Yo!
So… if you aren’t a Beauty insider, go to Sephora and sign up! It’s a free thing that earns you points for every dollar you spend which gets you fun stuff and awesome deals! So I’m sharing the latest deal with you! It is available 4/12-4/21 online with the code:CHIC
Talk to you soon!
Nikki
Well well well!!! It’s 2013!
2012 was such an amazing year for me and Matt, here are just a few of the most exciting things that have happened to us….
1. We opened a cafe!!
2. We did a 2 month cross country road trip!
3. We started a food/life blog
I am the happiest I have ever been and also the busiest. I have quite a few resolutions this year and I just wanted to document some of them here.
1. Blog more! My life has been such a mad house with catering and getting the cafe in order that I have neglected both of my blogs…. and I plan to prioritize my life and time better.
2. That leads to my next one…. stay more organized. With the craziness that my life has become I can tend to me a tad messy, we got stacks of receipts all over the house that need to be organized, my countless journals and calendars need to be put together, and my makeup area looks like a bomb went off on my desk. I just need some organization.
3. Matt and I will be starting cooking videos this year!! That has been in the plans since we started the blog and this year we want to bring it to life!
4. Start the house hunt……. scary!
I am so thankful for the life that we have created for ourselves, we are living our dream and I couldn’t be happier!
Mostly I’m thankful for my amazing husband. This morning I woke up and just looked at Matt and I can’t help but wonder how I ended up with such an amazing man, how am I the lucky one that he chose to spend his life with? He is perfect for me in every way, and I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for us!!!
So HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope everyone had a great 2012 and that 2013 is spectacular and everything you dream becomes a reality!
Nikki
Hello again! You should be proud… I spent these past couple of days working on blog related things, Mostly taking pictures of products and swatching stuff. So now it’s time to show you some things I’ve been trying and playing with lately… lets start with My newest Urban Decay palette the Deluxe shadow box.
This is an older box of shadows but I had been wanting this for Graffiti and Honey alone and couldn’t justify $40 for the whole set. Once the friends and family sale came along it’s the first thing I added to my cart. These “Deluxe” shadows are soft and velvety and I have been pleasantly surprised by the entire set and if I would have known how fantastic it was I would have paid full price a year ago.. oh well, I have it now and I’m so happy with it! On to the picture…
The outside is a lovely purple velvet and with a metal mesh type center. When you open the palette the magic happens
It’s not only the colors that make this a good palette the quality is really great. The shadows are all so buttery and the pigmentation is amazing.
Those are swatches in the shade with no primer. Here are the same swatches in direct sunlight.
You can’t quite capture the shimmer and beautiful sparkles with the photos… but trust me they are there!
I get a full 8 hours of wear without a primer and without creasing… awesome!
Overall I highly recommend this palette… there isn’t one fail here!
Nikki
I got a text the other day from my lovely friend Emily, she let me know that my blog was being neglected.. so here I am Emily!! Oh and side note…. check out her blog for home diy projects, and life stuff… AND because she’s pretty!
Ok on to the post, Let’s talk about Bath and Body works and their Slatkin & Co. candles. I am OBSESSED and it’s not just me…. I have seen like 10 videos (at least) from some of my favorite YouTubers in the past month alone on these fantastic candles, but why I adore them?
First of all I just LOVE candles and I always have, I guess I’m a pyromaniac at heart, I just love to watch them burn. Creepy? I like to make sure they burn evenly. I’ve been know to manipulate the wax and wick to make sure they look and burn perfect! I know I’m weird, but oh well. Not only are these candles beautiful but they are the only candles I have ever had that will actually spread their aroma through a good portion of my house, and what they say they smell like, they actually do. For example, the frosted cupcake candles, when burned, smells like you’ve been in the kitchen baking all day!
They are, in my opinion, far superior to the yankee candle, which are much more expensive and don’t hold the scent very well or for very long. Oh and just an FYI the 3 wick candles burn for anywhere from 35 to 45 hours! The next, and last, amazing thing about them is that the are on sale at least once a month from $20 each, to buy one get one free! With such a great deal so often, I’ve never paid full price for one!!
This is what I picked up on my last trip to Bath and body works….
Now thats a shopping problem, and I probably have double the amount stocked up just in case the world ends and things start smelling weird! JK, but seriously I will never run out!
They aren’t on sale at the moment but I do have a coupon code for you just in case you can’t wait for a sale. All of October just enter OCTBBW at check out on BathandBodyworks.com and recieve 20% off of your order!
*I am not affiliated with the company mentioned
Thanks for reading and happy burning!!!
