Iwanna Wednesday - The Eyes Have It!

Last week my sister and I went to a store that we first heard about from our mom when she used to go to Arizona to visit her sisters. It's called Factory2U. Factory2U is an off-price retail apparel and house ware store. We'd never been in the one in Bakersfield before. We were looking for inexpensive rugs for my hallway and bathroom. We didn't find any. But what we did find was makeup.

First let me tell you that I love makeup. From an early age there was just something in me that admired women who wore makeup. My Uncle Woody was married to a woman named Carmen and Carmen was the most elegant, gorgeous woman I had ever seen. She dressed beautifully, teased her hair until it was about an inch away from the ceiling, wore stiletto heels and had the most gorgeous eyes with black eyeliner and beautifully shaped eyebrows. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. 

When I was in about the 3rd or 4th grade I remember a girl that somehow got a hold of her mother's red Maybelline eyebrow pencil...in black! The ones that looked like these. Remember these?

This little girl had watched her mother applying makeup and her mom would light a match and run the match across the black pencil part to melt it just a tiny bit so it would spread more smoothly. This little girl brought this pencil to school and promised that she was going to make us all gorgeous! So we all followed her into the girls bathroom where she lit a match and melted the black part and blew on it a bit to cool it off and proceeded to apply it to her bottom waterline. Instantly in my eyes she went from being a little girl to being an Egyptian Princess! I had to have some!

I can only imagine now what we must have looked like with this thick black goo on our eyes. But I remember feeling glamorous and grown up and I'm sure I must have just batted my eyes at all the little boys and made them swoon! Or so I thought. It's a miracle that we didn't poke our eyes out or burn them or burn down the school!


My mom wouldn't let us wear makeup until we were 15. And from the day I turned 15 to now I would say that 99.9% of the time I have worn makeup and love it still. I picture myself someday....being 90ish and getting up each morning, wandering around my house using a walker with the little yellow tennis balls on the bottom with perfectly applied makeup and mascara! 


But ok...the makeup my sister and I found, that's right...that's where I was headed. Ok. I found this. . .

This is a little round carousel of eye shadows! Have you even seen anything so perfect? Ok...I didn't get the one with the colors that are pictured in this one. I got the one that has lots of purples, plums, pinks, golds and browns. The beauty behind this little round carousel of eyes shadows...I just love saying that! The beauty is that the little thing poking out of the top is the eye shadow applicator. So each eye shadow has it's own and you don't end up mixing colors using the same applicator for all of them! How cool is that?

And doesn't it look like there would be tons and tons of powdered eye makeup in each little compartment? Well...HA! No truth in advertising here! When I tried it this morning I realized that the little applicator is fitted into a little cone in each compartment that has just about enough eye shadow to shadow about 1 1/2 eyes. That's a problem when you have two eyes to do! I know...right? And I thought I was going to be able to show off daring eyes like these at work today. . .

Alright...well maybe I exaggerate, but I at least thought I would be able to do something like this. . .

*sigh*...but no...it was not to be. I had to go to work with only 1 1/2 of my eyes done! So what is it Iwanna today for Iwanna Wednesday? Iwanna some full sets of eye shadows like these!

 

Heck ...as long as it's Iwanna Wednesday and I haven't done one in a while what Iwanna is for MAC to just set up their Mac Counter in my bathroom!

So what about you? Do you love makeup or are you a Natural Beauty. Just some Mascara and Gloss and Go for you? Any makeup tips? C'mon...share!

Happy Iwanna Wednesday and may all your Iwanna Wednesday's come true!

Cousins ~ Different beautiful flowers from the same garden

"A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost."

Author: Marion C. Garretty

I received a lovely little surprise in the mail today from my cousin Stella, and I wanted to share it with you.

Stella took a road trip this summer for about a month. She first started this annual tradition with her husband Ron who sadly passed away a few years ago. She and Ron had great adventures, stopping at different little antique shops and always on the lookout for Carl's Jrs or Hardees for Stella's huge addiction to Dr. Pepper or Coke. Not sure which and whether it was regular or diet, but I know it was the caffeine!

This year Stella found this cute little sign that is perfect for my wine/grape themed kitchen. Don't you love it?

