July In Pictures

Today is Jason's birthday so Happy Birthday babe!! ♥ you!

Random pics taken w/ my phone in July.

Cute little Chloe, My mother in law's new dachshund

This pic is actually old. I think it was taken in Feb for Mardi Gras. My mom said I looked like a bag lady. What can I say? I like to layer up. It was cold!

I was attempting to do a post about my makeup, yeah  it didn't go well 

ootn, there was a special event going on that sucked so we didn't take a single pic when we got there

I love mirrored furniture but could not afford this :(

It would have went perfectly with this leaner mirror that I purchased.

Mmm... I love cheesecake

Sparkle standz, I loved it but only kept them in for 2 weeks. The micro links were a pain in the ass. 

This was J's desert. Ol big butt 

The mini bar was charging $8 for these little bottles. The corner store down the street had them for $2 each! 

4th of July weekend. We went to Biloxi and then cruised around in our friends boat.

Snow crabs J and I had @ Boomtown Casino in Biloxi. They were soo good! 

My first greenbean casserole! 

Sarah and I @Metro 

We've been having non-stop rain lately and the canal by our house was the highest I've ever seen it. 

Bacardi in his new day bed, he has another one for nightime. He's so spoiled lol 

I was a dumbass and forgot to turn off my curling iron. It got melted to my blowdryer lol.  

Both the curler and blow dryer are less than 6 months old. It sucks, but they still work fine. 

Painting, Wine & A Double Date

I love art; looking at it, creating it, studying it...ok not studying it ha, but painting and photography are some of my favorite things to do in my free time. Jason and I did a painting thing at Rembrandt All You Can Art a few months ago and he surprisingly had a lot of fun, even though I had to practically drag him to that first event kicking and screaming, ok not really but you know how guys are lol. He definitely didn't go willingly. I thought it would be fun to make it a double date this time with my good friend Sarah. We went to college together and both got our degrees in Graphic Design, so she and I had the upper hand in this one. Here's our art from that night. 

Blending the colors was definitely the hardest part, but the trick is making sure you brush is wet enough

Sarah doing her finishing touches

 Erik and Jason, that was Erik's first painting ever. He said it looked like someone pee'd on his lol

It took us 3 hours to finish our paintings

 I look so thrilled to be taking this pic, NOT lol 

Aww, Jason was so proud of his :) He loves fleur de lis's and this was his second one.

I would have liked to take more pics of the painting process, but we were so involved in our paintings since we pretty much all chose a level 2. Level 2's are a little more difficult and to be honest we we're struggling through it at the beginning and didn't even think we would have enough time to finish. But you know what? I love a challenge so I think I will be doing a level 3 next time.

Have any of you guys been to one of these art classes? 

VIP Only Party & OOTN

Saturday night Metro had this VIP appreciation party for card holders w/ invite only. It was pretty awesome to be in that select few; for 2 hours anyway, after that it was open to the public. They had an open bar for those first 2 hours w/ all premium alcohol and any drink you want, shots included. Needless to say the night didn't end so great but was followed w/ McDonald's thereafter lol. 

Angela and I cheeseballin' it w/ our vip cards lol

If you guys ever want to know the makeup/nail polish I'm wearing let me know & I'll post it.
By Request:
Eye makeup: NYX Morocco, MAC vellum, Sugar Black
Foundation: Maybelline Super Stay mixed w/ Maybelline Dream liquid mousse, set w/ BE mineral veil
Blush: Revlon A floral Affair (dc) w/ elf golden on top
Polish: Revlon Cloud

Dress: F21, Shoes: Dillard's, Earrings: Rue21, Watch: NY&Co., Clutch: I don't remember, but I think it was F21

MAC Prep & Prime VS. Bare Essentuals Mineral Veil (Review)

 I've been using MAC's prep and prime as a finishing powder over my liquid foundation since it came out. It started off w/ a sample and I absolutely loved it. After I used my sample I immediately bought a full sized jar vowing to never use any other setting powder b/c I've found my HG. That is until my not so makeup inclined  friend gave me her unused Bare Essentials powder a few weeks ago since she said she would never use it. Score! After a few uses I thought I would compare the 2. 

