DIY Bokeh Lens - Man Vs. Pin #41

Bats in the belfrey.....

So my friend Rita had a bat in her house.  Now with it being winter time in Michigan a lot of God's creatures are all seeking shelter inside where its warm and dry.  Some how this little dude slipped inside her house.  When she FaceBooked about it and getting it out of her house everyone basically had the same reaction of "omg! eww!!" except for Marigold.  Our little back and forth made me laugh so hard I had to blog it.

 

Pennywise - "Violence Never Ending"

So I sorta slept thru my alarm....sorry!

I know I'm a day late on this, but I never claimed to be perfect.  Here are my November subscriptions. 

My favorite polish to come out of the Julep box for November was Fazia.  (last 2 polishes on the right) It's a really rich red wine color.  Perfect for fall/winter manis.  I've gotten a ton of complements on it. I also opted for the Plie wand in my box.  I'm still learning to use it and all, but I'm digging it so far.  Heres a pix of Fazia and where I used my Plié wand.

 

If you're interested in becoming a Julep Maven, here's my referral link.  You'll get your first box free.

MY Julep Referral Link

 

 

My November Ipsy Bag.... first can I say how much I adored this bag?  the silver glitter look is awesome.  Its in the top of my favorite bags from them so far.  The one item I didn't dig was the lip stain.  I'm not sure if I maybe got a bad batch or not (the reviews on it were mixed), but the only part of it I was impressed with was the super rich pigment of it.  Other then that, it was a mess.  It never fully set on my lips.  It stained my teeth, face and fingers.  When I say stained my teeth, I mean I had to use a makeup wipe on my teeth.  I tried applying it 2 different ways.  One with just my pinky. The second time I used a lip primer, lip liner and used a lip brush to apply it.  I ended up with the same results both time. My cousin got the same product and color and she had a totally different experience with hers.  So I'm giving it a second go. I redeemed another tube of it in a different shade with some Ipsy points I had stocked away.  We'll see how it goes this time.

If you're interested in trying out Ipsy, here is my referral link.....

My Ipsy Referral Code

 

And because I slacked so hard in my blog for a month, here's photos of my winter mani I did last night while watching American Horror Story.



 

Gearing up for Halloween...

When the kitty tries to blend in with the Halloween things so she can steal candy.

 

The real scary....

It's true that when you're an adult you can do what ever you want, but that doesn't mean you should.  Enjoy your dietary carnage when you're young while you can kids. Case in point....

 

love love love!

H-O-M-E

I often giggle at some of the random things my friends and family from back home text, email and facebook to me.  I miss the mitten a lot.

 

3 Store Haul ( TJ Maxx, Sephora & Ulta)

HAUL TIME!  First I'm going to start with Ulta since they were having a Butter London special freebie.  If you spent $30 dollars you got a free Butter London make up bag.  Which sent me on cloud 9 because I really wanted that make up bag and if I didn't have to shell out an extra $15 bucks well, bonus! So I picked out 2 blue shades which I thought would be perfect for winter and spring nails. The color on the left is Keks and the other one is Sprog. 

 

Then from TJ Maxx I made another pretty good Polish haul.  I got 3 Butter London, 1 Julep and 1 Ciate .  (I'm not sure when my shift in UK products happened, but whoa!) The Butter London colors are (L to R) Wellies, Bumster and Dosh.  The Ciate color is 3am girl.  And the Julep is Isla.



 

I also picked up a couple make up brushes, one being by another of my favorite UK companies, The Vintage Cosmetic Company.. I also picked up a cute little shower cap, that had a vintage pin up flare to it.

 

Finally my Sephora haul. One of 2 of my favorite things I picked up was a trio of Tokyo Milk roller ball parfumes.  I love roller balls for travel or just throwing in my purse.  The trio consists of ...

Tainted Love No. 62 (Fragrance Notes: Dark Vanilla Bean, Orchid, White Tea, Sandalwood)

Everything & Nothing No. 10 (Fragrance Notes: Sweet Orange, Pressed Petals, Dessert Moss and Tea Leaves)

La Vie La Mort No. 90 (Fragrance Notes: White Tuberose, Cardamom, Hibiscus Leaf, Jasmine)

My favorite of the 3 I think is La Vie La Mort. I've just had this thing for rose scents lately.

My 2nd favorite thing is the Bathina "just confess, you're obsessed" all over me body mist by Benefit Cosmetics. I really liked the body oil spray I've previously gotten.  It had a light clean smell to it, so I was excited when they came out with just a body mist.  Plus I love the vintage look to the packaging.
I also got their lazy girl solution to brows, speed brow.  Its a light neutral brow gel that gives your brows a little game.   

