Quick Look: New Years Eve

Happy almost New Year everyone!!! I just wanted to post the makeup I am wearing tonight. I am having a pretty low key New Years Eve with a couple of friends and my boyfriend, but I still wanted to do some fun makeup.

I decided on a smokey navy blue eye and some bright teal lipstick. The lipstick shade is Lobotomy from Impulse cosmetics. I actually did a full face contour for once. I honestly don't see the point normally, but it was a special occasion, so why not. You can't really tell in the pictures very much though. I never really bother contouring my nose though. It's kind of big but I like it so I leave it alone, but I did my cheeks, temples and forehead and along my jawline. I kept the blush pretty light.

This was just a quick post, as I'm busy tonight. I hope you liked it. Everyone have a fun, safe New Years Eve!!!

Fresh Semolina Pasta

This isn't makeup related, but no one had any complaints last time I posted about food so today I have another! For Christmas my parents bought me a pasta roller and cutter attachment for my big 5qt Kitchenaid stand mixer. The other day my parents also decided to clean out their freezer and found several large bags of red fife and semolina flour, which they didn't want so I took home. I knew fresh semolina pasta was destined to be made! My boyfriend and I had some free time last night so we decided it was pasta making time.

I will give you a quick recipe and a rundown of how we did it, in case anyone else wants to try this. It really is worth it, the pasta you get is so much fresher and tastier and the texture is amazing!

Here is a link to the recipe I used. It was from Allrecipes and looked like the best recipe that incorporated semolina. I have made tons of pasta before but never with semolina flour. For those of you that don't know, My boyfriend and I both took a year of culinary school and hope to be chefs some day. Well I hope to run my own bakery but he wants to be a chef. One class I took was teaching us to make large volumes of food for catering and whatnot, and I spent many days in that class making piles and piles of fresh pasta to sell in the school restaurant as lasagna. Anyways, on to the recipe.

Ingredients:
2cup semolina flour
2cups all purpose flour
6 large eggs
2tbsp oil
Pasta roller/cutter (optional use rolling pin and knif e otherwise)
Stand mixer with dough hook attachment (also optional, but makes 10 minutes of kneading way easier!)

Now for the instructions. I took a lot of pictures of this for you guys, but please be kind since my kitchen is extremely small and kind of messy. I did my best to keep clutter out of the pictures, but it was hard!

The first thing to do is put all of the flour and salt in your mixing bowl and make a well in the centre of it. If not using a stand mixer to this on a lat clean surface with no bowl, just pile on the flour and make a well for the wet ingredients in the middle. Next crack the eggs into the middle and add the oil.

Next mix the ingredients together with the paddle attachment slowly until it starts to form a ball. If using the tabletop method, use a fork and slowly start mixing from the centre occasionally pulling in flour from the edges. If you are doing it this way you will eventually have to switch to using your hands. This is what it should look like:

Ok now it is time to knead! If your dough looks any drier than mine at this point add a few extra drops of oil. Next add the dough hook arm to your mixer, or get ready for a serious workout! You need to knead this for about 8-10 minutes on a medium low setting. As you knead it it should start to soften up and get somewhat elastic feeling. It should look like this:

Then, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. If it is still feeling hard after the 30 minutes leave it a bit longer. You want it to soften up a lot while it sits.

At this point we normally start making our pasta sauce while we wait. I completely forgot to take pictures of this part. I have a really easy from scratch recipe for a spaghetti meat sauce that I have made and I will include it at the end since that is what we made.

Ok once the dough is ready it is time to start rolling it out. You want to break off smaller hand sized pieces from your big dough ball to work with and keep the rest tightly wrapped so it doesn't dry out. Set up the pasta roller and dust the top of it with a little bit of semolina flour to keep the pasta from sticking in it.

To start set the pasta roller to the largest setting, which should be number 1. flatten your hunk of dough slightly and feed it through the machine. Fold in half and feed it through on the same setting for a few times. Now change the setting to 2 and feed it through once, each time making the size 1 number smaller. Eventually it should start looking like this:

Once you have reached the thickness that you want cut the pasta sheet to the lengths you want and feed it through your pasta cutter attachment. We stopped at #6, which is still quite thin. We decided to try the linguini cutter. I also got a spaghetti cutter but we thought we had made it too thin for that. After cutting it we laid it all out on a clean broom handle that was across 2 chairs.

We cooked some of this pasta almost immediately for dinner, which only took about 1 minute dropped into boiling water. The rest we left to dry until they were less sticky but still bendy. Then we formed them into little nests for storing and left them on a plate to dry completely.

Now for a really simple pasta sauce!

