Current Favourite Things: Face Makeup Part One

 

I am very picky about what goes on my face due to the fact that I have very sensitive, acne prone skin. I have stuck to the same products for years, and don't plan to switch anytime soon. Here are my face makeup basics!

Primer: Smashbox Photo Finish Color Correcting Primer in Green to prevent redness.

Why: I have very red skin, and find that this primer really does help to correct that. I also truly believe that using primer does make a difference in makeup wear. My foundation stays on longer and my face feels fresh for much longer.

Brushes: Bare Escentuals Maximum Coverage Concealer Brush, Full Flawless Face Brush, and Flawless Application Face Brush.

Why: I won't lie, I havn't tried very many other brushes, mostly because I use Bare Minerals products and these brushes were designed for those products. All I know is that these brushes last a long time, are very soft, and very easy to clean. There isn't much to dislike.

Foundation: Bare Minerals SPF 15 Foundation in "Fair" and "Fairly Light".

Why: I could write an entire book about why I love Bare Minerals. I saw it on an infomercial when I was 15 years old, and decided to buy it. I promise you, it's not a sham-wow type of deal. This stuff is like magic. It's all natural, and therefor cannot give you acne, adds no oil to your skin (which is a big deal for me), and never melts. The list goes on. It may be a little pricey, but saving myself from breakouts means that it's totally worth it for me. I purchase mine from Sephora.

*When I first purchased bare minerals, I got everything in my kit all together in this get started kit (a fantastic deal!).

Backup Foundation: CoverGirl Clean Oil Control Liquid Makeup in Classic Ivory.

Why: When I run out of Bare Minerals (oh no!), or it's the middle of Winter and I have a day when my skin just can't handle powder, I turn to this stuff. It's very light, clean, and friendly to dry skin. It also doesn't cause breakouts. The only problem I have with liquid foundation is that I can always see it on my skin.

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Birthday Cake Nails

I failed to mention that last weekend, September 17th, was my 21st birthday. I did not drink or go out (the drinking age here in Canada is 19, so all of that got out of my system back then!), but I did do some homework and paint my nails!

Last night when I was re-painting my nails for the week, I found this lovely combo and it reminded me of birthday cake, which reminded me of my birthday, which lead me to this post.

NARS "Candy Darling" + ACo "Confetti Glitter" = Birthday Cake Love! 

Current Favourite Things: Eye Makeup Essentials

On a daily basis, I use only 2 products on my eyes: pencil eyeliner and mascara. For special occasions, I like to add in some winged liquid liner, but that's about it. I'm not big on shadow or any other eye product, so this favourite things post is simply about my 3 eye makeup essentials!

Liquid Eyeliner: Sephora Brand long lasting eye liner.

Why: This liner goes on super black, is easy to wing out (which I love), and most importantly, it doesn't ever crack. You will pay much, much more for other liquid liners that do crack after a few hours. Sephora really got it right with this one.

Mascara: Estee Lauder Magnascopic Volume Mascara

Why: I have tried everything from Dior to drugstore brands and nothing will ever compare to Magnascopic for me. A little pricey, but totally worth it. It goes on ridiculously smooth, never clumps, and although this is a "volume" mascara, I find that it gives me more length than any other mascara I have tried. When I use it, my eyelashes literally touch my eyebrows.

Eyeliner: Bonne Bell Eye Define

Why: This eyeliner has stayed with me since 8th grade. It's easy to sharpen, doesn't melt it hot weather, is extremely cheap ($1 at Walmart most of the time) and comes in a ton of colours. I use liquid eyeliner on top of my lids, but this stuff is reserved for the inner bottom rim. I think it will always be a staple in my makeup bag.

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Where I've Been

I know that I have been pretty terrible at posting the past few weeks, but with the start of a new semester comes a million new stresses. It turns out that getting back into the swing of things is harder than I imagined, and I've let myself get behind.

Just so that I don't lose your attention, I give you my newest blogger profile pic! and a picture of my sweetest HollyMuffin in the car on an adventure.

I will return tomorrow with the first "favourite things" posts as promised!

xoxo

B's Tree

An oldie, but a goodie.

About a year ago, Chris and I decided to theme Brooke's room "enchanted forrest". Seeing as that we cannot paint (we are renters), I try my best to come up with creative solutions to theme the bedrooms' without doing anything that can't be un-done. As the centrepiece of B's room, I came up with this giant tree concept.

I went to the Home Depot and purchased a concrete tube as high as her bedroom ceiling and then attached several toilet paper and paper towel tubes to the top of the tube with tape. I then paper mached the entire tree.

I wrinkled newspaper horizontally so that it would resemble bark when painted.

My recipe for paper mache paste is 3 parts white school glue and 1 parts water for a very thick paste that dries very hard.

After the basic layer of newspaper, I went back and created knots (you can see in the pictures below). I rolled and twisted newspaper and taped them to the tree in the shape of knots, and used the paste over them to keep them hard.

After letting the entire tree dry completely overnight, I painted it a very dark brown as a base colour. I gave it 2 coats to make sure that no newspaper showed through.

