Laughingly Ever After

First Impression – Bare Minerals

August 21, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 1 comment

I couldn’t stand it so yesterday when I got home I washed my face and immediately reapplied the new Bare Minerals BareSkin Pure Brightening Serum Foundation. I put 2 drops on my brush (I used the ELF Flat Top Kabuki) and started to buff it out.

Immediate first impression, yuck! I continued to try to buff the foundation in but I felt like it was clinging to the peachfuzz on my checks. Next I noticed it looked pretty streaky and was sitting in my pores. I buffed for a quite awhile and never really felt like the foundation was settling into my skin. I added 2 more drops to my brush and proceeded to do the rest of my face. My nose was still pretty red even after I’d finished. I tried to add a little more but it just sat in my pores.

I think this pic reflects how I felt the foundation actually looked. It’s super cakey and uneven.

Next I decided to add some concealer under my eyes. I’m currently using a Rimmel one that I really like (I like it better than my Mac Prolongwear). It’s not too heavy and doesn’t seem to crease too bad considering the lines I always have. The concealer sat and caked under my eyes. As you can see I didn’t use very much. I actually used a little less than I do on a normal basis.

I wore the foundation for the rest of the night and noticed that after an hour or so the foundation started wear and “melt” more into my skin. While it didn’t look bad, it didn’t look great. It actually just looked pretty greasy.

This is the foundation alone.

This is with powder.

In order to give this a fair shake, I decided to wear it to work this morning. I have to say the application this morning was a little better than yesterday afternoon but I only used one drop instead of two. I basically used one drop on each check, my forehead, nose and chin. I still wasn’t happy about the coverage or the feel. My under eye concealer did go on a little smoother today. That could be because I put it on a little more quickly. The foundation continued to feel tacky even after I applied powder. Lots of powder. I will say that from afar it didn’t look terrible this morning. The color is actually very nice. Honestly, that’s about the only good thing I can say about this foundation.

I know there are tons of people out there that love this foundation, and I really hoped I would be one of those people. Unfortunately, I’m not. For me peronally, this foundation is a huge miss! Again, I have naturally oily skin and uneven skin tone. I think if I had pretty flawless, normal skin I might be singing a different tune right now. I dislike this so much I will be taking it back to Ulta. I will be replacing it with the IT Cosmetics CC Cream. I’m hoping to have better results. I’ll do a first impression of this one too incase anyone is interested.

Finally!!!!!!

August 20, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 0 Comment

I’m so excited I seriously might go home, wash my face, and apply new makeup! Eeekkkkk!

So. Darn. Excited!

August 19, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 1 comment

A few months ago Bare Minerals came out with their very first liquid foundation, the bareSkin Pure Brightening Serum Foundation. Needless to say, I have been DYING to try this stuff but due to my recent foundation swapping Matt would kill me if I bought something else so I’ve waited. Add to that the fact that we are now in hard core save mode and I thought I would be waiting a while longer before I got my hands on this bad boy but alas, tomorrow it will be mine!!!! I volunteered to do some testing at work which will give me a $25.00 gift card. My testing is from 11-12 and I will immediately drive over to Ulta to buy my new foundation.

I’ve watched numerous tutorials/reviews on Youtube and read numerous reviews online. For the most part, it seems like people love this stuff. But there are the few who don’t like it. I know no product is everyone going to please everyone and that’s okay. I just really hope I fall in the love category. I currently LOVE my Lumi but it doesn’t have tons of staying power plus it seems like make me oilier now that summer is here. But really, we all know I just love makeup. I can’t help it. 😉

My plan is to try my new BM foundation on Thursday so as long as work isn’t too busy I will write an initial review on Friday. I would like to write a follow up review about a week after that as I’ve seen some people say you need to give it a chance and find what works for you. So we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Superhero Subway Art

August 13, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 1 comment

I found this pic on my phone over the weekend and realized I never actually posted the final product. Whomp whomp. Even worse, it was like a year ago. Oopsy.