Ingredients:
1 can crushed tomatoes, 1 can diced tomatoes (I prefer no salt added varieties)
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1lb ground beef
2 Bay leaves
Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme, red chili flakes
Salt, pepper
If you are looking for a vegetarian version add more onion, as well as carrot and red pepper instead of the beef.

Fry the onion and garlic in a frying pan until lightly browned then add the ground beef. While that is cooking pour the cans of tomatoes into a big pot and add all the spices. When ground beef looks mostly cooked add the contents of the frying pan into the tomatoes. Bring to a boil and then turn down to low heat and let simmer for 30 minutes. That is it, a very easy meat sauce!

So, that was it for my recipe! I hope you enjoyed it and will maybe give it a try!

Quick Look: Smokey Green

This is just a really quick look. I've been pretty busy over the holidays and haven't had much to post. The only lazy day I had I didn't even want to put makeup on so I didn't get a post finished then either. Oh well. This is just a quick smokey eye with green and gold. I used Impulse Cosmetics' Oil Slick all over the lid and then used some colours from my BH Cosmetics 120 Shimmer palette. On my cheeks is Benefit's Sheer Cream Blusher in "Ooh..." and on my lips is a nude gloss from BH Cosmetics. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I have done a bit of shopping for myself the past few days too with my Christmas money! Most of them weren't during any boxing day sales, for some reason most makeup companies don't seem to do that... I have just placed orders with Glamour Doll Eyes, Lunatick Cosmetics Labs and a cute Etsy clothing store that I will be mentioning soon. I also have orders on their way from ELF and Star Crushed Minerals as well as another exciting package that should be here any day now! I know, I have spoilt myself rotten, but it has been an extremely stressful season for me and I think I deserve a few pretty things. So, there will be many review posts and unboxings in the near future!

I might not have many posts over the next few days, but keep your eyes peeled for everything I have coming up soon! How was everyone's holiday? Have you been doing any boxing day shopping?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Holidays to those of you not celebrating today. The Yule Bock says Merry Christmas too! I hope everyone else has had as fabulous a day as I have! It's almost over and I am completely exhausted.

I tried to get a good shot of the tree, but this the best you will get. My adorable dog is in the frame though!

I started off opening a few presents at home with my boyfriend before the day got too crazy. We didn't exchange presents this year though. Instead we are going to go pick a board game or something to do when we get bored for ourselves. There is a fairly simple strategy game called Hive that we have our eyes on right now.

After that I went to my parents' house for gifts and breakfast with my family, while my boyfriend went to his parents' place to do the same. I then went and joined them for a brunch and some of the afternoon before my boyfriend had to head to work. That is when I went back to my parents' for the rest of the evening. We had a delicious turkey dinner and a yule log cake for dessert that my mom made, as well as all the mince meat tarts you could eat. We ended the day lazing around watching the Doctor Who marathon together, too full to move.

I don't really want to do a Christmas haul post or anything, but here are a few pictures of some of my favourite presents:

The top picture has a few kitchen things: A book on candy making, a new pasta roller and cutter set to fit my Kitchenaid Mixer, and a silicone baking mat. If you can't tell already, when I'm not doing makeup I am in the kitchen. I have taken a year of culinary school already and have my sights set on baking courses next. The next picture is of the Sephora + Pantone Universe Colour of The Year Collection. I have wanted this for a long time now and am really pleased someone managed to get it for me! I will have a full review of that up soon. The final picture is of an awesome jar of wonderful wild mushroom my brother found for me. I am a nerdy mushroom forager in warmer months and love eating new, weird mushrooms, so I thought this was really special. I have no idea what I will be putting this mushroom mix into yet, but I can't wait to eat them!

Even though my day was so hectic, I still had a great time and I am glad I got to see everyone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go fall into a deep, tryptophan coma. I will leave you with one last, heartfelt Merry Christmas! Let me know what you did today in the comments!

Quick Look: Red Red Wine

I got that song stuck in my head this morning while doing my makeup..... For some reason dark reds and burgundies are never a colour I normally grab for. I use these colours pretty much exclusively around Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know why, but I don't really like them for any other time of year. It is almost Christmas though, so I decided to do a lovely burgundy smokey eye with my BH Cosmetics 120 Shimmer Palette. This palette is great for the holidays. There are so many festive shimmery and metallic colours. Now I did this while running out the door to work, and the pictures were unfortunately not taken until I got home 10 hours later, so please excuse my tired face.