Then I got got my favorite lip primer by Too Faced since I was running out.  Sephora was also doing a daily special and I got a free bronzer at check out.

And last but not least, I got one of Kat Von D 's studded lipsticks in the shade Vampira.  Its a nice deep burgundy color.  Think the grunge era of the 90's.  Thought it'd be great for the fall/winter months coming up.  Tho' I'm not a fan of her, I have to admit some of her shades of lipstick are really nice. I don't have a lot of room to swatch shades on my arms and hands, but I did my best to show you.

 

 







 

 

Harley Quinn in the hizzy....

Doing my best Harley Quinn......

October's Maven box

So yesterday I received my Julep Maven box!  I was super excited to get this because it was the first collection where I loved all the colors. 

They called the collection "Black Magic".  Its the 9 polishes in the upper left corner of the photo. Nancy, Shailene, Dean, Logan, Margarita, Ledi, Marla, Briann and Dana.  I also decided to add on Casper, which is a glow in the dark polish as well as black cat decals, a plush pout lip crayon and the night mask.  For adding on 3 add ons I was gifted with the red and yellow polishes in the bottom right, Catrina & Karmen.   I was really pleased with this month's box.  One of the things I'm most geeked about is the polish Dana.  It's black light reactive. 
My Julep Referral Code

 

 

You shouldn't watch scary movies with us....

Seriously, you don't want to watch scary movies with me and the mister.  we'll ruin your experience. We don't mean too, it just happens, especially if it's one on Syfy. 

(Mister flipping thru the channels on TV while I'm checking my email on the couch next to him. He stops on the Syfy channel to a movie called "transmanian  devils" I think.  Starts off with a helicopter of younger guys who are base jumpers headed to some mountain/cliff area)

Me: I want the douchebag in the middle, he's a smooth talker...
Mister: *looks at me and laughs*
(in the movie they're on top of this jump area and the douche I mentioned previously is scared to jump and everyone gives him shit, so he pretends he's not gonna jump and then leaps off like barney badass. He falls thru a bunch of trees instead of the land point and impales himself on a huge spike in the ground)
Me: See what happens when you're a douchebag? Let that be a lesson to you... You end up leaking blood everywhere that'll bring the evil monsters from hell out after your friends. Why does he keep hitting that spike in him?  You'd think it'd make it worse.
Mister: Yeah, he shouldn't be able to move his legs at all. 
Me: Oh yeah, because that should of impaled his spine.  Well maybe he has scoliosis and the spike missed his spine entirely?
(cue the side glances and laughing and the turning of the channel)

Seriously tho', Syfy movies are so horrible sometimes that they're actually awesome, but it's not where I'm going to go to get scared. 

 

My first time....

Today for the first time ever I went to T.J. Maxx.  I've never been in one and realized today that my town has one in the new shopping strip plaza they built.  I was in search of just a reusable cup/straw combo to help increase my water intake during this weight loss challenge I'm doing.  I found one that looks like a mason jar, so success on the find and earning my honorary hipster card.  Since that took less time then I thought it would, I decided to wander around and check the place out.  I scored a few beauty finds.
The one thing I'm most happy abut finding is a bronzing brush by The Vintage Cosmetic Company.  They're a British company that specializes in make up brushes and accessories/tools.  Everything is done in a cute vintage flower pattern.  Think like something your grandmother or depending on your age, great grandmother used in their early 20's.  Anyways I was told about how soft these brushes are and they weren't lying.  I compare them to Too Faced's teddy bear brushes. 

I also found one of my favorite fall/winter bath gel scents by Philosophy.  I'm a sucker for sweet and spicy smells during this time, so "spiced gingerbread cookie" does not disappoint. It smells like I'm bathing with crushed gingersnaps.  Again, what I love the most of their gels is that tho' you can smell the yummy while using them, you don't smell like that for the rest of the day.

The last thing I found there was three Julep nail polishes.  I scored the colors Lexi (yellow), Courteney (green) and Mila (glitter).

My only other stop while I was out today was to Walgreens for allergy meds.  While there by chance I saw the Good & Evil line by e.l.f that a lot of people have been talking about. Tho' I'm not a fan of Disney or the princesses I did happen to really like the brush set they had.  The set includes a brush case, blush brush, powder brush, foundation brush and eye shadow brush.  The only other products I remember that they had with this was Snow White eyelashes and the beauty book which had eye shadows and lipstick in it. I'm not sure what else was in it, like I said, I'm not a fan of Disney or the princesses.  I guess this is an exclusive  sold only at Walgreens.  To see if its sold near you click here. 
(upon further investigation, there is a Snow White set of brushes in white, as well as various characters with their own lip, eye and cheek sets.  Looks like most things are between $5-$10.)

