Ipsy Bag: July 2013

I have been subscribing to Ipsy since it they launched back in January of last year. I haven't posted any of the bags up until now, but I finally decided to keep a record of the awesomeness that is Ipsy.

This month I received the "On the Wild Side" addition of the Ipsy, which included a wonderful neon yellow and leopard print bag. Inside of that very fabulous wild bag was NYX Blush in Pecan, J. Cats Lashes and Cream Glitter Palette, Starlooks Lip Liner in Bare, Chella Highlighter Pencil. I really can't wait to see use the lashes, blush, and lip liner. These are all products that I am constantly looking for and adore. I am curious how the Pecan color from NYX will look. I'll post a video or photos of a look featuring these products later this week.

Must Have Summer Look 2013

  I have been on the search for the perfect summer look for a couple months now, and have finally chosen my favorite "must-have" products! I am pleased to present my list to you!

1. Kiehl's BB Cream - I received a sample of the Kiehl's BB cream for a girl's beach trip I went on a few weeks ago. I totally loved it! I wore it all day when we were on the beach and exposed to heavy amounts of sun. It also gives some of the best coverage I have seen from a BB Cream! Oh, and best part? There's 50 SPF in it!
2. Benefit's Tripe Performing Moisture - I work for Benefit Cosmetics so I find myself often playing with our products while at work (duh!). This is one of the best daily moisturizers that I have found. It's light weight and had the SPF we all search for during the summer!
3. Urban Decay Makeup Setting Spray - I found this lovely product at our local Sephora. It is great for the long days outside where you're going to be sweating and we can occasionally feel like our make up is "melting off". I tend to find setting it with an oil-control really helps prevent that unwanted shine we all hate.
4. Benefit's PosieTint - This is the easiest "waterproof" cheek/lip color for summer! It also comes in red (Benetint) and Coral (Cha Cha Tint). It's actually a cheek/lip flush so the color totally stays even after swimming, eating, pretty much whatever! It's ahhh-mazing!
5. Benefit's Sunbeam - A sunny bronze highlighter. This highlighter can be used in so many ways -- like mixing it with PosieTint for a glowing cheek/lip that lasts! You can also use it for a cheek highlighter on top of the cheek bone, or an eyeshadow...or a brow highlighter!! It's such an versatile product!
6. Lorac Tantalizer Bronzer and Highlighter Duo -  You always need to have a glowing sun kissed face, and Lorac is definitely a brand who delivers that great summer look. I love how the bronzer/highlighter goes really well on my cheeks.
7. Lorac Mint Edition Collection - This summer I am feeling very 60's/70's with my look, so I chose the Lorac Mint Edition to help bring a little vintage glam to the look, you can really spice it up or down. I just feel this palette and collection in general is very summer and fun.

Do you guys have any "must-have" summer products that I should know about? I'd love to hear your thoughts on what is your total vice!

Instagram 2.0

How's life been for me? Well, it has only involved a new car, working a lot, and possibly moving. Let's cross our fingers that life one will day smooth out, and I'll feel like blogging again. For now? Here's a snipet via instagram (@calciferscurse)  

Happy Valentine's Day

So I have been a little absent from this slice of the internet for a bit. We had a huge event at work for Fine One One, and we started planning the Mega Event for Fake Up at the end of March, so things have been a little crazy for me the last two weeks. But I don't mind, I could think of worst jobs to have - like killing puppies or cleaning up road kill, maybe even scrapping bunts from feet. Well now that I've ruined everyone's appetite, let me proceed with the Gigi's Cupcakes V and I got from our Valentine's day treat.

  We went to get cupcakes and to eat Japanese, I didn't take my camera in to the Japanese restaurant, since it was beginning to snow and the entire restaurant was packed. I thought it would be more of a hassle than something fun. Oh well, I got the memories anyways, and that's the most important part. I hope everyone had an awesome Valentine's day, stay tuned for some reviews I have coming up, once I have some free time. Pst, they're going to be awesome.

Peeving Out: 1

Today, in this epic edition of Peeving Out, I am going to let you in on one of my major peeves of the internet: Taking credit for something that you didn't create. You might be asking yourself what exactly that means, you edited the template to death and redid all the graphics to suit your liking - that makes it yours. Nope, try again there buddy. Still not yours. Did you build the framework? Did you design every aspect of your blog? Did you make those social media icons, or did you download from a freebie section of a website? Why the hush hush about where you found your resources? You might be wondering what brought this on. Why now Ashley? Why call people out? I was browsing through blogs, which I do almost daily, and I stumbled upon a website - I recognized the framework, but noticed the credit links in the footer had been removed. So, I navigated to the "Site/Domain" page of the website to check to see what child theme they used, alas no credit given at all. Funny enough? They have their own blog designing website where you can buy themes from them.   I mean really? How hard is it to give credit to someone who deserves it? I love using the Genesis Framework, and all the great options that come along with it. I also have a clear credit list under domain. Also, the ridiculous thing is, it doesn't make you less of a designer if you do use framework! Most companies who offered frameworks offer a license you can register and sell themes built with their framework! If you're going to use the framework for your personal use or professional, please give credit where it is due. Most places, like StudioPress, built the framework to be used, all they ask for is a little credit for giving you some awesome tools to succeed with. I wish you all the best of luck in your future design endeavors, you're going no where with that 'tude.