This is an accurate picture of how well my makeup tends to stay throughout the day. I think it lasts quite well except I am starting to look a bit tired around the eyes. This is the Annabelle Skin True foundation I mentioned in my last haul. I will have a full review of it up ASAP, because it is amazing stuff! The eyeshadow is also more red and less brown in real life. I did start the day off with a nude lipgloss too, but that wore off halfway through.

Well, that's it for this look, sorry it was so rushed! The Christmas craziness will be over soon and I will have more time for makeup.

Quick Look: Bronze Holiday Look

This is the look I wore tonight to a Christmas party with my boyfriend's family. I decided on a few bronzy shades from my BH Cosmetics 120 Shimmer Palette. I also used MAC's Well Put Together eyeshadow as my eyeliner. I used my new Clump Crusher mascara and a bright red from BH Cosmetics on my cheeks. I decided to make this a full blown metallic look with Impulse Cosmetics Metaluxe Metllic Lipstick in Texas Tea.

I was really intimidated by Texas Tea the first time I tried it on, but it is growing on me! I only used a very small amount. Literally I put one swipe on my upper lip, rubbed them together and was done. I didn't want my lips to be too intense with everything else going on.

Well, that's it for the look! This was a really easy one to do but it still looked really festive with all the metallics.

Haul: Drugstore Makeup

This is the lovely view from my kitchen window this morning.... UGH! It has been snowing for a few days straight now, and that only added a layer to what was already underneath.... It seems to have finally stopped though. I am not looking forward to getting to work today.

Anyways, on to makeup stuff. I went shopping the yesterday with my mom and got to do a little mini drugstore haul. I picked up a couple of necessary things, and a couple extras.

My main reason for needing to go to the drugstore was actually because I am almost out of foundation again. That's right, just a month after getting my Maybelline Fit Me Shine Free Foundation Stick it is almost completely gone!!! This is really disappointing since I loved the formula. I just have a hard time paying for something like that knowing it will only last that long. Has anyone else tried this and found the same thing happen? Am I just using too much? Anyways, I decided to go back to my old favourite, the Annabelle Skin True foundation. This stuff is amazing, and if you haven't tried it yet, a great affordable foundation. I will have a full review of it up soon. I got the lightest shade which is natural ivory. This also came with a trial bottle of their CC cream. I'm pretty excited to see how this performs compared to the foundation. I will also do a review of that once I try it.

The next thing I needed was some under eye concealer since my Rimmel concealer is running out. I decided to try the Maybelline Dream Lumi Touch Highlighting Concealer. I have heard some good things about this one. I got the shade Ivory. I will give you my thoughts once I try it!

Next I got some Duo Lash glue. I still haven't tried any of those eyelashes I got from Amazon and now I can! I decided on the one that dries black so I won't have to go over any eyeliner once I apply it.

Finally, I decided to get a Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick since they were all on sale for 50% off. I decided on the shade Violet Frenzy because another blogger, Aaliyah from Shadow Liner Girl, had done such a great review on it and it looked gorgeous. This is a really pretty semi sheer berry shade. I love it! You can put a light layer on, or build it up for a super purple lip. It has a nice sheen to it without being shimmery and feels moisturizing on the lips. I don't own enough berry shades and this is a perfect addition to my lipstick collection.

Well, that's it for my little drugstore haul! It wasn't very big, but so far I'm pleased with everything I got. I also did an H&M haul that I am planning on posting soon, so look forward to that, along with some reviews on the products here!

Quick Look: Agent X And Frosty Eyes

This is a really quick look because most people who commented on my last post wanted to see Agent X in action. I'm really sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I have been sort of sick for the past few days. I have a new medication now but it is making me extremely groggy and sleepy all day. So, until that effect wears off, there might not be so many posts. I just honestly haven't even felt like putting makeup on the past few days.

Today I went to the mall with my mom though to pick up some Christmas presents, so I attempted to doll myself up a bit. I used MAC Chillproof all over the lid and a very light brown from BH Cosmetics in my crease. I did a fairly thick line of Hard Candy's liquid eyeliner on the top lid as well as tightlining with Sigma's Boost eye pencil. Then I applied my new Covergirl Clump Crusher mascara. The lips, of course, are Agent X be Impulse Cosmetics.

Please ignore the terrible hair. I'll be honest, I don't even have an excuse. I just couldn't be bothered today. I'm also not sure where my hairbrush got to.... These aren't things I feel I should be admitting. Anyways, I really love Agent X! It is such a gorgeous colour that looks either forest green or teal green depending on the lighting.

On the plus side, I got in a little mini drug store haul as well as a pretty sweet H&M haul that my awesome mom was kind enough to buy me. I will have posts up with that stuff soon.

