Long time no see...

I honestly feel like just picking up where I left off and not even mentioning my 3 month hiatus from blogging and pretending like it never happened. But I know I can't because, in general, I'm a horrible blogger. I just find it so hard to stay consistent with blogging and as soon as I go weeks without blogging then it's like this dark cloud hanging over my head whispering "you should be blogging this." or "you never blog yet you have a blog, you're a horrible person."
I think that blogging is incredibly important in the fashion/beauty industry. It's a great way to get your name out there and it's also great to share your knowledge and thoughts with other people rather than to hoard all this great info to yourself! This feeling of almost obligation might be what makes it so hard for me to blog, but I'm gunna go ahead and promise to myself that I will try. I felt like even making a New Year's resolution to blog, but, for me, nothing kills a commitment like a New Year's resolution...too much pressure.

Anyways, now that I've pointed out the obvious, that I'm a horrible blogger because I never blog, I will continue this like it never happened and write a post about a few things I've been up to and *gasp* maybe even write a second one!

Ok, so here is my "excuse:" Most people that know me, know that, as of Christmas Eve, I am engaged to be married to my wonderful man, Chris. Here is "the ring":

I just love looking at this everyday :)

Let me tell you, wedding planning is TIME CONSUMING! It's oh so much fun and I love it, but just sucks any bit of extra time out of your life.
Chris and I will be getting married in Orlando, FL and I am DIYing it all over the place for our wedding! Because of this, I have learned that I absolutely LOVE crafts! So, maybe I'll do a few posts on some of my craftiest crafts :) Here are a few sneak peaks of my projects:

Upcycling bottles into vases

Frames-o-million!

Pickle jar + lace doily = perfection!

One of the hardest crafts I've done so far but rather rewarding

So, there are just a few of the wedding crafts I've been working on in my free time when I'm too busy to blog. It's so much fun though and definitely worth the time. I'm very excited to be adding my personal touch to every aspect of our wedding :)
If anyone would like a tutorial for any of the things I've posted a picture of, let me know!

♥Rae


P.S. Coming soon: our engagement picture session(s)!

30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 6

6) Do you like/wear false lashes? If yes, strip or individual?

I LOVE to wear false lashes! They're so much fun and I would wear them everyday but, well...that would be a lot of work and I tend to get lazy with my own makeup. I prefer strip over individual because individuals are pretty hard to apply to yourself, much easier on another person but they can still be more time consuming. I will use them on other people if I want a very natural look and to just add a little bit of length and volume. The strips that I do prefer for myself, however, are demi's or half strips. I have very small eyes so a lot of times when I apply a full strip of lashes it can overpower my eyes and any makeup I apply becomes unnoticeable, demi's add the perfect amount of length and drama for me.

♥Rae

30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 5

5) Favorite lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner?

My favorite lip stick (brand) would be Mac...color?..I'm not sure how to pick just one, hardly possible, but I love "Myth," it's THE perfect nude lipstick for almost every skin tone. Favorite lip gloss (brand) is Stila...again I could not pick a favorite color because I use a different color nearly every time but the Stila lip glazes are high gloss and come in a super convenient tube in a great variety of colors (and they offer them in sets). Favorite lip liner BY FAR is Urban Decay's lip liners, I only own a few because they're more expensive than other brands. I probably own over 100 lip liners of various brands and the few UD liners I have I use most often. "Wicked" and "Naked" are my favorite colors, although, I would love to one day buy all the colors. The reason I like UD so much more than other brands is because when it comes to lip liners you need a strong pigment and for the pencil to be very smooth and creamy, instead of rough and hard. These liners just glide on the lips perfectly and make it so much easier to line and fill flawlessly.

♥Rae

30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 3 & 4

3) Favorite brand?

Oh man, this is a hard one. I don't know how I would choose just one because I use so many brands for so many different things...SO I'm going to pick two haha. Favorite brand for foundation would probably be Cover FX, they only have makeup for the face so that's why I can't say they're my overall favorite brand. Favorite in general would be Urban Decay...I've actually never used their foundations but they have the most amazing primers, eye shadows, eye liners, lip liners, everything I LOVE.

4) Do you like wearing foundation? If so, what's your color and favorite?

I do like wearing foundation. I feel so naked without any on my face but I definitely don't wear it every day...honestly, that is mostly because I'm lazy. But if I'm going anywhere besides the grocery store or to hang around I will usually wear some foundation and concealer.

I actually have more than one color because I don't use just one foundation. My colors are Loreal True Match in "Natural Beige" (which is kind of dark for me because I'm so pale at the moment), Revlon ColorStay in "Early Tan" (which is not a great match for me because, while this is a good drugstore foundation, the undertones are a little off so it's hard to find an accurate match), Makeup Forever HD Foundation #118 (a perfect match), and Cover FX Cream Foundation in C40 (I mostly use this as a concealer, rarely apply it all over on myself). Cover FX is my favorite brand for foundations in general (I use it on most clients) but since I use it on myself only as a concealer I will say that Makeup Forever is my favorite foundation at the moment. It's a medium coverage, looks natural, and it blends with my skin perfectly...I would use it everyday but it's pricey, that's why I use so many foundations, the drugstore foundations I use are still great and so much less expensive that I wear them on a day-to-day basis and use Makeup Forever when I'm working or "dressing up."

♥Rae

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...on my face...

