Just wanted to post this clip of my pretty view of the lake I enjoyed this past weekend. The weather was perfect and it was nice and relaxing riding on the jetski and reading books. The dock gently rocks and it makes you all warm and sleepy in a good way. ^.^

Hope you enjoy seeing a bit of it too!



And here are a few pics from my getaway:

Chillin' on the dock, same time as when I recorded the vlog. Dang I look so tan here!


My flippy floppies


Snapped this giant crane flying right above us! I swear it looked the size of a pterodactyl. D:


Went on a little boat trip on the lake. Hubby and mother-in-law are in the back.


Gorgeous light sparkling on the water. ^.^ Love it! So pretty.


There were ducks that would hang out by the dock every evening. There was actually a mommy duck and 5 ducklings but I didn't get a chance to snap them when they were out. This is just a single lady duck being sassy.


Let me know in the comments if you did anything fun on Memorial Day weekend, or if you have any fun vacation plans soon so I can live vicariously through your fun times!

<3

So a couple of months ago I got the opportunity to be the makeup artist on the set of Building Rome's music video for their song "What Are We Fighting For?" If you haven't heard of the band, they are an alternative rock band based out of St. Louis, MO. They are comprised of 3 very talented and hilarious guys who were a lot of fun to work with. :D

The director of the video, Amy McClung of Blue Wave Video Production, had contacted me saying that she wanted a look on the guys inspired by Green Day's "American Idiot" makeup. Even with freelance makeup artistry there aren't a ton of opportunities that call for such an intense, all-out look especially on GUYS so I was, of course, totally stoked.

To read an article Amy wrote about the experience click here.

This is a behind-the-scenes photo I nabbed from Amy's article:


I know you can't really see it but I was wearing my faux fur scarf since it was FREEZING inside the warehouse where it was shot! This is TJ, the main actor of the video, being a good sport while I put some shadow on his lids. I always feel delightfully evil when putting makeup on guys! See what us ladies go through? See? Mwahahaha!

Here are some snaps I shot of the guys.

TJ, the main actor. He had amazing blue eyes and looks quite young for his age (early 20's) so we had to give him a rougher, weary look. Some contouring, dark undereyes, and taupe shadow did the trick.


This is Tom, the bassist and backup vocalist. He is probably the funniest person I've ever worked with and does a fantastic over-prideful grandma impression a little TOO well. "My grandson invented the scuba!" We went lighter on his smoky eyes since he's already so fair and has amazing red hair!


Meet Brian, the drummer. Classy tie and Gucci shoes. Can't beat that! This is so weird to say, but his eye sockets worked really well with the shadow, so I added the pic where he's looking down to show it off.


And finally we have the lead vocalist and guitarist, Jon. You are a rock star Jon, through and through! For kicks I added his before shot for comparison. We wanted an especially grungy look for him so we went all out with the black guyliner and shadow as well as contouring. Did you also notice how much more neutral his lips are in the second shot? It's funny how these quite pretty guys all came in and when I finished their makeup I realized they all still had cherry red lips! I made them all sit back down and put concealer on their mouths to match the heroin-chic look. ;D


All the guys together. What a good looking group. ;)


And behind the scenes during shooting.


Just for fun, here's a little behind-the-scenes video I took on set. ^.^ Sorry that I look rough, it was a looooooong day!

Hope you guys enjoyed this peek into a particularly fun makeup job. ^.~

Tell me what you think in the comments! If you want to check out more about Building Rome, visit their official page at http://www.buildingromerock.com/ and youtube channel or follow them on Twitter. :)

I'm off to pack for my Memorial Day weekend trip to the lake. Hubby's family has a small cabin so I'm totally stoked to relax for the long weekend! The plans include watching Totoro on DVD, reading a good book in bikinis on the dock, riding the waverunner, and of course doing some sweet outlet shopping. :D :D :D

See you next week after my break!

Woohoo! Looks like this month is teeming with amazing blessings because I have another giveaway announcement to make. I know, the last one just happened, but this one is for my loving blog readers. <3

First off I do want to announce the winner of my youtube giveaway. Sorry it took so long to get this up but the winner just got back to me! Out of 344 pages of comments at the time that I stopped the giveaway, the random number generator came up with page 237 and the first comment on the page. Congratulations xkrnbebe! I hope you love your giveaway prizes. :D


Now onto the current giveaway. Some of my hardcore readers may know that I absolutely love the site beautyticket.com and have purchased there many times with absolutely no affiliation with them whatsoever. They just have really great brands at discounted prices since they stock limited edition or overstocked items. Was this site a brilliant idea? Absolutely!

There's no surprise that when Jill from beautyticket contacted me on Twitter and asked if I wanted to host a giveaway for a $100 gift card to beautyticket.com I was totally thrilled! Yeah, you read that right. I would go nuts if I was the winner, but lucky for you it's not me but one of you. Hehe.

It's crazy easy to enter. Just three rules:

1. Follow my blog
(You don't need a blog to follow, just click the "follow" button at the bar to the right. You must be publicly following the blog so I can verify that the winner is a follower. :)

2. Tell me in the comments what you would buy with $100 at beautyticket.com.
(My personal answer is err'thing YSL.)

3. Leave a valid e-mail address so I can contact you if you win.

In case you need inspiration of what to look like while you are trying to decide, here is a photo of Hannah and myself pondering.


The contest ends in 1 week, Sunday May 30th at 11pm CST and is open to US and Canada.

Ironically, when I asked Jill about if there was anything else I should mention she told me that beautyticket.com is currently offering 20% off all YSL until next Friday with the code YSL20. Yay, my fav! Can't get much better than that. ;)

I will give a bit of a warning: if you like something on the site you should grab it now because things can sell out quickly. Although it may not help in selecting items since there are a lot of change-ups in products, you can check out some of my past hauls from beauty ticket here and here.

Thank you Jill for this opportunity for my followers! And thank you everyone for all of your love and support. GOOD LUCK!

Check it ouuuuuuuut on blogtv with me tomorrow! I'll be hosting a little video chat session at 12 PM noon Central Time. I wanted to pick a time that my international friends could come say hi as well. :)

To find out what time it will be in your part of the world, please convert it here:
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Near the bottom of the list is "US/Central" which is where I'm at. Just put your location in the second box.
For instance in Singapore it will be 1 AM on Sunday, in Japan it will be 2 AM (sorry it's so late!), in London it will be 6 PM, and in Vancouver it will be 10 AM.



Just for kicks, feel free to leave a comment of where you are currently at. I'd love to see where everyone is from! Don't worry, you can comment anonymously, I just think it's a lot of fun to see. ^.~

10 points to Gryffindor if you can guess this character. Hope to see you tomorrow!