Happy Birthday to me!

Hello everyone!

So, it's December 10th today, which means my birthday is officially over this year. (Sad!)

Nowadays, it seems like I'm never very excited about the fact my birthday is approaching, until I'm one day away from my birthday. And then I'm bouncing around with excitement and uncontrollable happiness until my birthday ends. Which is probably silly, since I never do anything for my birthday anymore. Would I like to have a party? Of course! But I'm horrible at arranging things like that. So quiet nights in with the family and the boyfriend were my plans this year. Which was nice and relaxing.

My birthday started with me going over to my boyfriend's house the day before, spending time with his family.

My boyfriend, by the way, is completely insane in winter time. With the temperature nearly in the single digits, and snow everywhere, my boyfriend was completely fine with going out and shoveling in shorts. Shorts! He later completely passed on putting on a coat when he took his dogs out, then only wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I was freezing just looking at him!

His family made me a delicious pre-birthday dinner of fajitas, and I spent the rest of the night playing video games and watching Netflix with the boyfriend until the clock reached midnight. I also talked the boyfriend into taking pictures of my outfit (which I think he agreed to only because it was nearly my birthday!)

 (Thanks Zach!)

So, anyway, at midnight my birthday began. And the boyfriend had me close my eyes, and gave me my gifts!

A beautiful bouquet of 24 roses, a bracelet, and a necklace. They were absolutely gorgeous! The pictures don't do the jewelry justice. I am in love with this bracelet and necklace. The bracelet especially, since I've been staring at it nearly nonstop since I got it.

Then my boyfriend made me a delicious milkshake, which I loved. Random fact about me: I don't really like many milkshakes most of the time, unless made by my boyfriend. Those are amazing!

I was pretty dead by this point, so shortly after the milkshake, I passed out. Fast forward to ten o'clock in the morning, when I wake up to my boyfriend offering to make me a birthday breakfast. Of course, I happily agreed. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes were prepared, and they were delicious.

We left shortly after breakfast to spend time with my parents as well. They gave me some birthday money (which will help me out a ton with buying presents for people!) and made me a delicious meal later of porkchops with potatoes, corn, and rolls, and then birthday scotcharoos for dessert! (Which they still put a candle in for me to blow out. Aww. ♥ )

And another outfit picture. No face this time because it was blurred out anyway.

 Over all, a very relaxing birthday filled people very dear to me. One of these years though I will throw a formal masquerade party for my birthday. And it will be awesome.

What are your plans for your birthday? I need some ideas for next year!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Hi everyone!

Have you all decorated for Christmas time yet? (If you celebrate it, of course!)

We finally did here at my house! We don't go all out like some awesome people do. (If I was rich, I so would though!) But we decorate as nicely as possible.

Our stockings aren't out yet though. We've always had a stocking for me, and a stocking for my puppy. Now that we have two puppies, we need another stocking. So stockings won't go up until we get one for our new baby Zoey! Hopefully this will happen sometime before Christmas...

I didn't get any pictures of our outdoors though. I'm sorry. It's just so cold! I could barely stand running to the car tonight. I couldn't manage to get a nice picture of our outdoor lights. Maybe if it warms up a bit...

Anyway, we put up our tree, of course...

Although we were lazy this year and didn't put up bulbs... I think the lights complete that look enough though! No presents yet..

We never put presents under the tree until a couple days before anyway. I live with a family of procrastinators that hate wrapping, haha!

And put up our nativity scene:

It's probably one of my favorite things we put up each year. It's nice to be reminded that Christmas isn't all about gifts after all!

Each figure is actually really big (I don't think it looks that way in the pictures... But trust me. They're biiiig). And they have cloth pieces too. It's just a really well done set, and I love it.

Plus, it reminds me of when I was in elementary and I got to be Mary in our School musical thing. I didn't say anything... I just looked lovingly down at a doll, but it was one of my favorite moments from elementary school!

Also, I'm making cards this year!

Sorry I'm blocking my face. Each picture that I wasnt blocking my face in, I was making very odd expressions. I think cause I was looking into the light half the time. Whoops!

But I'm making simple little cards for each of my family members, and for members of my boyfriend's family. They're not super thought out or done very well, but I wanted to do something different than just go out and buy cards that don't mean anything. Handmade is always best, right? To me it is, anyway!

I've made about 15 now I think. I only have a few more to go and then I'm done! Yay for not procrastinating this year!

