Sunny Side Up!

Image courtesy of the website. I really liked this sunscreen from 3rd Rock. It is cruelty-free and reef safe which is awesome. The only thing is that it is $25 USD ($34 CAD) and they charged about $15 USD ($20 CAD) to ship it. So in all, I paid $55 for this sunscreen!! Going forward, I want to find a less expensive product that is vegan, cruelty-free and reef safe here in Canada. The sunblocks that are reef safe are harder to find and generally more expensive than run-of-fhe-mill branded products, but there has got to be something out there cheaper than $55!! So although I enjoyed this product, it loses points for its price.  Cheers!  

We are starting new renovations next week on our Master Bedroom and our second bedroom which we use as a home office. Our bedroom plans are to change the current paint colour to a calming deep teal green. We also plan to update our baseboards to a fancier style and to add crown moulding. We want to style our bedroom to feel like a Boutique Hotel in Banff, AB. We are getting our closets redone. We are getting built-ins installed by California Closets. I have included a CAD mock-up of the plans for both mine and my husband's closets. Bedroom before: The CAD mock-up for my new closet: Our plans for our office are to also be repainted. The colour will be a couple of shades lighter than the bedroom colour.  We are also changing the baseboards to match the ones in the bedroom, but we are not getting crown moulding due to the bulkhead.  My husband will have a smaller desk and the TV will be wall mounted. We will add a darker wood cabinet within which we can store books and craft mate...

I came across this book by Lisa Bennett on the Internet, and I am enjoying the easy and tasty recipes inside. Now, I do make some of my own modifications to the recipes if I do not like one or more of the ingredients, like avocados for instance. I like Guacamole, but not plain avocado. The recipe I am sharing today is actually listed under Breakfasts, but it can be made for lunch as well. Egg Salad Ingredients: 8 eggs, hard boiled, peeled and cut into wedges 1/4 cup onion, chopped 3 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half 1/2 package of strip bacon, crisply cooked Juice of 2 lemons 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped Pinch of salt and black pepper Directions: In a salad bowl, mix the bacon with the eggs, onion, tomatoes, salt, pepper, parsley, and lemon juice. toss well and serve for breakfast Stay tuned to my blog for more easy recipes coming soon!

Today I am sharing the items I am adding to my year-round basic wardrobe for the month of March.  I am working through my clothing to see which items will stay and be added to my four seasonal boxes, of which I will "shop" from every time I want to change things up in my wardrobe. For the next while I will be creating monthly capsule wardrobes that include my year-round basics and different additions each month. I am starting this project a bit late but it will go on until I have fully curated a wardrobe that represents my colour palette  and also my three style words: Mellow, Fine and Gaiety. These style words represent how I want to feel when I get dressed...comfortable, polished and fun!! Now, let's see what I am adding for my March Capsule: The Clothing items include:  Camouflage Dress Olive Leggings Chambray Button-down Shirt Kelly Green Button-down Shirt Striped Tank-top Floral Top Green Patterned T-shirt Navy and Grey Baseball T-shirt For Shoes I have: Black Wedge-...

Today I am sharing my guide to  "Lazy Girls Glam Makeup". I use just one to two eyeshadows and a glitter topper (the glam part). This was my Valentine's Day makeup look: After applying my morning skin care products, I prime my face with my Too Faced Primed & Peachy Cooling Matte Skin Perfecting Primer (discontinued). Then I prime my eyelids and inner corner with my Physician's Formula Matte Eye Primer (discontinued).  My foundation is The Ordinary Colours Coverage Foundation in 2.0N mixed with AOA Studio PawPaw Liquid Illuminator in After Glow, spread with my AOA Studio Beauty Sponge . Then I apply my AOA Studio PawPaw Liquid Concealer in Light Ivory to the centre of my forehead, tip of my nose, inner corners of my eyes, cupids bow and tip of my chin with the AOA Studio E122 brush . Then I blend into the foundation with the same sponge. To cover blemishes and discolouration on my cheeks, I apply my same concealer product, but in Sand applied with the same brush....

Today I am sharing my empty of the Dead Sea Collection Collagen Anti-Aging Day Cream that I purchased at Dollarama to mix with my original Urban Decay Naked Foundation (why it has a tint to it). This was an awesome moisturizing cream on its own accord, but it absolutely saved the Urban Decay foundation (mentioned above) from being decluttered because it looked so dry and crappy on my skin. When my foundation no longer pumped out of the bottle, I added it to the cream in the tub and mixed them together, as I had been doing on my metal palette. I knew because I was planning to mix a cream with my foundation, I did not want to spend a lot of money. However, I did not expect that for $4, it would be so nice!! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find it at a few of the Dollarama stores I frequent here in my city.  They only get so much skin care items as it is, and most of them are masks or cleansers. I do not know of any retailers that normally carry Dead Sea Collection products off...