MAC Prep & Prime: What I love about this is how you only need a little to set your makeup. It keeps you shine free for a good 8 hours and therefore your makeup looks as if you just applied it. It's also finely milled and really conceals your pores and minor imperfections to give you that air brushes affect. I think those with good skin could get away by just using this powder alone to keep from getting oily. However, what I don't like it that you CAN use too much of this and it will show up in flash photography. I didn't realize that till we went out one night and I looked at the pics the next day and you could see that there was a white cast under my eyes. (I usually apply  a little more to my under eye area to keep my liner from running)

Bare Essentials Mineral Veil: What I love about this product is that basically it does whatever the MAC prep and prime does but it seems almost impossible to use too much of this! It's even more finely milled than P&P and this one has a slight pink tint to it (I'm guessing to brighten up the complexion), but I think that it would still work on all skin tones. It looks beautiful in flash photography and also gives that airbrushed effect. The only downside to this powder is that it doesn't seem to work as well as the P&P in terms of lasting power. As I mentioned above P&P keeps your makeup looking fresh for a good 8 hours. BE keeps it fresh looking for maybe about 5-6 hours.

MAC P&P - left swatched heavily, right blended out

                       

BE Mineral Veil- left swatched heavily, right blended out

                     

P&P on top, BE. Both were blended out and taken w/ a flash. As you can see, the P&P gives off a white cast whereas the BE doesn't give off any. 

Overall: I love both of these equally, but when I don't need 8 hours of wear I will use the BE. For a long night out w/ lots of dancing? I'll have to go w/ my P&P because I know it will keep my face from getting shinny and will keep my makeup looking fresh.  I will just have to be more aware of how much I use b/c it CAN show up in pics even though it is said to be transparent. For both of these I use a duo fiber brush like the MAC 187. I use it to pick up the product just on the tip of the white hairs and it works well for a light application. Next time I go out, I'm going to try mixing them and see how that works.

Do any of you have either of these? What's your favorite setting powder for liquid foundation?

Splurge VS. Steal - Proenza Schouler PS1

The PS1 by Proenza Schouler is quite coveted and has been seen on many trendsetting starts under 30, but at $1,595 it  remains out of our reach, for most of us anyway.

The Mossimo Target look-alike at about $35 makes it possible to at least mimic the cool style.

Understandably, PS wasn't too happy about Target creating a similar version.  In a post on Cathy Horyn's New York Times blog today, Proenza designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez admitted the copy doesn't prove imitation is always the sincerest form of flattery. “Yeah, why save up and buy ours when you can buy theirs right away?” McCollough asked Horyn. The potential knockoff makes for awkward questions at a time when Proenza Schouler, who did a collection for Target's Go International collection a couple years ago, very recently signed off to let the mass retailer reissue looks for the 5-year anniversary Go "designer collective." Though the two bags aren't exactly the same, Hernandez says Target got the "attitude," "the weight," and "the slouch of the bag...really right.” At the end of the day, Shirley Cook, the company’s chief executive, admits, "It's just disappointing, especially from someone we worked with." A Target spokesman claims the company "respect[s] the intellectual property rights of others,". [Via]


Forever21 looks like they even tried to take a piece of the pie too on their bag that bares a resemblance.

Personally, I don't care for the look-a-like, I think the material of it looks cheap. What do you think? Are the two satchels too similar, or is there room for both? 

New Purchases - Clothes, accessories, hair

These are some purchases I've made over the weekend. As you may have noticed, I love Tj Maxx and do quite a bit of my shopping there. Plus there's a Tj Maxx less than 2 miles from where I live so it's convienant. 

I'm actually not a  fan of boxy shirts but this one looked so cute with the shorts I was wearing when I tried it on and I think it would look great with skinny jeans too. It's slightly shorter in the front and longer in the back.

The first place I always check out when I'm at Tj Maxx is their hair and makeup section. My hair is a bit dry so I'm always looking for new moisturizing products to try and when I saw these two I had to buy them. Argan oil is really good for the hair so I got the serum to use on my ends and the smoothing cream to use all over. Since I got a keratin treatment recently, I think I could just get away with using the smoothing cream and nothing else for those lazy hair days.

The feather earrings are from Rue21. They are pretty long and fall around my shoulders but they look really cute with my hair down. The shades and stud earrings are from F21.

This last one was actually from my husband (for himself obviously haha) from Fredericks of Hollywood. They have the best bras by the way! If your looking for a good push up bra, try the xtreame cleavage push up they're even on sale right now so I just purchased 2 yesterday (the picture does not do it justice). It's seriously the only bra I'll ever wear and WAY better than anything I've ever tried at VS. I've also converted a few of my friends over to Fredericks and they love the bras as well. Try it, you won't be sorry :)