Lipstick: Q & A

So, I finally received a question on one of my product posts and I was thrilled for the chance to do some research!! Here is the question I received:

Q. I know you've posted about lipstick before, but any you recommend? I'm so fair (and unlike you don't have dark hair or eyes to offset it), and also really hate the feel of traditional lipstick...any great lipsticks for fair people that feels more like chapstick you could recommend?

A. I had to look into this one a bit since I tend to go more for the drier lipsticks just because I like to know they'll stay put. However, I have come up with a few options! I went by the Clinique counter at the mall because I wanted to look at the colors of their Almost Lipsticks. Well, much to my surprise, they don't make them anymore, with the exception of their best-selling Black Honey. Since you are a fair-skinned, redhead, that's not the color for you. I asked them if they had come out with anything else that was on the sheer and soft side. She showed me two options that I think you should check out.

One was their Chubby Sticks. It's like a lipgloss/balm in a stick but it still has a good amount of color to it. The color I bought (well, of course I bought one for myself!) and that you'd probably want too is called Mega Melon. It draws on like a thick lip pencil but it glides on with the feeling of a balm. It's color can be sheer or you can build it up as you keep drawing. To really make it subtle, blend it out with your finger after just one layer. Even though it's in pencil form, you can roll the tip up and down so there's no need to sharpen it.

Second is their Butter Shine lipsticks. I have had one in the past and they feel heavenly when you put them on. I think they look even glossier on than the Chubby Stick. There are a lot more colors in the Butter Shine than the stick so you'll need to go to your Clinique counter and have them help you find the perfect shade.

For a drugstore option, Cover Girl has just come out with new NatureLuxe Gloss Balms. They give sheer color with a bit of shine and they contain mango and shea butter to make them extra soft. For you, I would recommend checking out the colors coral and cinnamon. Since they are CoverGirl, they'll be about half the price of the Clinique but you can't try the colors on before you buy to make sure they are perfect. Just something to keep in mind.
Happy shopping!!! I hope this helped!!!

If you have any product questions, please ask away!!! If I don't know the answer I'll find someone who does!

Scrumptious Potato Dish & Yummy Carrot Cake

I have a couple of friends who post recipes regularly on their blogs and I love that......so I'm stealing the idea! I created a Hayden's Heroes cookbook as a fundraiser for the CF Foundation and it has all of my favorite recipes in it plus those of family and friends. I think that once a week I will plan to post a recipe from the book that we have tried and love.

I thought I'd post a couple of my favorite Easter recipes. I realize that it probably would have been more helpful if I had shared these a little earlier than the night before Easter. Sorry. I have pregnant brain and apparently can't think that far ahead.

This first recipe is for Sinful Potatoes and it is, hands-down, my favorite side dish. I could literally eat an entire 8x8 pan by myself as a my main meal. You can make it for any kind of meal - it goes with everything- but it's especially yummy with ham so my mom prepared it a lot for Easter lunches.

Sinful Potatoes

1 2lb. pkg. frozen O'Brien potatoes, thawed

1/2 c. melted margarine or butter

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

2 c. sour cream

unseasoned bread crumbs

1. Combine all ingredients, except bread crumbs in a large bowl. 2. Spread into a 9x13 baking dish. Cover entire surface with bread crumbs. 3. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

This next recipe is for a really yummy and moist carrot cake. I make this every year for Easter and decorate the top with some small turquoise ceramic eggs that belonged to my Nana.

Carrot Cake

4 eggs

1 1/4 c. vegetable oil

2 c. white sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

3 c. grated carrots

1 c. chopped pecans

Frosting:

1/2 c. butter, softened

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

4 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two round cake pans; set aside. 2. Beat together eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. 3. Stir in carrots; fold in pecans. 4. Bake 40-50 minutes.

Frosting:

Combine all frosting ingredients but pecans and beat until smooth and creamy. Stir in pecans. Frost cake once cooled.

I hope everyone has a Happy and Blessed Easter tomorrow!

Hayden's Heroes!

Every year we have the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Great Strides walk. Nationally, this is the foundation's largest fundraiser. We created the Hayden's Heroes team in honor of our daughter almost five years ago, right after she was born. Every year we have so much fun gathering with friends and supporting this foundation that I am confident will soon find Hayden's cure. There are two different oral pills in the final stages of development right now that will add decades to the lives of people with CF. Because of these drugs, science books will need to be re-written where CF in concerned. We are so close and none of this would have been possible without donations to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. They are the only foundation that can say they take 90 cents of every dollar donated and put it straight to medical research. If you would like to make a donation on Hayden's behalf, please do so at our Great Strides homepage here:

www.cff.org/Great_Strides/alyssasiler

Something else I'm excited about is our Hayden's Heroes merchandise store I started on cafepress.com last year. I've added a lot of new products this year - even IPhone 3G and 4 cases. Below are just an example of some of the products we have in the store. A portion of the profits goes directly to the CF Foundation. We'd love for you to become a Hero and wear around your support of Hayden! Visit the store here:

www.cafepress.com/haydensheroes

To all my friends of the pasty variety...