 In 2022 I decided to go on a No-Buy for all of 2023 for makeup, clothes, jewelry and skincare. For clothing and skincare, it is a replacements only no-buy (RONB) and for makeup and jewelry, it is an absolute no-buy. As we have been planning to get our closets redesigned by California Closets this year, it became clear to me that I have wayyyyyy too many garments of clothing and pieces of jewelry. I already knew I had way too much makeup, but because it took up less space it didn't occur to me to worry about it...until now.  In past declutters, I rashly gave away a lot of clothes and makeup which triggered me to accumulate even more...so this time when I declutter, I will do it slowly and make sure I will not miss what I am decluttering. And at the same time, I decided to not purchase any makeup or jewelry this year and only buy replacements for clothing (because white things...and underwear) and skincare. So far I have done well in January. I have not purchased anything that ...

 Hey there!! Today i want to share with you my favourite products from January!! Okay a couple of them may be a cheat because they are my Holy Grail items and will always be a favourite! Let me first share my skin care faves...which includes my cheat items: Let's start with my two Holy Grail (HG) products: The AOA Skin Green Tea + Vitamin E Cleansing Balm from Shop Miss A and SpaScriptions Glacier Water that I get at Dollarama here in Canada. I have backups of these products so that I can have them for awhile. It's been getting harder to find the Glacier Water, and shipping from Shop Miss A has been terrible to be frank...so I may have to find alternatives, but hopefully not for a good while.  The Ordinary 100% Cold Pressed Rose Hip Oil is not quite an HG product yet, but it is pretty close. I will update you when that happens. I have a Vit. C Serum from AOA Studio that I want to try to compare to it. The price is decent and the shipping from Deciem or Sephora is much better r...

 Today I am sharing my 10 Piece Year-Round Basics Capsule Wardrobe.  To be clear, these are not the only things I wear all year, I do add other pieces to wear as well. This year, because I had my colour analysis done, I am going to create monthly capsules around my basics to get some final wear on some items that do not fit into my colour palette. Two weeks ago I did a post about getting my colours done and you can click the link above to read that post and see what my palette is. Now to show what my basic year-round wardrobe consists of. Tops: 1. Black Hi-Low Sweater (old favourite): The back hem is lower than the front and is a nice light sweater great for layering. 2. White Button-down Shirt from Shezia: A boxier fit which is what I prefer to fitted options. 3. Black T-shirt from Buttercream Clothing, a Canadian slow-fashion brand: A simple, boxy fit top with a boatneck style "collar". 4. White V-neck T-shirt from Old Navy: not much needs to be said about this one. 5. Blac...

It is a good day for an empties review!! Today it is the Batiste Instant Hair Refresh Clean & Classic Original Dry Shampoo.  I really do like this product. I haven't seen it at Dollarama lately so may have to check Costco again to see if they still carry it. Right now I am using a different brand but it doesn't add as much texture to my hair as this brand does so there is definitely room in my arsenal for this product if I find it at Costco.  However, I am currently doing a Project No-Buy, and although it technically does not include hair products, I still want to get through some of my other products before purchasing anything new...unless this product is discontinued and there is no chance of getting it once all the stock is gone. So, yes I will repurchase this product again in the future, just not right away.  Cheers!!

For my birthday this past year I asked my husband to get me a colour consultation with a lady I have followed on YouTube for over four years.  Image courtesy of @useless_dk on Instagram Her name is Signe Hansen of www.uselesswardrobe.dk   and she is a certified stylist and colour consultant. Because I had already been following and corresponding with her in the past, I wanted to support her and get my colour consultation with her. I did have to do it virtually over Zoom because she lives in Denmark! You are probably familiar with "Colour Me Beautiful" colour draping services. However, it has really evolved over the years. I first heard about it in the 1980's when it used to divide each of us into different colour seasons based on our skin tone, hair and eye colour. Now it is more nuanced and there are more groupings that are more based on tones, shades and saturation of colour than just the four seasons. I sent Signe pictures of me in natural light, both with and without ...

