuts You Probably Don't Know] Scroll Tricks Most mice have a scroll wheel. Sure, it takes you up and down on a page, but in combination with other keys, it can do much more: Scroll sideways: In many versions of Excel, holding down the shift key while scrolling will take you sideways. That's super helpful in a big spreadsheet. Scroll wheel as back button: In most web browsers, if you hold the shift key while using the scroll wheel, it works like the back button: You can fly through all the sites you've recently visited. (Some mice have side buttons that work like back and forward buttons in your browser, too.) Scroll to zoom: Holding ctrl and scrolling lets you zoom in or out of the page you're viewing. Ctrl-scroll up zooms you in; ctrl-scroll down zooms you back out. On a Mac, this trick will zoom in and out your whole screen, not just the document you're in. Windows-Specific Tricks While most of the tricks I've listed so far work in either Windows or Mac OS, here are a few that are specific to Windows machines: To maximize a window: drag the title bar to the top. To minimize all windows except the active window: "Shake" the title bar. Then if you want to restore all the windows you just minimized with this shortcut, just click again on the title bar of the window in view. To view two windows in a 50-50 split: Drag the title bar of one document to the left edge of your screen, then drag a second document to the right edge; they will snap into position in a nifty side-by-side view. Bonus Sneaky Trick Suppose you want to walk away from your hyper-secure work computer for a few minutes and not have to re-log in when you get back. Sure, you could change the sleep settings, but this idea is much more clever: Set your mouse on top of your analog watch or a clock. The mouse tracks the second hand's movement and it tricks your computer into thinking you're still busy working. Of course, there are valid security reasons for NOT using this trick, but I still think it's cool that it works. Did we miss your favorite mouse trick? Like us on Facebook, and share your secret there. (yahoo.com)