365 Project

I've made it through the first week of my 365 Project. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to run out of things to photograph in my apartment very quickly.

There aren't very many interesting things to photograph in the Metro Jacksonville area... unless I want to have a few dozen photographs of bums and traffic... but I will do my best to find decent subject matter. I'm trying not to make it a year of photographs of my animals LOL.

I know I've already posted day one, but then I decided I'm going to do a weekly recap. It just makes organizing these posts easier. So you'll see day one again.

Here is the first week of my 2012 in pictures! Click each one to see it larger :)

Day one:


Day two:


Day three:


Day four:


Day five:


Day six:


Day seven:


(Please don't steal... that's just not nice! Plus these are protected under copyright law)

Botox

I'm seriously considering botox.

I don't necessarily have a problem with aging... I'm thrilled that I'm in my 30's now and I always "show off" my age whenever possible (and NO it's not for people to tell me how young I look for my age), but I don't want to accept these wrinkles.

I have little laugh lines and creases, which are totally fine... but the MAJOR things I have going on that are slowly drifting south are bugging me. The hooded eyes kill me. I will literally spend a good five minutes in front of the mirror (while in the salon no less) lifting up my forehead to give the eyelid "hoods" I have a little OOMPH. I happened to mention this in front of a client a few weeks back and he said I could get some botox injections and that would help.

I have done ZERO research, but will most likely start soon. Not that I'd do it for real... the wife wouldn't let me, plus I can think of a million better things to spend money on... like makeup! A girl can dream though, right? ;)

Galaxial

Galaxial means galactic, which means "of or relating to a galaxy and especially the Milky Way galaxy".

I used all ULTA shadows (I'm using the heck out of this little box the wife got me for Christmas!) and the black was named Galaxy. I started chuckling to myself when I thought of the word "galaxial" and how I'm always making up words and that's so dorky, blah blah blah. Then I did a quick google search and realize it's not my own made-up word but something real. Boo.

I wore this look to work and got a TON of compliments on it, especially on the lashes. This cracks me up, since the left eye was kind of wonky and looked like I had a lazy eye. It wore surprisingly well with ZERO creasing, even after 8 hours on my feet in the salon!

I have a pretty large lid area with very little crease/brow area, so these looks tend to work better for me. I have plucked my brows somewhat thinner than I normally would wear them, so I'm hoping I can pull off some other looks LOL.

I'm really liking how ULTA's shadows wear. They're so highly pigmented and not too chalky. I really don't get a lot of fallout, either... I have a lot of shadows in the kit, but will happily swatch them if anyone wants them. :)

So anyway, enough rambling, onto the look! The lashes are from Revlon. I'm not including products used because it's pretty simple to recreate this... black on the lid, silver blended into the crease and a white pearly highlighter. :)













I wish I had seen the little smudge from my liner/mascara before I had taken these, but oh well! :D

Deep blue sea...

Hi beauties! I hope your January is going well so far.

Mine? It's going amazing. Like... I can't ask for a better way to start the year. 2011 was so off because of so many reasons and I'm truly hoping that this year fares better. I'm even sticking to my resolution to maintain a 365 Project. Granted, it's only day three, but still. My normal attention span is about an hour LOL.

So while I was thinking of ideas for today's look, I realized that I had this gorgeous Inglot navy blue that I've only used once.

Ok guys, sit down, grab a bag of popcorn and let's talk about Joanna's visit to Vegas in February of 2011.

I went to Paul Mitchell school here in Jax and we had an opportunity to sell our way to Vegas. We had these bags of product we had to sell. Nothing stood between me and that trip and before I knew it, my name was on the board of people who made their way. EVERYTHING was paid for (except for food). We stayed in Caesar's Palace and had an amazing suite. There were three other girls and myself. It was pretty amazing.

One of the girls that had gone and was in my room was a good friend of mine who knew Vegas pretty well (she'd gone out there numerous times for work conferences). She said there was a mall underneath Caesars (who knew?!) and that there was a giant MAC store. Cue angels singing and harps ... harping? now.

So we took our second day to head off in search of this MAC store. We had the famous Paul Mitchell white party that evening and I wanted to find some good makeup. It was way early when we went traipsing about so we grabbed food. On the way to grab food, we both noticed (at the same time) Inglot tucked into a corner. We both had heard about this little unknown brand at a three-day makeup conference we had attended just a few weeks prior. We grabbed our food and patiently stalked the store until it opened.

I created a beautiful little five-pan palette for myself with my favorite colors for smoky eyes (plus two highlighters). I used the navy blue that evening, decided I hated it, and never used it again.

Until tonight.

So, long story short... here's my deep blue sea look :)


The color in the pan... don't mind how dusty it all is.


My pup, keeping a close eye on things. Mind you, he stayed within a foot of me the whole time while I was doing my makeup.




I'm not sure what's going on with this one. I blended and blended and blended some more for good measure, but the picture kept picking up this weird... arc thing. It's not there when you look at the eyes in real life, so maybe it's just a way my skin is folding over plus the camera. Who knows.


I really need to STOP arching that brow LOL.



Now. I do wear contacts. I also wear glasses, mostly when I'm working, because it hurts when I get hair and product on my contacts. So I'm thinking that from now on, I'm going to include pictures of what the makeup looks like with glasses on. This is for all the girls out there who want to wear fun makeup, but are afraid to because their glasses might block their eyes. Wear them with pride, near (or far) sighted ladies!