 

Forgive me for my future hangry....

So to officially kick off the start of October, I am doing a 14 week weight loss challenge with 7 of my friends.  The one who loses the most weight wins.  There's money riding on this. Because everyone knows that money, sex and candy motivates anyone, young or old.  Tho' this is just a fun friendly competition, I also see it as a way to keep me in line.  I have a HUGE sweet tooth.  So obviously Halloween and Christmas proposes as a threat to me.  Thanksgiving not so much.  I really don't dig the Thanksgiving feast.  Normally on that holiday my plate consists of salad, a roll and maybe a slice of cherry pie if someone made one.  But Halloween candy and Christmas cookies/sweets...oh my god. I feel myself getting fat thinking about them. Anywho... if I seem especially snarky/bitchy/annoyed...its because I'm going thru sugar withdraw.  OK, so I doubt I can completely give up sweets, but I'm going to try to keep them out of my house. 
So what are some of your diet/exercise tips? Favorite meals?

 

Too Faced Cat Eyes Palette

I first want to start with saying that I love Too Faced eye shadow palettes.  I own a few of them.  They usually give you a daytime & nighttime look plus a fashion look. Or a natural look.  Its perfect for when traveling and not wanting to luge a ton of make up around with you.
So it goes without saying that I knew I'd love their Cat Eye palette also.  I've been doing the cat eye look since the early 90's when I was all "high school rebellious riot grrrl". What I dig about this one tho' is that it includes the wet/dry colors too.  So you get 3 looks with this one also.  Day, classic and fashion.  So you have a look for going out with the girls or meeting up with up grandma or even an out of town/state job interview.
I bought mine at my local Ulta store.  It retails for $36, which is average for their palettes.  I really dig it.  If you like the cat eye look I suggest picking one up for yourself too.
Too Faced Cat Eye Palette

 

 

I have no words....

When someone tells me they don't like Halloween.....

 

Conversations with the Mister.....

So my mister comes out of his man cave and plops down on the couch next to me where I'm checking my email.  He gives me a dirty look, I return a look to him and this goes on for a couple mins.

Me: *gives a mean mug face*  YOU'RENOTMYFRIEND!
Mister: what?
Me: you're not my friend.
Mister: oh, I thought you said Jesus was your friend.
Me: Jesus doesn't talk with me much anymore.
Mister: only on Wednesdays when he cuts the grass?

We both stared at each other for about 30 seconds before we busted out laughing.  My Mister is mostly a quiet guy, ask anyone.  But now and then out of the blue he'll just say something that makes up for all the quiet.  And honestly, one of the guys who does our yard work is probably named Jesus.  WHAT?!?! I didn't name him.

And before you can say it...SHUT UP!  We're not racist.  I hate everyone equally.

Sorry, we were experiencing technical difficulties....

So my lap top decided to take a huge shit and quit working. Well my uber nice mister got me a new lap top.  It was delivered yesterday.  I'm in the process of installing all my stuff and getting it up to working order again.  So I'll be back soon, but until then to hold you over....

 

Ulta haul & my September Ipsy bag.....

Ulta had an event sale going on today in which I partook in.   If you spend $35 dollars in Benefit products you received a free Benefit train case. Well I really wanted a full sized Bene tint since I adored the sample I was given.  I also picked up a High Brow Glow pencil.  I think highlighting your brows is just a nice subtle touch for a brighter eye.  Also while I was at check out I was looking thru their impulse buy bins and I saw they had a sample size of Benefit's Posie tint.  I usually do my lips in reds, pinks or neutrals.  I like the color of the Posie tint but I find that its a thicker formula then the benefit tint. The nice score was that it came with a travel sized High Beam too.  I don't think companies understand how much I appreciate them making travel sizes of their products too.  Specially if I just want to give it a try.
Benefit

I also picked up Butter London's Top of the Pops.  Its a $70 set that I got for $32.  The set included Wink eye pencil and cream eye shadow in Earl Grey, which is a nice metallic silver color.  The eyeliner is more of a charcoal color with sparkle to it.  It also included a nail polish in LA Ross and a Lippy liquid lipstick in the color Toff.  A real nice combo for date night or going out with the girls to the club.   They also threw in a sample of their scrubbies, their nail prep and polish remover pads.
Butter London

And finally, yesterday my Ipsy bag came in the mail.  YAY!  Their theme for September was "Street Style".  The make up bag was a cute gun metal color with studs on the front.  My bag contained a Hikari lipstick, which tho' it was a nice lipstick, I'm not digging the color on me.  I also got the Be a Bombshell smooth criminal powder, a pacifica eye liner, Briogeo  deep conditioning hair mask and Nourish Organic moisturizing face cleanser. I also traded in ipsy points for the Bodyography foundation primer.
My Ipsy Referral Link

 

September Julep Maven Haul

I received my Maven box from Julep the other day.  I'm in love with the colors.  Totally perfect for the autumn.  Reds, grays, blues, gold.... You know the type of colors that signify that sweater weather and pumpkin spice lattes have arrived.