(Note: I have changed the word in my title back and forth between "pasty" and "pastey" because I have no clue which one is correct. I asked my mother how to spell it and her first answer was "Alyssa". Ha ha, mom. She then replied that it should be "pasty" and as an example she said "haste" turns into "hasty". So there you have it. If it's wrong...blame my mom.)

If you are a fair maiden like me (make that extremely fair, in my case), then you know it can be kinda hard to find the perfect blush color. You have to find the perfect halfway mark between too much color and not enough.

All you glowing, tan people have always made me so jealous in the fact that you can wear no makeup and have the "fresh faced" look. If I wear no makeup people ask me if I'm feeling ok because I look ill. For a pale gal to get the "natural, fresh" look, we have to actually apply makeup skillfully enough for it to look like we aren't wearing any. We MUST have color on our cheeks. Even if I wear nothing else but a bit of mascara, I will always have blush on.

Up until this past year I have always searched for THE color. Everything I tried was either too hot pink, too peachy, or just not pigmented enough for me to bother with it. I was lamenting this fact to my friend Anthony at my local Dillards Bobbi Brown counter. He informed me that Bobbi had made a blush specifically for pale people. WHAAATTT???? How had I not known about this???? He then swept her Illuminating Bronzing Powder in Antiqua on my cheeks and I was in love.

I'm not posting a pic of it because I don't think the color on the website looks anything like my actual bronzer. It's a beautiful peachy-pink with a hint of shimmer. It doesn't have too much shimmer though so you can wear it every month of the year. It doesn't scream summer, and I don't even think of it as a bronzer because it's so unlike any bronzer I've ever seen or used. It has the perfect amount of pigment so it shows up without overpowering your face. It is $33 which is more than I usually ever pay for blush but I've had it a year - using it every day - and I still have plenty of it. In my opinion it's worth it.

If you live in the OKC area, you can find Bobbi at the Penn Square Dillards or at Balliets on the Classen Curve. You can also order it online, of course. Enjoy!!!

You and Me

I've never been a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. Sure, I think I owned one cd of his back in the day and I've always enjoyed the saxophone on the song "Ants Marching", but I've never tried desperately to get concert tickets and I've never even downloaded one of his songs on ITunes......until now that is. I was driving along this past week when a relatively new (I assume) song of his came on satellite radio. The words touched me and I immediately thought of my husband. It's called "You and Me". I didn't spend tons of time paying attention to the verses but the simple chorus lyrics are

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby

You and me together, yes, yes.

Ryan and I have been through quite a bit together. I know that there are certainly other couples that have been through so much more than we have, but I do feel we've been thrown some curveballs in our eight years of marriage.

We have a child with a chronic life-threatening disease. Cystic fibrosis is a part of our everyday lives. There are times when it is very challenging and scary but I will never forget what Ryan said to me just hours after Hayden's official diagnoses came through. He made a decision for us that we were not going to be a "woe is me" family. We weren't going to go through life acting like Debbie Downers and feeling sorry for ourselves. Furthermore, we certainly weren't going to raise Hayden with that mindset. We were going to hold our heads high and, through our faith in God, our support from family, friends, and each other, we were going to stay positive. We were going to give Hayden as normal a life as possible while giving her every chance to succeed in a life that would already provide many challenges. I have forever been thankful that he stepped up and made that decision for our family in that very trying time. And I think that's another reason I love this song. There is a line that says:

And when the kids are old enough we're going to teach them to fly.

Isn't that what every parent wants for their children. To raise them with such love and support that they can grow up to be confident enough to fly - to soar, even- toward their goals in life. I want my children to belive there are no boundaries to what they can accomplish if they work hard and put their minds to it.

In addition to facing the CF diagnosis together, we have supported each other through times of anxiety and depression, the loss of a parent, the loss of many grandparents, the loss of a job and the ensuing job search, and the list goes on and on. Together we have made it through it all, standing side-by-side, loving each other more and more with every trial. I truly believe that, like the song says,........ together, he and I can do anything. Just try to stop us...........

Painted Chevron Rug

Ok, friends. Pu-LEASE tell me you follow the blog Tater Tots and Jello!!! She has some of the greatest craft and decorating ideas. EVER. Well, maybe I should actually hope that you don't follow her because, if you do, this post will be redundant. Oh well, it's too good not to share! Read her post in detail to get all the info. I WILL be making one of these as soon as I finish my Kiki Creates wreath. I'm just not sure if I want to make one for my entryway or for the nursery. Hmmmmmm. Decisions, decisions.

