3 Ways to Wear the Same Braid

I've teamed up with Jenny Strebe of Confessions of a Hairstylist to help promote her YouTube channel full of awesome hairstyle tutorials! She is such an inspiration to me for all things - hair! Her latest video features three braided styles. I chose to share my version of the first one, the braided crown, because I love the bohemian look of it... makes me think of summertime. Ahhh... warm weather, golden-glowing skin (which I have the opposite of right now), and wavy, textured hair... like when you've spent the day at the beach! Yesssss.

For this style and more, subscribe to Jenny's YouTube channel here.....

Beauty Haul

I have a lot of special event and commercial hair and makeup sessions coming up, so yesterday, I went out to restock the beauty products that I use for these occasions. Now, I know that high-end makeup, which I use at these sessions, obviously performs much better than drugstore beauty products. One reason being, the companies usually pay much more attention to ingredients and pigments. It does get very pricey, though (even with my MUA and cosmetologist discounts)! So I am always on the look-out for affordable "drugstore" products that are comparable to high-end makeup brands. Here are a few inexpensive gems that I found during my shopping trip...

Left: NYX jumbo lip pencil in "Pecan" and "Chaos". These lip colors glide on so smoothly and add just the perfect pop of color!

Right: Maybelline Color Tattoo eyeshadow in "Tough as Taupe". This shadow really does last 24 hours! I never really use cream shadows because of how they tend to cake up in the crease of my eyelids. But to my surprise, this cream shadow does not crease at all... and I've been wearing it all day! I'm definitely impressed!

Left: Baby Lips balm in "Strike a Rose". I love the sweet smell and semi-sheer red pigment of this balm. However, it doesn't last as long as it says. At least not on me. I decided to just wear it for the color and still have my regular chapstick underneath it. Perfect!

Right: Sephora 12hr (waterproof) jumbo liner in "Beige". It. Does. Not. Budge. Seriously, I almost couldn't get it off even with a makeup remover wipe... and that's what I was hoping for! A+ for that, my friends. This particular color is really pretty too. I like to wear earth tone hues on my eyes, and this is a gorgeous natural color with just enough shimmer to brighten my eyes. I literally just flirtatiously fluttered my lashes while I typed that. 

This is what the Color Tattoo cream eyeshadow and Sephora jumbo liner look like.  I really love to mix matte shades with shimmery colors! These blended wonderfully.

Kevin.Murphy Anti.Gravity.Spray: This product is an exception to the affordable treasures in this beauty haul (i.e. It's a bit pricey). I ordered it a few weeks ago for myself, along with a shipment of other products I bought for the salon, and just had to share it. This product is great for pretty much any hair type! It adds sooo much volume. I posted a picture on Instagram the other day of my massive hair after using this product and blowdrying my hair. It was pretty intense.

Aside from giving incredible volume, this spray contains large amounts of vitamin C and E which adds shine, helps promote hair growth, and reconditions dry, damaged hair! So yeah, it's a miracle product. 

Nails Inc. gel effect polish: These days, I neeeeverrrr paint my nails. Partly because I'm lazy, and mostly because the polish chips almost immediately! And it definitely doesn't help that my hands are in water, chemicals, and products every day at work. It's quite frustrating... so unless I get a salon gel manicure (who has the time for that?!), I don't even bother. Anyway, as I was perusing the nail colors section in Sephora yesterday, I ran across this line of nail lacquer! It's not technically gel polish, but it's gel-like. It contains plasticizing agents that give it more durability, and you don't have to cure it under UV light! For me, it lasted about twice as long as regular polish, and that was without applying the Nails Inc. gel effect topcoat. I'm sure it would've lasted much longer had I bought the topcoat.

So tell me, have you ever used any of these products? What did you think about them?

New Items in the Shop!

I just recently added a few adorable pieces to my Etsy shop! Lockets, acrylic kitty pendants, and the cutest, little rings.. Oh my! Everything in the shop is under $25 right now. Go check it out! Just click the banner above^^^^^

Safari Zoo Adventure

This past Sunday, Cody and I took a day trip to the Tennessee Safari Park. It was so much fun! We got to drive through the first part of the tour, which was about two and a half miles of gravel road surrounded by all kinds of animals.. from llamas and deer, to donkeys and ostriches!  For most of the way, we were followed (or chased) by tons of ostriches and emus! They were very greedy and didn't want to let the other animals get any food from us. Though the giant ostriches were really cute, they packed a powerful punch with their huge beaks! I tried to feed one, and he nearly took my finger off! 

Needless to say, and despite their best efforts, they didn't get anymore feed from us on that trip. After a while of not getting any of that feed, the ostriches got angry and started to hiss at and scare off the other animals! 

The second half of the park tour, we got to walk around and pet some of the animals. The petting zoo area was covered in peacocks! Everywhere we looked, there would be several of them just hanging out. They didn't like to be touched so we just tried to sneak up as close as possible and pose for pictures. I caught one of them in the act of trying to attract a lady peacock by displaying his feathers! That little guy was determined to get a girlfriend. 

The sheep and pygmy goats were so excited and eager to be fed.. pushing and head-butting each other out of the way! One little baby goat found a hole in the fence and climbed out to hang out with us! He was the cutest and cuddly-est little thing! 

We also saw a tiny, white newborn goat who had to have been born within the past couple hours before we got there! When we saw him, he was just learning to use his long, gangley legs.

I had so much fun exploring this little zoo! It was the best day trip I've taken in a while. If you live anywhere near it, I highly recommend giving it a visit. Among the animals I mentioned, this zoo also cares for and breeds several endangered and extinct (in the wild) animals. So that's a good reason in itself to give them some support!

Adventure Time!

This is quite a long post because sooo much has happened in the past week! This will also explain my little hiatus from the blog. First of all, last Wednesday, we surprised Cody with a trip to Atlanta for his birthday! We also planned to take him to see Imagine Dragons... who were incredible live. I was very impressed. Anyway, we planned and kept this huge birthday secret for over a month! Cody was told that he would be taking a two day work trip to Jackson to shoot a commercial. So he packed some clothes and got ready for this "work trip". That morning, Josh and Cody walked into a conference room to have a short "pre-production meeting" before the "work trip". Much to sweet, little Cody's surprise, we were all sitting around the conference table with the tickets to the show! He was SO excited and completely shocked! It was really cute :) We stayed in Atlanta that night, and much of the next day. On our way back, we stopped in Birmingham for dinner. Whilst driving through the streets of Birmingham, we passed this AMAZING rainbow tunnel! There was just no way we could pass that up!

 After being back home for only a day, we set out on the road again! This time, Nashville. Cody and Josh went to a filmmaking workshop while Mary Meghan and I shopped, hung out with some old friends, and ate delicious food! We stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel resort which was incredible!! Even though it was raining and snowing outside, you'd never know it, because of the massive tropical atriums inside the hotel!! There were beautiful waterfalls, giant palm trees, and a river full of koi fish. The hotel has nearly 3,000 rooms and 15 restaurants! It was pretty crazy.

We ended up getting iced in the morning we were supposed to leave (yesterday). However, by mid-afternoon, we finally decided to brave the dangerous roads and make the trek home. Though the roads were mostly clear by the time we set out, there were so many smashed cars on the sides of the road from that morning! Some people were just a little too brave.

Halfway home, we pulled into a rest stop for a potty break and of course, to play in the snow!! Play time was very short-lived because the amount of coldness outweighed the fun factor. 

So that's the super awesome way I got to spend the past week!! It truly is a wonderful life.