Alright, that's it for today. Hopefully I will be better soon and back to doing almost daily posts. I hope you like this look, even though it was pretty rushed.

Impulse Cosmetics Haul/Review!

My Impulse Cosmetics package finally came the other day and I am so excited to show you the new lipstick colours I got!!! It is about -20C here and when they came in the mail they were completely frozen! I should have expected that but the labels were all peeling off because the glue had even frozen! I was so anxious to swatch my frozen lipsticks that I sat on them like a bird with her eggs until I could finally twist them up.

I placed this order just a couple of days before boxing day. I was planning on waiting, but I started worrying that the shades I wanted would sell out while I was at work (I worked Black Friday). I decided to just say screw it and order them then and there, since I wanted them to arrive before Christmas. I'm really glad I did, it looks like almost everything I wanted would have been sold out when I got there. This is my third order from impulse cosmetics. To read about my first two purchases you can go here or here.

So, without further ado, here is what I got:

I didn't get any pigments this time. There were too many lipstick colours that I needed to try. Also, in case you were wondering, those are dots of lipstick on each package that I put there myself so I could tell what each one looked like without opening it up. The labels are papery so you can do that, which I actually like.

From left to right the lipsticks are Agent X, an awesome almost black teal, Lobotomy, a lighter teal, Permafrost, a bright blue and Texas tea, a metallic copper.

Now I won't have any lip swatches today, since I have a cold and my lips are drier than usual, but here is an arm swatch. I promise to have a look up using each one of these as soon as possible. The swatch is shown first with flash, then without:

The colour I was most excited for was Agent X, the blackened teal. It is like a greener version of Smoking Gun, a navy blue that has become my staple statement lipcolour. It, like Smoking Gun, is a bit drier than the rest of the lipsticks, but also seems to have a longer wear time. This works great as long as you thoroughly moisturize your lips first.

The next colour is Lobotomy, a lighter teal. Agent X is actually supposed to be a darker version of this, or so I was told by the owner. I am assuming both of them are meant to be a darker version of Circus, which is a light teal that I already own. This ended up being a little bit more blue than I expected, but it still looks great and is very creamy.

The next colour is Permafrost, a bright, mid toned blue. This seems to be their medium blue shade. They have a lighter and a darker. While the dark navy blue is still my favourite I think I like this one a lot better than the light blue, called Clinch. This one pops way more and I think looks better on my skin tone. It is also incredibly creamy, possibly most of all.

The final colour I got was Texas Tea, a metallic copper shade. This one is honestly my least favourite of the bunch, but only because I don't think it works well with my skin tone. It is still creamy and pigmented and the metallic finish in it is amazing, but I just don't like the colour on me. I might need to get used to it or something. They have a green metallic lipstick that I really want now! This one has a slightly shorter wear time than the rest of them too.

All of these colours are smooth and extremely pigmented. Most Impulse Cosmetics lipsticks go on fully opaque in just one swipe! Once again, I am very happy with my purchase from them. Processing and shipping did take a bit longer this time, but I will go ahead and blame the holidays. Nothing came when it was supposed to. If you would like to order anything from Impulse Cosmetics you can check out their Etsy store.

Which is your favourite? Which would you like to see me use in a look first?

Great Gifts From Burt's Bees!

When winter hits, I don't know anyone who doesn't need a chapstick! And what is everyone's favourite chapstick? Burt's Bees of course! At least that's what everyone I know around here reaches for. On top of the great lip care Burt's Bees also has a great line of skin care, and even some products men wouldn't mind getting, like their hand salve.

Around the holidays Burt's Bees releases a bunch of little gift sets and collections that come in cute little boxes and bags. They almost always include at least one lip balm and then a few other products. Here is a tiny lip balm trio tin that I picked up today.

This is pretty much the most basic of their gift sets, but I couldn't resist the adorable tin. The Replenishing lip balm with pomegranate oil is one of my favourites as well.

This would make a great stocking stuffer! They have so many great little things to throw in a stocking. One of my other favourite products by them is their cuticle cream. They also have a line of tinted lip balms and lipsticks!

I still haven't decided if this is going to be a gift for someone or if I will keep it for myself. This year I think I am going to gather a few gifts like these for emergencies in case there is anyone I forgot to get a gift for unexpectedly. If at the end of Christas I haven't given them away, they will be mine!

So, if you are in a pinch for what to get a friend this holiday season, don't forget to take a look at Burt's Bees!