Backstory, a friend was having a baby and decided to do a superhero themed nursery. In true Kelly fashion, I decided to make her something. I decided on subway art with superhero slogans. I was lucky we were pretty slow at work so I was able to work on my project in my free time. (I like to work on crafts at work, shh, don’t tell. 😉 ) First I had to figure out what slogans I could use. There were a few I knew but I had to research quite a lot to finally get enough to fill the space. In the end I used 16 slogans. I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy find that many that I thought were appropriate and short. I think my subway art turned out really well considering.

I also decided to customize the Superman logo and change it from an “S” to a “D”. Baby’s name started with a D. 🙂 It’s been so long I honestly can’t remember how I did this. I either found the image on a Google search or I used an online tool to change it. I can’t believe I can’t remember. Anyway, I made it work.

I just ordered more fabric the other day to make another baby blanket for a coworker. This will be my 5th one? I’m pretty excited about the fabric I got. This will be my second girl one. I’ll post some pics when I get finished. I feel like my baby blankets are getting better, and I am getting much faster. The process now takes me about an hour from start to finish. That includes cutting, pinning and sewing.

#curlyhairdontcare

August 8, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 0 Comment

After I burnt the hell out of my hands trying to curl my hair I went and got it cut. In the process my stylist added more layers. I normally have a decent amount of layers in my hair but the last haircut, we cut some of them out and went with a few long layers. Long layers aren’t really good for helping my hair curl. Well on Saturday, I showered and then went downstairs to eat some breakfast. This turned into me sitting on the couch interneting for a while too. By the time I got upstairs to put on my make-up and dry my hair, my hair was almost dry. And curly. Like really curly. So I went with it. I hit my roots with some heat and straighten out my bangs. I then added a little water in a few spots that were a little less curly. What’dya know? I have curly hair again! So explain to me why I’ve been burning the shit out of my hands trying to curl it? HAHA!

My hair used to curl like this all the time a few years ago. It was affectionately named my “porn hair” several years ago. I’m not sure what it is about me with curly hair but men seem to like it, a lot. To the point of being a little creepy. (My husband is excluded from this group.) Anyway, I stopped wearing it curly for a really long time, mainly because a coworker always make comments when I wore that way. Said co-worker no longer works with me so it doesn’t really matter anymore. I feel like I might start to wear my hair curlier now. I’m kind of ready for a change but cutting my hair is not an option. I’ve worked too hard to get it as long as it so currently. It’s probably close to as long as it’s ever been. YAY!!! So curly hair is the one thing I can do that is a change without going shorter.

curly hair — This is from 2007. I love these waves.

Curling Iron = 1, Kelly = 1

July 31, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 1 comment

The other day I decided to try and curl my hair. It was getting kind of late and I put minimal effort into it. I’d done my homework, watching numerous Youtube videos, and thought I could do it. Several really bad burns later I ditched my effort with only about half my hair done. It didn’t look great and my finger was hurting pretty bad.

About 10 mins after my failed attempt I looked down and noticed I had a nice blister forming on my finger. BOOO! 🙁

I was kind of bummed over my failed attempt but decided to give it another go on Saturday. Matt and I didn’t have any plans so I figured if it flopped it was no big deal. Much to my surprise, it actually turned out pretty well! AND I managed to not burn the hell out of my hand this time. After the first try I really thought about what I was doing and realized I should be holding my curling iron differently. You see, I’m using my curling iron as a curling wand since I think it’s ridiculous to buy a wand when my curling iron will do basically the same thing. I figured out that for the right side of my head I should hold the iron/wand with my left hand and wrap the hair around with my right hand and vice versa for the other side. YAY! (Sometimes I can be smart!)

This is my burn a few days later. Hello scar!

Too much of a good thing?

July 28, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 0 Comment

A few months ago my skin was super dry. I’d seen a few Youtubers raving about L’oreal Lumi foundation but at the time I’d just spent $45.00 on some Stila foundation. I knew Matt would not be happy about me wanting to try something else. I was chatting with my mom one day and she mentioned she had some Lumi that she’d bought and only used a few times. The next time I saw her she gave me the Lumi to try. I immediately fell in love but the color she had was a little dark so I had to buy more in the correct shade. Now that summer is here I’m back to the darker shade mom gave me.