Products used:

Eyes:
*Too Faced Shadow Insurance
*Ulta's navy eye pencil all over lid
*Inglot 428P (navy) all over lid
*Sephora Swimming Pool No 37 in crease
*Ulta Deep Sea & Key West in "upper crease"
*Inglot AMC35 (shimmery white) in highlight, tearduct area, and to blend the crease
*Makeup Forever Crayon Kohl liner (black)
*Covergirl LashBlast fusion (black)

Face:
*Revlon ColorStay foundation in 180 Sand Beige
*Bare Minerals Mineral Veil (only because I'm out of my regular powder [I sound like a broken record LOL])
*Ulta bronzer, Afternoon Delight blush and Infatuation blush all mixed together to contour as well as blush
*Ulta Super Shiny gloss (there's no name on the tube *pout*)

Needless to say, I think I've fallen in love with this navy color! Definitely using it again!!!

I cook!

I'm a Jill of all trades. The wife asked me to make a stew with some gourmet meat we received. Here it is, in all its glory, waiting for the potatoes. I can't wait to dig into this!!!

ULTA Lipstick Swatches

So for Christmas, I received a really cool palette train case thing from ULTA. They don't have it on their site anymore, otherwise I would totally link to it.

It comes with a ton of eyeshadows, lipsticks and blushes/bronzers. This kit has made me able to step outside of my comfort zone and start wearing lipstick. I posted a photo to my Facebook, asking my friends if they liked my new lip color. The feedback was overwhelming! My best friend texted me later on in the day and said she loved the color. We were discussing my utter refusal to wear any form of red lipstick when I told her how amazing these lipsticks are. This led to my promising her I'd swatch the lip colors. :)

Now, in the palette itself you only get little tubs of the lipsticks (plus two bonus ones that I'm just not crazy about). There's not a whole lot of product in it, but it at least gives lipstick-phobes (like me! yay!) the ability to test drive different lip colors without the fear of commitment.

As far as the wear is concerned... I work in a salon, so I talk for 8+ hours a day. This means my mouth is moving a LOT, which means less wear time. If you work in an office where you don't have to talk as much as I do, however, you might get a little more wear. I got about 3 hours before I noticed fading. I was also drinking water and I had a bite to eat.

I really do like this lipstick, even if it's the first one I've worn in... umm... let's just say a while LOL. I am about 90% sure I'd invest in a full size, as long as I find the right color for me. :)

You can find them at your local ULTA or online at ulta's web store.

Here's a full shot of the colors in the palette:

Top row left to right:
Purple Reign, Sweet Pea, Sugar & Spice, Sangria
Middle row left to right:
Vintage Wine, Bit of Berry, Cappuccino, Red Carpet Red
Bottom row left to right:
Berry Pretty, Precious Pink, Dare to Bare, Coral Glow

Here they are, swatched on my arm. Please don't mind the random spatterings of haircolor on my arm. I'm a little sloppy when I'm mixing:

The colors are left to right:
Purple Reign, Sweet Pea, Sugar & Spice, Sangria, Vintage Wine, Bit of Berry, Cappuccino, Red Carpet Red, Berry Pretty, Precious Pink, Dare to Bare, Coral Glow

Neutral How-To

I was asked recently to create a look for a friend who wears OMG BRIGHT red glasses. Seriously, these glasses are pretty amazing. The only problem is, though, that when you have killer glasses, you can't pull off too many looks.

I asked her what her preferences were and she said she loves neutrals. My Urban Decay Naked Palette popped into mind (swatches can be found here).

I decided I wanted to take the neutral look one step further and showcase how you can take it from day to evening. This is a very simple and easy-to-wear look. Enjoy!

Products used:
Too Faced Shadow Insurance
MAC Matte Creme Primer
Urban Decay Naked Palette
Revlon Colorstay Foundation in Sand Beige
Bare Minerals mineral veil
No-name palettes for my blush and to fill in my brows
Ulta mauve lip gloss (it doesn't have a name on the outside, and mauve is the closest color it appears to be)
CoverGirl Lash Blast Mascara

Start by priming your eye:


Use a flat brush and apply "naked" all over lid:


Use a fluffy crease shader brush and fill in the crease with "buck":


Using the same fluffy crease shader brush, blend "half baked" above "buck". Also, use "virgin" to highlight underneath the brow:


Now, this should be where I took full face shots so you could all see the daytime look. I, however, fail at remembering things, and got really excited and kept going. So I'll just type out what I did next LOL.

I applied my foundation, powder, blush, filled in my brows, and put on mascara and lip gloss. This would be an awesome daytime look. Like I said, though, I got really excited at showing how you can take a daytime look to evening and went full speed ahead.

Take a brown pencil, line the upper lid close to the lashline, and smudge. Also, line water line, lower lashline and smudge as well:


Then take "darkhorse" and, using the flat shader brush, gently pat it all over lid (concentrate it more on the lashline) until you get the desired effect:


Apply a little more eyeliner, closer to the lashline, reapply mascara and voila!






Here's how it looks with glasses on, although mine aren't epicly bright. :)





I love this look! This is a really fast, easy look that can be dressed up or dressed down. This can be worn with any color lipstick. You can also use either a brightly colored eyeliner or an angled brush with a bright eyeshadow to bring a pop of color to the lower lashline. Have fun, enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Starting a new project

Happy New Year beauties!!!

I've always made resolutions that fell apart. I'm finally learning from past mistakes and not making a resolution that involves weight loss or anything even closely resembling it (although I did restart my Spark People account, but that's neither here nor there).

My one MAIN resolution this year is to finally follow through on something I've always wanted to do: a 365 Project! That's one photograph for every day of this year! See, a few years ago I received a beautiful Canon DSLR for my birthday. My partner was upset that I didn't really use it during 2011 and presented me with a challenge... I accepted, of course. :)

So here's the start to my 365 project... there will be one bonus photograph since it's a leap year. Enjoy!



(click to make it biggger)