It's October!

Hey y'all!
The year is just flying by!  I cannot believe it is the first day of October!!!! Today is quite a special day! My husband and I are celebrating our 3 year anniversary.  I couldn't be happier or luckier to have him in my life! :)

Now that I'm done with the sappy stuff, I'll get to the topic at hand!

This morning as I was trying to decide what to wear, I realized there is an important topic that needs to be discussed, mixing prints!  For a good majority of my life, I would not have mixed prints.  I also wore a lot of sweatpants, basketball shorts, and hoodies, so some things have definitely changed for the better!  Now that I'm "all grown up", I have ventured out into the land of fashion and mixed it up.  There are a few do's and don't's for mixing prints.


Do 

Mix small & large!
If you want some balance when you mix your prints you should know that large patterns go with small.  Why is that, you ask? 

Don't

Pair the same size patterns. 
Well when you wear two patterns of the same size they lose something.  If you pair them, nothing will "stand out"!  

While I stand by what I'm saying, you do not have to follow these do's and don't's, you should have fun and do things the way you want!   I will try my best not to judge you! ;)

A few more tips about mixing prints/patterns:

1. Leopard goes with everything!  My favorite print to add to an outfit is leopard.

2. Offset floral prints with polka dots!

3. Polka dots & stripes work.

4. Gingham print serves as a great base to any outfit!

Personally, my favorite combination is plaid and leopard.  I love to add just a pop of leopard, whether it be a leopard flat or scarf, when I'm wearing a plaid piece!

Sometimes ONE pattern just isn't enough! Ha!

See you soon!

XOXO.

Mani Monday

Hey y'all! 

I don't know about y'all, but my weekend was pretty dull.  We spent the majority of it watching sports (which I love, don't get me wrong!) and just hanging at home.  

My plan for the weekend was shopping so I could do a "haul" post, but alas, life happened, and shopping did not.  So today I thought I'd talk about nails.  Monday's can be pretty miserable and I know how much my day can improve if I'm having a good hair day or if my nails look good, so here are a few of my favorite manicures! :)

It's playoff time!  I've tried not to be too overwhelming with my sports talk, but I am a HUGE sports fan!  Growing up, I was always watching baseball with my family, my husband played college baseball, we had a baseball themed wedding, basically we love baseball! Ha!  I love all sports, but I have a stronger love for baseball.  It's almost October, playoffs are starting this week, so it only seemed right to show this mani/pedi! 

This was probably my favorite homemade manicure.  I'm not good with nail art, so I'm pretty proud of how they turned out!  I will admit that my husband got in on making this successful.  I'm left handed, so the stitching shown on my hand he actually did!  I couldn't get my right hand steady enough to even try so he took one for the team and drew them!  Such a sweetheart! :)

The red color is a polish that I do not actually own anymore, I believe it was Sally Hansen! The white is Essie Nail Lacquer in Blanc #008.  I got it at Target for around $8.

This is perfect for Christmas! This was before I cleaned up around my nails, so I apologize for just how TERRIBLE the quality of my nails are in this photo, but it really is a great look! I wore this look a lot last winter, I just loved the touch of gold!  I have never really liked golds but after wearing it on my nails, I started to venture out and wear it a lot more! :)

The red color is OPI An Affair In Red Square.  I bought it last winter at Kroger for $8.  The gold color is Salon Perfect in Gold Sparkle.  I bought it at Wal-Mart for $4.  I normally am a bit of a nail polish snob, but I am a huge fan of this polish!  It went on great and it wasn't as difficult to get off as most glitter polishes are.  It was definitely worth every penny!

 Last one!  This is actually my most recent paint job.  I love the shiny blue color that this polish leaves, however I wanted a more polished finish.  I got to bust out my OPI Matte Top Coat and I LOVE the way this turned out!  I tend to paint my nails darker colors, blue, deep reds, blacks, etc. and sometimes the matte finish just looks so great on those dark shades!

This is not one of my best posts guys! I promise tomorrow I will try to do better, but when life happens, sometimes you just have to adjust and go with what you got! :)

See you soon!

XOXO.

Fall Favorites Day 2

I'm back folks!

I'm going to cover my fall favorites in the beauty department today. :) 

My current favorite product actually came by way of my first Birchbox.  I'm constantly moisturizing my lips, and when I saw that there was ChapStick in my box, I was so excited!  And I must say that I am really enjoying the double ended stick, with the different formulas for daytime and nighttime.  I do prefer the nighttime formula, and I have included it into my daily and nightly routine! :)

Amazeballs.