Quick Look: Basic Makeup For My Sore Eye

So yesterday I started to get some sort of horrible stinging lump on my eye. I don't really know what it is yet, but it hurts. It is on the bottom lid and I still had to work, so I needed at least a little makeup. This is the most basic eye look I could come up with. It is literally 1 shadow and a very thin coat of mascara on the upper lashes only. The eyeshadow I used was from the HIP Bright eyeshadow duo in Adventurous. It is a light champagne beige with a satiny shimmer finish. I then used a light coral from the BH Cosmetics Glamorous Blush palette on my cheeks. So, here it is:

See? My eye really doesn't look great... I'm hoping it goes away in a day or two, if not I'll head to the doctor. I had a hard time putting concealer under that eye without rubbing it at all, but I think it looked alright in the end. You can see it isn't as good as the other side though. I really wanted my makeup to be washed off as easily as possible so I wouldn't irritate my eye any more trying to get it off.

This all came off with one light swipe of makeup remover, so mission accomplished. Hopefully my eye will be better soon so I can do some more holiday makeup looks.

And on a completely unrelated note.... I got another package in the mail!!! Man the second I complained they all started arriving. Reminding me to whine more in the future. :P This one is from Impulse Cosmetics. I bought four more lipsticks.

I think I have a problem.... I bought like half of their shades in less than 2 months. They are so good though! This is just a little sneak peek. I will have a full review of these shades up in the next few days.

That's all for today. I work late tonight, but have the next few days off, so hopefully I can get a few makeup looks finished!

Whine And You Shall Recieve (Sort of Haul)

So yesterday in my post I whined like a little kid over the fact that none of my packages had arrived yet. I knew about the one left at my parents house already, so after work yesterday I headed over there to get it. To my surprise there were 2 other packages there for me as well! I guess I typed my parents address in to Amazon without thinking!

So, here is my very quick haul of some things I purchased at sales leading up to Black Friday. I didn't actually buy anything on Black Friday, but a lot of these were still on sale. This won't be a huge haul and very little is makeup related. I still have a few more things on their way (all makeup), but I'll start with this. First the most boring probably.... My book came!!!

This is really not at all makeup related, but I think I'm more excited to get this than anything else. This is the second book in the Hythrun Chronicles by Jennifer Fallon. I bought the first one last year at a charity book rummage sale for my old elementary school (I love finding great books for about a dollar!). It just sat around on a book shelf until I decided to read it a little while ago and it was so good that I had to order the next one before I was finished. I ordered this from Motor City Books on Amazon. Sadly I still finished the first one before this arrived. Oh well... It is in way better condition than I expected a used book to be. If you are a big fantasy fan, I suggest reading this series. The first book is called Medalon. Here is the next thing I got:

Modcloth was having a huge Black Friday sale and it even started a few days before Black Friday! Tons of new items were 50% off. I snagged this awesome 50s inspired dress for just $24.99!!! It is a much brighter blue in real life, the flash made it hard to tell though. I ended up buying one size too big by accident. I thought 1X and XL were the same and I normally need a large/extra large. I decided to go a size up since I was ordering online so I took the 1X. 1X is apparently the same as the 2XL I am normally used to seeing, which is enormous on me. Fortunately this dress fits small and also doesn't really look bad slightly oversized. It has a white tie belt that I can tie a bit tighter too and it looks fine. If I ever lose any weight (hahahahaha) I might take it in a bit, and I'm already thinking I might hem it. It goes slightly past the knees which isn't a good length on me. It isn't really appropriate for this season but it was so cute I couldn't help it. I'm trying to figure out how to style this for winter, but likely it will just hide away until it is warm out again (sigh..... forever from now).

And finally we have a makeup related package!!!

I decided a little while ago that I need to start wearing false eyelashes more often. I almost never wear them because I suck at the application. The mess just never seemed worth it to me before, plus I once ruined an expensive pair of MUFE lashes trying to put them on. The second time I ever tried putting some on I even glued one of my eyes shut! To fix this I went on amazon and bought the cheapest packages of eyelashes I could find. I figured I needed a bulk amount for practice and I wouldn't mind ruining the cheap ones. I got one a big box with 10 identical pairs in it:

These ones honestly look quite cheap. They were, so I can't really fault them for that. They will be perfect for practicing though. The next package of them had 4 different types, each with 4 pairs in it. These ones actually look significantly nicer than the big box. This is my favourite of the bunch:

I'm really excited to try these ones out! Altogether this order of eyelashes from Amazon came to $2.98!!! They did of course ship from China, but I was expecting that. If any of these end up being particularly good quality I will let you know, because you can't beat that price! I still have to go get some lash glue to apply these with. If anyone has a favourite ash glue brand they think I should try, let me know in the comments!

So that was it for my haul. I will post the rest once I get it. Did you do any Black Friday shopping? What did you get?