Nikki
So last year I re-did my “newish” blog and now I’m doing it again. I swear one of these days I will get it right. At the moment I am loving gold sparkle, I’m usually anti gold but for the past few months (ever since my husband bought me an AMAZING seashell necklace)I have been obsessed with it. So I decided that a gold background fits at the moment! THEN, I had been using a stock photo for the macaroons and figured since I don’t make them enough to be such a huge spotlight on my header I removed them. Whats better to take their place but sprinkles! I took this picture and just lightened it crazy so it’s almost a blinding white. Lastly I LOVE my new font’s and sidebar. I got rid of my “networked blogs” area where people can keep track regularly through an app on Facebook, which I don’t think anyone actually uses, and I’m hoping bloglovin is enough. So thats that, I got a facelift.
So what else is new? Why haven’t I posted in 2 weeks? I opened a cafe!! Isn’t that crazy? Matt and I were given a life changing opportunity to move our catering company into a small cafe, so now we serve daily breakfast and lunch along with catering out of the kitchen and personal chefing (<—-thats not a word), we are beyond excited/tired! I am still as obsessed with all things girlie as ever so I have no intention on quitting my blog or youtube, I just had to take a mini break while we set everything up and got running! Thats all….
Well, thanks for reading! Until next time!
Nikki
On to mindless ramblings….
When I was little I wanted to be everything under the sun. I wanted to be a singer, dancer, business woman, magician, chef, salon owner, makeup artist, tattoo artist (even though I can’t draw to save my life), an author, gymnast, just everything. I’m still faced with that same question…. what do I want to be when I grow up? Well I’m 27, so I’m an old woman, with the same dreams to do everything! I have found a place in my self that I think I am happy with…. I do what I want when I want, this blog lets me play with makeup and write, I own a catering company, so I can cook, eat and play with food, but is having fun enough? I’m not rich by any means, I never know where we will be living in a month, and I’m not sure where my future will take me, but for now I’m happy living in the constant unknown! This post has nothing to do with anything except to say out loud that I am exactly where I want to be and proud to have tried so many things.
Are you happy with where you are now? Would you be willing to change it if you weren’t?
Nikki
I have been wanting to add book reviews to this blog for some time now… and here I am. I’m going to start with not 1 but 3 books that have gotten a tone of hype in the past couple of months, the erotic romance novel, Fifty Shade’s of Grey Trilogy by E.L James. These books have been called mommy porn, trash and poorly written, while on the other hand some people are saying that this is the perfect escape from a humdrum life, and the main reason for an upcoming baby boom. This is a love it or hate it book… how did I feel? I loved it, and I’ll tell you why soon enough, but if you are one of the few people who don’t know what this book is about let me enlighten you. Check out the authors website here, for the full book distributions.
The main characters are Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Ana, is described as innocent, stubborn and independent. Christian is a billionaire entrepreneur who is sexy, intimidating, and brilliant. He has a tortured past that he carries with him everyday and it has led him to a life of BDSM, initially he is a dominate looking for a submissive. When Ana doesn’t want to play by his rules, but still wants to be part of his life, the book twists and turns while Christian tries to control an uncontrollable woman. There are plenty of sex scenes as he leads an innocent virgin towards a life full of passion, which includes sex, some bondage, the occasional spanking and everything in-between. The thing I most enjoyed about these books are, just when you think that there isn’t any plot and the book is heading no where but the bedroom, the author throws something unexpected at you. There are funny parts, scary parts, sexy parts and boring too. My biggest issue with the book is that Ana continued to bring her “inner goddess” into play, she mentions her every time things heat up, her inner goddess wakes from her nap, her inner goddess shakes her head at her when she turns down sex, her inner goddess gets up from her chaise lounge and on and on. Aside from that small annoyance, I was entertained most of the time. By the end of the trilogy I was sad to say goodbye to Christian and Anastasia, and I think thats how you know if it’s good or not. They had both grown into better/different people throughout the books, while neither of them are ever portrayed as perfect it was still interesting to see the characters evolve.
These book are fun reads, if you are looking for a book to change your life then skip it, but if you want an entertaining read that you don’t need to think too much about then give it a try. They are, however, very adult, I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone who is extremely impressionable, women shouldn’t look to this book as a how-to when it comes to intimacy. Christian is a strange and complicated man and into things that aren’t for everyone. You wouldn’t want someone to get there hands on this and expect sex to turn into a beating.
I know people who thought this was a huge waste of time and just “silly” I also know plenty of women who found it as entertaining as I did. You might want to judge it for yourself. I’m giving this book 4 out of 5 hearts for the pure entertainment of it!
I hope you enjoyed my first installment of Glittereads! If you have any book suggestions for me I would love to hear them, I have plenty of space on my nook! Thanks for reading!
Nikki