After the base coat of dark brown dried, I did a bit of dry brushing with a lighter brown. This is where the horizontal wrinkling of the newspaper really stands out. I dipped my brush in the light brown paint, wiped the excess on an old towel, and lightly brushed the raised edges on the tree to make the texture stand out.

I drilled holes above each branch, and inserted plastic vines and flowers that I pruchased at the dollar store. We used rope to anchor the tree to the wall. The pictures that I have are very dark, as they were not originally taken for the blog, so I plan to take updated ones and post them!

As you can see in the first picture, the tree is big, and now is much fuller (we purchased more vines and flowers over time). The girls love it, and it really does set off the rest of Brooke's enchanted forrest decor. The total cost for this tree was around $35 dollars!

xoxo

Lemon Love

Wanna bake something super simple, yet totally delicious that's not a cookie? Lemon tarts were my boyfriend's idea of a yummy Sunday treat this weekend, and he got what he wanted. I took the easy way out and did nothing home made, but on a lazy day, that's the best! :)

1 box of lemon pie mix + 1 box of frozen pre-made tart shells + 15 mins = a quick and easy non-cookie snack!

Follow box directions for pie filling.

Place tart shells on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes.

Pour in warm lemon pie filling and pop back into the oven for another 2 minutes. Let cool. As simple as that!

xoxo

Starbucks Nails

I recently purchased a new nail polish, a beautiful emerald green, and fell in love. I was trying to come up with a design for the colour, when after picking up a yummy Cinnamon Dolce Latte, I realized that the colour matched the Starbucks logo exactly.

In honour of today being my first day back to University (after a week and a half break) and needing all of the coffee I can get, the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks (yay!), and the beginning of fall colours, here is my newest nail design. It is by far my favourite, and I hope that you all love it!

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Coffee cup inspiration + Emerald Green nail polish found at Ardene (2/$6) + any white polish

I began by painting all of my nails with 2 coats of the green polish- except for my ring fingers, which I painted with 2 coats of white.

I then placed french manicure tip stickers over the white polish in a sideways stripe pattern and applied two coats of green on top. If you try this, let the white dry fully before doing this, or the white will come off when you peel the stickers.

Once the green polish was dry, I removed the stickers. I then touched up the small mistakes with white polish and added a star sticker to my middle fingers to play up the Starbucks cup theme!

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Just because i'm so in love with this design, here are some extra pictures!

xoxo

Straighten Up

I am not a spring cleaning type of person, more of a fall cleaning type of person. This past week, I have been on an organizational rampage, cleaning up the mess of our house and reorganizing all closets and shelves in sight. This beauty was my first attempt of the season and it turned out fantastic. Please don't be distracted by our horrible, terrible, sad orange walls. We are students who rent our house, and we are not allowed to paint. Therefor, we must live in Halloween-land everyday.

This is our everything cupboard. It's where we put all of our paperwork, things we just buy, things waiting to be put away, etc. It's the busiest place in our kitchen, and that used to be very clear. Take a look at the old photo:

For some reason, a banana hammock made it's way into a paper holder for bills and letters, and an easter basket (no that has not been there since easter, I actually don't know where it came from) housed random piles of junk. Other piles of stuff just started to build, as well as a full bulletin board of out-of-date papers.

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After

The goal was to keep as much counter space as possible as we have a very small L shaped kitchen. As you can see, the results left us with tons of counter space!

I took a trip to Home Sense are purchased the letter holder (also seen below) for $12.99 and the matching pencil holder (in the corner in the picture above) for $5.99. Surprisingly enough, the paper holder fits a ton of paper without looking cluttered, and it doubles as a decoration with it's amazing detail!

Just a Little Something...

...that I love about Fall.

See that price sticker? That says originally $14.00, now $2.94. This is one of the things I love about fall- back to school shopping gives way to fantastic end of summer sales. As I have discussed before, I like to buy clothes in bigger sizes for our girls, and assume that they will fit next year. Here are my top 3 rules for buying a season ahead:

1. Buy Adjustable Waist-

All of the bottoms that I buy for our kids have either elastic waists (leggings, skirts, etc.) or adjustable side straps (jeans, shorts, etc.). This is just a way to ensure that I am not wasting money because the clothes I buy have that much more of a chance in fitting next year.

3. Stock Up On Basics-

If you see a sale on kid's tanks for $1, grab them in a variety of colours and sizes. I find that buying in a variety of sizes is a lifesaver because if one doesn't fit next year, you have back ups. In the bigger picture, basics never go out of style, so that tank you buy this year will probably still be good in 2 or 3 if it's too big.

3. Keep It Classic-

I don't buy character tee's or colourful dresses in advance simply because I don't know if the girls will like "Dora" a year from now, or if Ombre will still be a trend. As stated in rule 2, stocking up on basics allows room to purchase trends in the current year.

$2.94, much brighter in person, perfect for playtime next summer.

$4.00, dark green and much to my surprise, it will be perfect for fall when accompanied by some cute tights!

$1.99, a terrible picture, but surprisingly, a long sleeved shirt in a summer sale was a great find. 

xoxo