Anyway, the problem now is that my skin is back to it’s old oily self. Add foundation that has tons of hydration and well, yeah. I bought some Rimmel Stay Matte powder but that didn’t help. Next I decided to try some stay matte primer. I’d heard about the Rimmel Stay Matte primer on Youtube and for $5.00 decided to give it a go. Um, needless to say, it did NOT work, like at all. I tried it first on Saturday over my regular moisturizer and I still was pretty oily in a matter of a few hours. I figured I didn’t really give it a good shot so on Sunday I skipped the moisturizer and used it alone. A few hours later I was back to oily. The problem is that I LOVE my Lumi! I love the finish, and I love the coverage. Overall, I’m a fan!

This morning I mixed in some of my Clinique BB cream and I decided to use some of my Dewy Finish Setting Spray by NYX. My face doesn’t currently feel like an oil slick and I’m going on a few hours of wear. I must admit that I have already lightly blotted my face but it wasn’t terrible. The look on Matt’s face when I sprayed my newly applied makeup was pretty priceless. He was like “WTH are you doing?” HAHA! Boys!

I feel like the last few months have been one continuous foundation hunt after another. If my skin isn’t dry, it’s oily or vice versa. Maybe one day I’ll find a happy medium.

Meet baby G!

July 22, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 4 comments

It’s been about a month since my cousin K had her baby. Baby G was born on Father’s Day. Mom went to stay with K and her husband for about a week right after G was born. I decided to go see G while mom was there. I figured I could give her and K a break, and possibly a nap, while I was there. G was only 3 days old when I went to visit and he was adorable. It actually worked out well because I had a dentist appointment that had been scheduled for a while so I went to that and then headed to Greensboro for the day.

I got there in time to pack everyone in the car so we could take G to his first doctor’s appointment. He did wonderful, of course! We grabbed some lunch and Starbucks on our way home. When we got back G nursed for a little while and once he was good and sleepy we put him in his bouncy chair so I could take some pics. I set up in the foyer and snapped away. I had hoped to get some naked baby pics but he was being so good we left him how he was.

So yeah, it’s been like a month and in true slacker fashion, I just NOW edited his pics. They actually turned out better than I had hoped. In all fairness, my personal laptop is such a huge PITA that I HATE doing anything on it. Had I been able to edit them on my work laptop they would have been done 3 weeks ago. Anyway, it’s a pain and I hate using my laptop so it takes forever when I need to do stuff like this. One day maybe I’ll convince Matt to either let me start using his Mac or I’ll just buy a small, cheap laptop that I can use for editing only. We’ll see I guess.

Here are a few of my faves. I’ve been trying to upload them to my photography website all morning but keep running into time out issues. I’ll post the link but currently there are only a few pics up.

http://www.kellysuzannephotography.com/?gallery=gavin

It’s beginning!

July 17, 2014 mrs_ellyk Comments 0 Comment

House hunting is in full swing for the new Casa de E. Matt is finally on-board with buying a new house but he is insistent we put down 20%. Ya’ll that’s A LOT of money! Lucky for us our current financial obligations aren’t terrible and we are able to save a good bit of money each month. We currently have almost 10% saved. Only 10% more to go! We talked the other day and have decided to save as much as possible over the next 6 months. This should put us pretty close to our goal when you add in what we will get for our current house. Knowing we have a plan, and a timeframe make me happy.

Along with the house hunt comes a list of items we need to upgrade or fix in our current home. A few items on the list include:

Redoing our deck
Replacing the back door that goes out to the deck
Replacing the flooring in the kitchen and both upstairs bathrooms
Painting both upstairs bathrooms

There are quite a few smaller items that need to be addressed too but these are the big ones. Over the past couple of years we have painted the house and replaced the carpet. Though I am currently very unhappy with Empire! Our carpet is barely 2 years old and we’ve already had to call them once to come and restretch several areas. I’ve been playing phone tag with a customer service rep since last week to fix the carpet again. I guess we got what we paid for because I feel like they did a pretty crappy job! I’ve never had issues with carpet until now. I will not use them again if and when we need to replace carpeting!

For now, I will continue my daily house hunt even though we aren’t quite ready yet.