It's that time of year again! Where we decorate our houses with garlands and wreaths, trim the fraser fir, elaborately wrap presents...ok, so this is actually the first year of my life doing any of these things...but this is my first (technically second, since I graduated Dec. 10th last year) Christmas since college and something about decorating your house for Christmas really makes you feel like an official adult. So, December 1st came along and I began to have all of these decorating ideas that I just couldn't help but try out. All of it was essentially inspired by a bird (you'll see below). Now here's a glimpse of my Christmas spirit :)

 The living room is pretty small so it was hard to fit a Christmas tree but after some furniture maneuvering we managed it.

This is one of the centerpieces I made. The sleigh was a gift "basket" filled with Ghirardelli chocolate but I ate all that up quickly and filled it with scented pinecones and silver and gold sparkly flowers from Michael's. Super inexpensive!

Pretttyyy!

This teacandle tree centerpiece is super pretty when it's all lit up

This poinsettia is from Home Goods (my favorite store ever!) I wish I could leave it out all year long!

Another Christmas tree :)

A Michael's find

Here's the cute bird ornament from Anthropologie that started it all. It was my original inspiration for all the Christmas decor I picked out and because of the sparkly silver and white bird, decorated the rest of the house with white, silver and gold. I wish I could have bought 20 of these ornaments but they're $15 each...maybe for an after Christmas sale? haha

F-L-O-R-I-D-A-S-T-A-T-E!

 

Chris' mom gave us these last year, they have our names on them AND light up!

 

Most of the ornaments on the tree are from Big Lots...it was like $10 for 50, pretty good deal.

 

Here's the whole tree :) we couldn't fit one in that was too full because, like I said, the livingroom could barely fit a tree at all, but we realized after bringing the tree home that it was super scraggly. Strategically placing the ornaments concealed most of it so the finished product looks ok.

 

I even coordinated all my wrapping paper with the rest of the decor! (Obviously, I am on my GAME this year haha) Home Goods has AWESOME fancy wrapping paper for $2.99 a roll and 2 rolls was more than enough for all my gifts. The fancy ribbon I found at Michael's for .99 cents a roll!

 

 This is probably my favorite present ;) fancy wrappings just makes presents look even more appealing

It's Chris' present!

I'll try to make this my last present picture :P

Even my wall plug-ins are festive!

 

Chris' stocking :)

 

Patton, Bella, Chris, and my stockings...we even have a real fireplace to hang them from! Haven't used it yet though, since it is Florida and all.

 

On to the snowflake doilies! This was a super inexpensive decorating idea. I read about it online, instead of using regular paper to cut out snow flakes I found silver, gold (which ended up being on clearance), and the usual white paper doilies at Michael's and cut out (probably over a hundred) snowflakes. I'm really happy with the finished product and hopefully can save them for next year! 

Here's a gold one

...and white

Above the kitchen entrance

 

 I wanted to share 2 of my favorite holiday scents from Bath and Body Works. The Holiday Gumdrop is a new one and absolutely delicious!

Now, what would a makeup blog be without some holiday makeup looks? I went with the whole silver and gold theme and played around with a cranberry color lipstick. Whenever December comes around I usually go crazy with the gold eyeshadow...something about the holiday's makes me think gold.

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The colors I used were a very metallic cream which I layered shimmery shadows over.

And there is my take on a holiday makeup! I usually do a few every year so I tried to come up with a new idea with this by taking inspiration from all my decorating ideas and using a cranberry lipstick instead of a bright red. It's fun to play around with inspiration!

Hope you enjoyed all my Christmas-ness as much as I did! Hope everyone has happy holidays and a great new year!

Merry Christmas :)

♥Rae

 

 

30 Day Makeup Challenge: Day 2

2) How did you learn to put on makeup?


I mostly learned how to put makeup on from my sister. Her and I have always been the makeup "type" girls and since she was older than me I spent most of my life coping whatever it was she was doing. Haha just kidding (mostly **she did potty train me this way**) ^_^
But we have always been into makeup and she would show me different products, kind of teach me how to use different things. I don't think there was an actual definitive point where she decided to do something and then taught me, it was more a process of growing and learning together.

I did learn A LOT of the techniques I know now from YouTube. That is kind of what started my career as a makeup artist and really sparked my professional interest after hours spent watching videos on how to do a smokey eye, apply false lashes, perfect cat eye, various "Halloween looks." YouTube is THE it place to learn how to put makeup on. Once that interest was sparked I attended professional classes through makeup academies.

♥Rae

30 Day Makeup Challenge

I saw this cool little makeup challenge on Tumblr (if you have a Tumblr and would like to follow me my url is avondale16.tumblr.com) and thought I would try it out on my "real" blog since I'm mostly just friends with strangers on there and people I actually know might read this. I also thought it would be a great way to get myself to blog on here every day for 30 days! Maybe if I get in the habit of blogging on here every day, even if it is short and sweet, than I will be able to keep up with that momentum.

1) When did you start putting makeup on?

I started putting makeup on when I was 3…I guess you could call that more of playing but I legitimately remember my sister and I giving each other makeovers. I remember sitting on my mom’s bed and staring at her while she did her own makeup in her vanity, she would yell at me for staring but I would just beg her to let me sit there and watch.
I probably started wearing makeup for serious when I was about 12…haha I would sneak clear mascara and blush because my mom didn’t want me dolling myself up too much ^_^

♥Rae