My box selections were the Freedom polymer top coat, Mary Lee polish and Eliana polish.  I also decided to add on the Ana white glitter polish, Lupita polish and Padma polish.  As a free gift from Julep for adding three add ons, they gave me the Candace polish and Daria polish.
(colors are in order left to right. Free gift colors horizontal in front)
If you are unfamiliar with Julep, they are only the best nail polish company around.  I love their lotions just as much as I love the polish.  Once you go Julep you wont go back to anything else.  There's a strengthening agent called Hexal. Their oxygen technology lets your nails breath while the polishes distribute evenly for superior coverage. 
The top coat gives you a gel like shine preventing chips and making your mani last longer without the hassle of actually get a gel mani done.  You only need your regular nail polish remover to remove from your nails.

Here is my link if you're interested in checking out Julep or becoming a Maven subscriber.
My Julep Maven Link
 

Da'Nile is more then just a river in Egypt.....

Now let me start by saying that I take snacking as serious as the next person does.  I mean I even have a Cookie Monster snack sphere for my skittles! If that isn't snack dedication, I don't know what is. *laughs* Now, I think this boils down to a case of "po-tay-toe" vs. "po-tah-toe", but hey what ever you have to do to get thru the day. Right?

So now I ask you...What is your favorite snack?

 

My top favorite skin care products.....

So I've had people tell me that my skin feels soft or looks so healthy or has such a glow or I smell good all the time.  So I thought I'd share with you some of the skin products I use on the regular.

When it comes to getting clean, I really love philosophy's bath gel.  I don't use it as a shampoo, but its my go to for a body soap.  I think its hands down the best smelling soap I ever used.  It really smells like what its called.  The best part of it is that you get to enjoy the smell while you are in the shower but that scent doesn't stick with you.  Just because I like the smell of pink frosted cake doesn't mean i want to smell like it all day long. lol
Philosophy

 

 

Ok, now after the shower I'm a huge fan of using Benefit's "soft to touch...hard to get" body oil mist.   It absorbs real fast leaving your skin soft and smooth, not greasy.  It also has a light scent to it that I love. I also love the "take a picture...it lasts longer" body balm.  I use this on my shoulders, cleavage, knee area...basically anywhere I want a little "glow".  Plus how can you not love the packaging?!?!  This retro pin up look is cute enough to just leave out on the counter or vanity.

Benefit Cosmetics

 

Now the last thing I use on the daily is lotion.  When I'm going out and I want a nice all over sexy smell I'll use Victoria's Secret's "Tease".  Its a nice smell that's not too over powering, and I've never had anyone complain of the smell to me.  Both men and women seem to like it.

Victoria's Secret

When I'm looking for just a good deep moisturizing  lotion I'm going to grab Bath & Body Works Body Cream.  Theres a zillion different scents, so I'm sure you can find something you like.  This lotion is so thick and creamy.  It leaves my skin feeling moisturized all day long with out feeling greasy.

Bath & Body Works

And just because it made it into this summer's favorite scent category with me, Pacifica's "Blood Orange Lotion".  Its just one of those scents that awakens your senses.  You cant put it on and be in a bad mood.  It makes you want to go out and frolic in the sun.  Seriously tho', if you like citrus scents you'll love this one. 

Pacifica Blood Orange

 

So what are some of your favorite products you use?

 

 

 

 

 



 

SUNDAY FUNDAY

If your friends don't have a witty sense of humor....
If your friends cant keep you on your toes....
If you and your friends cant side glance each other and smirk because you're both thinking the same thing...
well, then you should probably set them on fire.
I however, can lose the matches because my friends are the funniest bunch of bitches you could ask for. <3

 

Best weather app ever, hands down.....

I'm not sure if its available for all phones, but if you have an iphone check out the "grumpy weather" app.  Its free. Its a very basic weather app, but its hilarious especially if you hate the weather where you live.  Theres a handful of icons you can use too.  Anywho, I just thought I'd share with you.