Christmas is expensive, by the way! (Not that I need to tell you that, I'm sure.)

I never used to buy many presents in this past, but I'm trying to get quite a few people bought for this year, and even with all the sales and deals I'm getting, it's over $100. Thank goodness for getting birthday money to help me out. (Only 23 hours until my birthday, wooo!)

So, how are you getting ready for Christmas? Let me know in the comments!

Hard Candy Glamoflauge -- A Little Review & Photoshop

Hey darling readers!

Wow, I got a lot of new followers over the course of a day. So to all you new faces:

"Hello! Please make yourself comfortable. Pull up a comfy chair and have a nice warm beverage, okay?"

Do I sound like a good hostess? That's what blogging is all about right? Entertaining your guests so they want to come back and visit you again soon. At least, that's how I view it. I've never been good with large crowds, and I've especially never been good at entertaining large crowds.

So this is a little overwhelming. 

Anyway, on Black Friday this year, you might recall that I picked up a new concealer. I've had my other concealer for what feels like decades (far longer than you should own concealer, anyway!)

So I got Hard Candy's Glamoflauge Heavy Duty Concealer in Light. I was told good things about it so I figured I'd go ahead and give it a try. For only $6 at Walmart, it wasn't a bad price. So far, I'm not sure how I feel about it. 

I have absolutely horrible under eye circles. And I mean, really bad. You wouldn't really know it from looking at pictures on my blog, since I'm always editing out the annoying little things on Photoshop. But they're there, and I hate them. Half the time, I feel like a zombie walking around. So concealer is super important to me. It's definitely my favorite make up item, since it's the one I most need.

So here we go. My before picture.

Maybe you're saying, "Oh, those aren't so bad Michelle. You're exaggerating how bad your under eye circles are."

Just know that this is sadly, the best looking picture out of the multiples I took. The one that doesn't make me look like I haven't gotten any sleep for the past 2 years.

After picture:

Yay, now I don't look quite so zombie-ish. Over all, I'm pretty happy with this concealer. Although it doesn't hide them as well as I'd like, I can at least feel like I'm not a part of the living dead. Although, if this wasn't a review, this is the picture I would be putting up:

Ah Photoshop, how I love thee.

Do you guys use Photoshop on your pictures? I know some people are all for it, and some people seem really against Photoshop being used to alter pictures. I personally really love Photoshop. It's great for getting rid of dark circles or a few pimples (which are always a problem for me once a month.. Ugh.)

Anyway, back to the review.

Like I said, it doesn't hide them as well as I would have hoped. But I'm also very new to this concealer. This isn't like my old one, where I could just throw on as much as I wanted (well, up to a point) and it would look fantastic. No, Hard Candy's Glamoflauge concealer is a little trickier. If you use too much, even a little too much, you're in trouble.

I only put that much on the first time I tried it for both eyes. It turns out, that small little bit you see in the picture is way, way too much. You need maybe half that. This is what happened when I put on that much concealer:

Ick. Can you see how yellow my skin is under my eyes? I didn't really notice it when I put it on, until I uploaded the photos and was like "Nope. We're trying this again."

You really only need just a tiny bit, and be sure it only goes on where the dark circles are, not the skin around it.

(I have so much more to learn about make up apparently. Sigh.)

Picture taken in natural lighting, with concealer on.

But if you get it on correctly, it ends up looking pretty nice. I'm hoping with more practice, I will perfect my concealer applying abilities. For now, I'm going to have to go through a lot of practice, however. So I can't really say how much I like this concealer as of yet. It has good potential, but I guess I'm still such a newbie at make up, I have to have a bit more talent before I can tell whether Hard Candy's Glamoflauge is a keeper or not.

I'll keep you guys posted.

It's really strange uploading photos without editing out my under eye circles, which is probably my biggest insecurity about my looks.

Not editing that out means I also wasn't able to edit out the patch of dry skin under my right eye. (Crossing fingers you can't really see it). It randomly appeared one day after I put on a ton of eye make up. Not sure what it is. I'm hoping it just goes away soon, but it's been on my face for almost a week now. Every time I think it's about gone, it's still there the next day. I really don't want to go to the doctor though. Anyone know why its there, and how to get rid of it?

Anyway, I leave you with one more picture (photoshopped. Woo, no under eye circles.)

So, what's your opinion on the Concealer? Any tips for me?
And are you for Photoshop, or against it? Let me know in the comments!