Image Courtesy of Google and Freepik Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary to my Blog!! This Blog is a year old and I have some plans for this year! I want to add fun and easy recipes this year, as well as, more renovation and decor content. We are renovating our bedrooms this year and I will post before/after pics this coming Spring! I will continue to post product reviews, and more makeup looks as well. If there is anything else you would like me to post about, please do let me know in the comments section.  Otherwise, I look forward to another year of creating fun and thought provoking posts for you, my lovely audience!! Cheers!!  

 Happy Holidays!! Today I am sharing my easy makeup looks for the holiday season. Both looks use only 1-3 shadows/glitter. Look #1 Bronze Babe: On eyes: Pat McGrath Shadow in Bronzed Mink, from the Celestial Nirvana 5 Shadow Palette in Bronze Bliss. In the inner corner I added Copper Pressed Glitter from Teayason. I love a one-shadow look 90% of the time. Sometimes I will use two shadows or a shadow and a glitter. There is the odd time when I will use three shades/media on my eyelids. Look #2 Green and Gorgeous: For this look I used the Viseart Petit Fours palette in Peridot. I used  Greenlight all over the eyelid over and above the crease. Then I added Gimlet to the middle of my lid and inner corner. This is a quick way to get a the look of a halo eye but without the fuss. On my brow bone I used my Starburst Highlight from the Anastasia Beverly Hills Sugarglow palette. I used my project pan products on the rest of my face: Face Primer is the e.l.f. Poreless Putty Primer; Eye ...

  From Door to Windows, I had great fun decking my halls!!   A simple wreath and vase filled with fun twigs and berries to welcome guests at the front door.  More rustic decor in the candle holder from PartyLite and an up-cycled candle holder originally from Bath and Body Works wrapped with twine. The rustic decorations are from Costco. An old gold stocking hung under the window sill and some cute Santa figurines from Dollarama. Our tree all decorated with old and new decorations from a variety of stores. The tree itself is from Canadian Tire. The large Nutcracker I got from a performance of the iconic ballet. The smaller one is from Dollarama. A hurricane filled with Christmas bobbles and twinkle lights and two plaid placemats under the wine tree and glass tray. This Santa figurine was purchased from Home Depot. This Santa Figurine was made for me by my Mom, so extra special! And of course, I couldn't forget to add some Christmas to our powder room! How do you like to de...

Christmas Decorations outside the Edmonton Legislature Building. The tradition of decorating the tree for Christmas was said to have started in Germany with Martin Luther:  "Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles" ( history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees ). Ancient Egyptians would fill their homes with green palm rushes to symbolize the God Ra's triumph over death (at the solstice). Early Romans would decorate their homes with evergreen boughs to celebrate the feast of Saturnalia, to commemorate Saturn, the God of Agriculture. Finally, the Druids decorated their temples with evergreen boughs at the Winter Solstice as a symbol of everlasting life ( history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees ). Whether honouring the solstice or the God o...

The Rustic Maka Luna Bliss Natural Deodorant is baking soda free and contains charcoal and magnesium. It is a round container, rather than the usual oval shape, and the deodorant is wound up from the base. This product worked just fine but I did not like how soft it was, nor how messy it was. It was grey in colour because of the charcoal ingredient. It was softer than usual deodorant sticks and it melted when it came in contact with the heat of my skin. Due to this softness, the stick would be better kept in a cool environment such as a fridge. Unless you own a skincare fridge, it would be rather inconvenient to keep it in a standard fridge in the kitchen. The rim would often get covered in the grey deodorant and just looked unsavoury. I received this deodorant in a Petit Vour subscription box and it is both a clean and cruelty free product. In spite of this, I would not purchase this deodorant again due to the messiness of it.  Have you tried this deordorant? What did you think of...

In this post I will share what I plan to pan in 2023; Some of them which I don't manage to finish this year, as well as new products that will replace those products. Let's start with the products I would start with primers: The e.l.f. Poreless Putty Primer is what I am currently panning; Once I am done with this primer I will work on the e.l.f. Prep & Hydrate Balm.  Now let's look at foundations:  The Ordinary Colours Foundation is only about half finished. I predict that I will be about 3/4 finished by the end of this year. Once I finish it, I will start using the CoverGirl Clean Liquid Foundation until it is used up. That will probably take me most, if not all, of next year to finish. Concealers: Two more e.l.f. products: The 16HR Camo Concealer in Fair Beige is too light to use all over my face but I use it in the places that I want to brighten. I don't use a lot of it and so I think it will last not only the rest of this year but most of next year as well. I do...