I found a nice little spot for it already right next to my kitchen hutch. Right now I have a garland of daisies but I've been looking for a garland of grapes and grapes leaves. Most of the ones I find are too sparse and unnatural looking...but this is not Iwanna Wednesday, so let me get on with the thanking of my wonderful cousin Stella!

Thank you so much Stella! I love it and it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that you thought of me on your trip! We don't always tell people what we think about them until we eulogize them at their funeral and whats the point then right?

I want you to know that you are the first person that ever put makeup on me when you lived in that house in Poston on the ranch. I felt so grown up when you put eyeshadow and mascara on me and I think that is where my love of makeup first began.

You also took me to my first high school basket ball game where I got to see Oscar Soliz play and I have to admit I had a huge crush on him during my whole high school years.

You also are the reason for my love of country music. I can remember you driving back from that game and singing country music and that song Proud Mary. I can't ever hear Proud Mary and not think of you.

I know that most of the time we go through our lives never realizing how our lives touched others. You touched my life and my heart; my beautiful cousin and I love you dearly.

Addiction

Who knew? Who knew that there was an amazing place in the Internet world where other people will actually help you learn things, they will physically show you, step by step, in full glorious color detail!!!

Uh oh, I just heard a firework, probably an illegal one!

But anyway, what I was talking about...what is this place? YouTube tutorials! I'm hooked, I'm addicted, I can't get enough of them. I've watched tutorials from makeup application to how to sponge paint and everyday there are more of them. I used to think, "So many books, so little time", but now it's "So many tutorials, so little time". I spend so much time watching them I don't have time to actually do the things I'm shown!

For example, tonight I ran across a tutorial on how to clean your makeup brushes. I've never cleaned my makeup brushes...ever...have you? Well I cleaned them tonight right after watching this tutorial. Let me see if I can figure out how to post it here.



Oh my gosh, I think I did it. We'll see if it shows up when I publish this post. Now this tutorial isn't super exciting. The young lady is easy to listen too, it's just the idea that she washes her makeup brushes and now so do I.

I should have taken my own video, but I forgot and it's almost nine pm and too late for me to take a picture of my clean brushes and download it and then upload it, so just take my word for it, they were super dirty and now they are super clean and I hope they dry by morning so I can use them. Enjoy the video and remember to wash your makeup brushes!

I love makeup!!

I love makeup! I remember when I was going to school in Harquahala, Arizona, I must have been in 3rd or 4th grade and one girl had a black eyebrow pencil and we all used to get together in the bathroom and apply eyeliner. Fortunately the easiest, smoothest way to apply pencil eyeliner was to light a match, stick the tip of the pencil in it so it would melt the point and make it easier to apply. The fact that we disinfected it first with the fire was probably why we didn't have 10 girls in class with pink eye.

But regardless, I've always loved makeup. I've always had drawers full of the stuff. But as I got older my face betrayed me! Now I'm super sensitive and I can't wear many of the different makeups that are out there. Some brands make my poor little eyelids get all scaly and dry and gross. But my sis gave me some makeup made by Wet and Wild, really inexpensive stuff and guess what? It doesn't hurt my eyes.

Today after work I went to our local Rite Aid because believe it or not, neither Walmart nor Longs Drugstore carries Wet n Wild.

I bought the two palettes shown below. The bigger one is Wet n Wild Fantasy Island and cost a mere $4.99 and the smaller one is Wet n Wild Venetian Violets and cost only $2.00. I love the names.

Here you can see the colors a little better since I removed the wrapping. And let me tell you, getting that wrapping off was like getting into Fort Knox! I had to use scissors and almost stabbed myself.

I can't wait to put on make up tomorrow morning!

Here is the big one separately, you can see the colors better.

The top left color is a really pretty green, below it a salmon/peach color. The middle row at the top is a purple, then below that is a dark green, then brown, then a pearl color.

The top right color is a really pretty royal blue and then a teal color.

The great thing about this brand of makeup is that they are a creamy powder so they really stay put all day.

I bought this little one below because this is the exact same one Lisa gave me and I've used up the white shadow up at the top. When you brush it on it it's kind of like a cream cover stick and then all your other colors stick really well to it.