Painted Chevron Rug from TaterTots and Jello

The Nursery Plans (thus far)

Ok, so I'm a planner. I start planning things like Hayden's birthday parties (Pink Poodle theme this summer) and what she's going to wear for Halloween waaaaayyyyyy before it is necessary. You combine that with the fact that I live for an excuse to re-decorate and, OF COURSE, I'm going to have the nursery planned at only 14 weeks into pregnancy! So when we found out a couple weeks ago that we are having a boy! (Ian Bradford. We, of course, already had that picked out going in!) I immediately started pulling together ideas. Well, ok. If I'm honest, I'd already picked out some bedding I liked a couple weeks before our ultrasound. :)The thing is, it was custom bedding and, the more I thought about it, I really didn't want to pay almost $400 for crib bedding. I knew I could use that money in other areas of the room. So this past week I started combing the internet searcing for something else I liked. I want this room to be on the modern side with dark walls and white furniture. Here is what I found and what I have come up with so far: (click on the links to visit the websites and see things in better detail)

Mod Dot bedding from SkipHop

My plan is to paint the chair rail in the room white to match the white crib and trim and then paint the walls the color of the darkest dot. I order the fabric swatch card because in the pic I can't really tell if that color is chocolate or dark grey or a dark grey-ish brown. Whatever it is, I'll match it.

Below the chair rail I am going to paint an over-sized argyle pattern with some of the other colors found in the bedding. I can't wait to get started on that project! I will painting the dresser we have the blue color and then glazing it and adding colorful knobs. Should be super cute and should stand out against the dark walls and other white furniture pieces.

Ok, here's where I have been having fun.....what to hang on the walls?????? Etsy to the resue!!!!

This is what I have found on Etsy to hang over the dresser. They come unfinished but I will paint all of them differently in the colors of the room. Some solid, some with pattern. Then I will hang them in a big collage. I've seen it done on an HGTV show one time and it looks adorable.

From the Etsy shop Bornagainfurniture

Next is what I'm pretty sure will be my favorite part of the room once it is completed. I found 8 different modern-ish prints in different Etsy shops that I absolutely LOVE!!! They will customized to the colors in the bedding so they all match. Some will be 8x10 and some will be 11x14 but they will all be in the same modern, white frame. I am going to hang them in a collage above the crib. Here they are..... again click on the shop links to check out their other items.

From AppleBlossomPrint

From AppleBlossomPrint

From AddigailDesigns

From AddigailDesigns From sugarfresh

From PosterPop

From AppleBlossomPrint

From Chaiv

So that's the main stuff so far. I need to find fabrics for curtain valances, rocking chair cushions, pillows, etc. along with lots of little details. But, considering I have until Oct. 1st, I think I'm doing pretty good on time. :)

Yummiest Mac 'N' Cheese Ever!

Talk about comfort food!!! This recipe for homemade mac 'n' cheese is divine! I found it on Martha Stewart's website so I knew it would be good. This recipe is for a 9x13 pan but I found it made waaayyy more than our family of three could eat. The next time I made it, I cut the recipe in half and did a square pan. You could also make it for a side dish but we had it as the main course with some french bread and fresh salad. Enjoy!!!

4 T. butter, plus more for baking dish
coarse salt and ground black pepper
3 c. elbow macaroni
2 (12 oz.) cans evaporated milk
1/3 c. skim milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. seasoning salt
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
2 (8 0z.) packages extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated (I used the finely shredded and it was fine)
1 (8 oz.) monterey jack cheese, grated (again, I used finely shredded colby-jack) paprika

Directions:
1. Butter a 9x13 baking dish. Prepare macaroni according to directions; drain and stir in butter until melted.
2. Whisk together evaporated milk, skim milk and eggs. Add seasoning salt, garlic powder, 1tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper. In another large bowl, combine cheeses.
3. Place 1/3 of the macaroni into pan, place 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat two more times. Once layers are complete, pour milk mixture over the top. Sprinkle with paprika.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes.

Adorable Spring/Summer Wreaths!

I MUST make one (or both) of these wreaths!!! They are from the blog Kiki Creates and are absolutely darling. In my opinion they are perfect for Spring and Summer. Now I just have to decided which wreath to copy first! If you like craft projects, you'll definitely want to check her blog out. Click on the pics to visit her blog for more details.

I'm off now to find a tutorial on how to make rosettes..........

Edited to add: Well, I didn't have to go very far in my search. She has a tutorial right on her blog for how to make the rosettes. Check it out HERE.