Day Off Adventures

Since starting a new job, things have been a little hectic - now that I mention it, things have been hectic since summer. But again, beside the point, for some reason I tend to that  more often than any average person. Anyways, the job has clogged up most of my weekends. Which, I don't really mind considering I am very happy with the job I am doing. But missing out on the time spent with V is a little hard to adjust too. I have spaced out my days off so we are able to spend some quality time together.

Yesterday, we chose to go to the Children's Museum, V actually woke up at the crack of dawn and was like "trick you going to take me to the museum or what?" Okay, technically those weren't her words but let's be real - at 6:30am that's what I am hearing. I made some waffles and we were off...

First we stopped by the alphabet room, and she played with some ducks. It was really hard to find an enjoyable area of the museum, I guess Thursdays are "bad days to go to the museum", there were at least 100 kids there. It was pretty chaotic, but we eventually found a quiet place where we could enjoy our time there.

We also found a lion, and check out V's sweet wispy hair! She probably needs a hair cut, but who has time for that? Not this gal. That's for sure. She had fun piling the lions on top of each other and pretending to ride them.

So, after we climbed a couple of bean stalks and V told me that the "giant" was actually a balloon and Mother Goose's golden egg. Obviously, my entire childhood memories were crushed upon learning this. We proceeded to the art room, which is literally the only quiet hub in the entire museum, I was thankfully my child is so artistic that she is satisfied sitting still in a room painting in a smock for an hour. After that, we had some snacks, played in the library and art room some more and called it a day.

Wondering what's going on today? Nothing really. A bunch of ice falling from the sky ruining my work schedule. I'm getting some extra days off, but not by choice. Grumble.

New Beginnings: Part One

Four years ago, I met V's dad. I can't really believe it's been four entire years, but it most definitely has. Since the day we met, my life has been an ever changing journey. I've gone from a crazy whimsical 20 year old girl who lived from bags and only thought about the future as some far off distant place, to someone who provides stability, comfort, and has goals to accomplish instead of dreaming life away. When I first found out I was pregnant with V, I was living in a two bedroom apartment with my previous room mate, working third shift as a cocktail waitress in a strip club, smoked cigarettes, made bad choices, only wore black and went to heavy metal shows. I was the ideal "scumbag" your parents probably warned you about at the lovely age of 19. When I met J he was in a band, touring with my room mate's boyfriend. I was unimpressed by him, but somehow he convinced me to go out with him. There isn't much of a romantic diabolical of a story there. I met him, we dated, we made a baby. Majority of the time I "dated" him, he was 4,000 miles away from me in California, making dating quite unusual. We would fly and visit each other, meet each other's families, etc. There was no importance to our relationship, it was toxic, unstable, cold, brash, and would have never worked. Did I see this at the time? No, otherwise this post would be extremely different than it is. Before things went from bad to even weirder and crazy dysfunctional - I peed on a stick as a joke, only to find this pregnancy "joke" wasn't too funny. After I told J that I was pregnant, things were wonderful for awhile. We contemplated all our options as a young couple who had been together for a brief time and were in a rocky place. We decided that the best option would be to have our child, and do the best we could. Things started out great, we made plans, were on the same page, everything was awesome. Then, something changed. I was in California visiting him for two weeks when we were sitting at his friend M's house. I asked what kind of plans we were going to be making as far as living arrangements went. I was already three months pregnant, it was time to make the choices on how/what we were going to do when it came to our baby. That was the day, my entire life changed. Not finding out I was pregnant, not telling him, but the day he decided it wasn't what he wanted anymore. When we left M's house that evening, things were different. I had a week left in my visit at his house, I slept in his sister's room and he didn't even speak to me. He drove me to the airport after a week of ignoring me, didn't even hug me, just drove away. It. Was. Over. There's a couple bumps in this tale but to save your brains the sanity, I'll exclude most of our relationship mishaps and focus on the new beginnings portion of this post and bypass a couple months of not even speaking to each other.   During the 5 months that J and I didn't speak, my room mate was a huge part of my support system. We bought V's crib, packed it away, put it in the car, etc. We set it all up, we made plans for a baby while J was in lala land somewhere pretending this entire relationship, baby, and "thing" hadn't happened. I prepared myself to do this alone, I went to all my appointments alone, faced all the adversity during this pregnancy alone. All and all, as happy as I am from the result, my pregnancy was an extremely depressing era of my life. Not only did my entire life change during that time frame, but my outlook, mind set, and what I expected from the opposite sex also changed. Eventually as the time set in closer, and J slowly emerged back into the picture demanding a paternity test and being 50 shades of sketchy/douche to me. He came, spent a week in my home (we moved into a larger starter house at that point, as seen above in that photo. Melrose was one of my favorite homes to date. We truly made that place our home). He stayed with us, ignored me, treated me as I was a lesser person. His mom even had the audacity after I spend all evening at 9 months pregnant cooking her a traditional southern dinner, to refuse to step foot into my house because it was small, didn't have central AC, and I didn't have a guest bedroom. Can we say I had too many red flags with it came to him at this point? Maybe if anyone actually reads this, I will continue with what happened after she was born and where another new beginning happened in my life.