Speaking of my nightly routine, I make sure to clean my face every night, and the product I've recently been using is Clean & Clear Deep Action Cream Cleanser.  I LOVE how clean my face feels after I've used it, and my face has really cleared up.  I know that it's difficult to really suggest a cleanser because everyone has different skin, but for me, it really seems to be working.  I also like to use Pond's Wet Cleansing Towellettes Evening Soothe.  They have an amazing scent!  The first day I used them, when I laid down my husband immediately commented on "how good my face smelled". Ha!  They really are incredible, especially if I wore makeup during that day.  I got both of these products at Target, but I'm pretty sure you can find these products at any drugstore!

While I know that these weren't really "fall" items, keeping your face clean is pretty important! ;)

Now that I've talked about how I clean the makeup off my face, let's talk about fall makeup! I cannot stress enough that, as much as I love high end beauty products, I just can't afford them.  So the products I will be talking about will typically be drugstore.  I do occasionally talk myself into the higher end products....I really have no will power.

I'm only going to discuss a couple different makeup products for this particular post.  Lipsticks are my absolute favorite beauty product, so hopefully I don't spend too much time with them, but I make NO promises y'all! 

There are SO many options for eye shadows out there!  I am such a big fan of Morphe Brushes eye shadows, however, the fall colors I wanted to order are out of stock. :(  Now, the amazing thing about their shadows is that they are each $2.  Pretty awesome!  As I mentioned, I do typically buy my beauty products at the the drugstore, and Revlon is one of my favorite brands!  Their PhotoReady Primer, Shadow & Sparkle palettes are some of the best!  My favorites in these are Impressionist and Avant Garde.  I also like the ColorStay 16 Hour Eye Shadow in the shade Decadent.  

Avant Garde

Impressionist

Decadent

Now for blushes!  I love NYX blushes.  For the fall, I like using a cool pink shade, however I like any pink shade when it comes to blush!  When referring to NYX blushes, I like the shades Peach, Dusty Rose, Pinky, and Angel.

Angel

Dusty Rose

Pinky

Peach

Onto my final, and most favorite part of makeup, LIPSTICK! :)  First, I'll talk about my favorite Revlon product.  The Revlon Lip Butter's are so moisturizing and go on so smooth.  The one that I tend to be gravitating to is the shade Sugar Plum.  It has a plum tint to it and I love the deeper hues during the fall.  NYX Matte Lipsticks are another of my favorites! The shades Alabama, Perfect Red, and Siren are, in my opinion, the best! I like using matte lipsticks because I can add a gloss to give a glisten, or leave the matte alone and it is still a beautiful result! 

Sugar Plum

Alabama

Perfect Red 

Siren

Lastly, I'm going to discuss a product that I recently ordered online.  I'd never heard of Gerard Cosmetics until I started watching Jaclyn Hill videos.  If you haven't heard of her, here's a link to her YouTube channel. She created a lipstick similar to what we've seen on Kylie Jenner recently, and also 2 glosses.  I am a HUGE fan of these products, but my favorite is definitely the lipstick, 1995.  I was a little worried about ordering lip products online, and from a company that I didn't know much about, but it was worth it!  The glosses, Rose Hill & Butter Cream, are also great, I do not usually wear glosses but I find myself grabbing them when I want to add a little something more to my lips.

LOVE

Check My Friend's Blog!
I've talked about my favorite makeup products, but I'm going to do a plug for my best friend's makeup blog because there are many things that I just won't cover here!  While I may be able to tell you my favorite products, she can help you out with how to wear it! :) Her name is Lauren Stratton.  Check her page out here!  I can tell you from experience, she is pretty dang good at what she does!!

I'm going to end my fall favorites with nail polishes!  OPI polishes may cost a little extra, but I love them!  The colors I'm loving for this fall are You Don't Know Jacques (which I discussed in a previous post), Black Cherry Chutney, and Unfor-Greta-bly Blue.  Black Cherry Chutney was originally from a Spring 2008 line and I actually found it in the clearance section of Ulta along with the Unfor-Greta-bly Blue which is from the Germany collection - Fall 2012.  While I may have only spent $3 a piece on them, they work great for this season! I have got to say, I think I'm getting my money's worth with those!  

I'm also loving my OPI Matte Top Coat.  It's nice to be able to use a top coat to make a matte finish to my nails, because sometimes I don't necessarily want the shine!

Also, I cannot always afford to get my nails done.  I tend to do my own nails now, however I do have trouble keeping polish on.  So I started looking into a way to get a "gel manicure" without the costs and found Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat (which I found at Sally's Beauty Supply).  I just do a couple layers before the polish then finish with a top coat, and it stays on until I want to make a change!

You Don't Know Jacques 

Black Cherry Chutney 

Unfor-Greta-bly Blue

Gel Coat

I believe I've FINALLY finished my fall favorites.  If you made it through all of that, I'm so sorry I just kept going and going. 

If anyone has any any topics they'd like me to discuss, I'd love y'all's input! Just leave a comment below and I'll do my best to make sure I cover whatever topics y'all are interested in! 

See you soon!

XOXO.