Christmas 2016 Cookies and Nails

The holidays came and went. As always, way too fast!

A few weeks ago, I came across a Facebook video that the Food Network posted on "How to Make Brown Sugar Pecan Bears." The bear cookies are hugging a pecan!! If you knew me well or even not so well, you would know that I absolutely love bears! Bears and puppies are my favorite faces.

Now, please be mindful that I am no baker and I did not have pecans! LOL. It was all in good fun trying to recreate the cute little cookies.We also made some snowmen, Hanukkah dreidels (not pictured), and gingerbread men that I kind of went crazy decorating. Too much fun and too tasty!

It was a spontaneous cookie night. We did not have pecans so the bears are hugging sprinkles. Though the bear on the bottom right was a rebel and unfolded his arms during baking

And to go along with all the holiday festiveness, you know I was going to do my nails.

The Santa Claus belt is my favorite style of holiday nails. 

My snowman looks a little funky. LOL. But that's okay. 

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. And may you all have a blessed 2017!! 


Xoxox

Crazy for Lippies Part 2: Wet N Wild

As mentioned, here is part 2 of my Crazy for Lippies installment. If you're interested, check out Part 1 in which I talk about my most recent NYX purchases. 

This post is about my [kind of recent] Wet N Wild haul. At $1.99/lipstick, how am I not supposed to get as many as I can??

I picked up 5 colors: Don't Blink Pink, Smokin Hot Pink, Stoplight Red, Cherry Picking, Sugar Plum Fairy.

Here are the arm swatches:

I included arm swatches in two different lighting.  

Here are the lip swatches. Just a little disclaimer, I tried to take pictures in different lighting to see how the color would fare. That is why I am lighter in some shots and darker in others. Enjoy :)

Don't Blink Pink

Verdict: Looks great in pictures, but in person, it's just way too bright for me. I'm not sure how I feel about this color quite yet. Maybe I'll feel more confident rocking it when I have a bit color in my complexion Spring/Summer. It was just too Nicki Minaj for me. But unlike Nicki, it was just not working 

Smokin' Hot Pink

Verdict: I do like this color too. Less vibrant than Don't Blink Pink, but still pretty vibrant. It's darker than Don't Blink Pink which makes it less overwhelming. A beautiful, fun color for Spring/Summer

Stoplight Red

Verdict: Before this purchase, I only owned one red lipstick by NYX. It was a red lip pencil (name, can't remember sorry!). I saw swatches of this color on other makeup lovers and dang, it looked so pretty on them! I don't know why there's so much shine on my lips? Maybe it was the light? Maybe I should have blotted it first? I'm not a glossy, shiny lip person. Love it on others, not so much on me. Lastly, I'm not a fan of bright red lipstick on myself. This color is way too bright. I love dark, deep wine reds or brick reds

Cherry Picking

Verdict: I thought it was going to be more purple-y because the sticker on the lipstick looks a little purple/plum to me or am I colorblind? The color is still nice. It's like a pinky red. I do look forward to rocking this later on as the weather warms up

Sugar Plum Fairy

Verdict: Definitely my favorite of all my Wet n Wild purchases. I've been totally digging the vampier purple lip. I love this one! Makes me feel pretty badass ;) I have been rocking this and NYX's Aria all Fall and Winter. And heck, if I still have some by the time Spring and Summer roll around, I'm sure I'll be wearing it then too.

I love lipstick! :)

One of my best friends enabled me by gifting me the Tarte Kiss & Belle Lipsurgence Lip Set. I've tried on all except the lip glosses. I love all the darker colors. Not so much the nude. I'll try to do a lip swatch post for these as well.

(Tarte photos taken from Sephora website)

I am excited to play around with these! :D

If I didn't say it already, HAPPY NEW YEAR. I know totally random placement, but I think I hadn't greeted you yet.

May 2015 come out with more beautiful colors and may I find more control in purchasing them!! haha, maybe?

<3<3<3

Last Seasonal Starbucks Meal of 2014

I am one of the biggest gimmicky consumers out there. Slap on "Limited Edition" or "Seasonal" on a product and you know I'm on it.

As much as I detest the cold, Fall and Winter are my favorite seasons because of all the seasonal flavors - pumpkin, chestnut, gingerbread. And then there is the savory like stuffing! OOH STUFFING.

Starbucks is my biggest weakness this time of year! The amount of money I shell out each year on their holiday drinks is pretty embarrassing...though I must admit, half of my purchases were for others. Sharing is caring! :)

This year's holiday favorites included: chestnut praline latte, holiday turkey and stuffing panini, and the frosted snowman cookie.

In late December, Starbucks will stop ordering new shipments of holidays flavors (or so I was told). Whatever you can find in late December and early January are the last stock. I just had to get my last fix before they disappear til Fall 2015.

My Starbucks holiday favorites

I actually had to drive to two different Starbucks to find the frosted snowman cookies. The first one were all out with nothing coming in anymore. Thank goodness for living in a big city like Los Angeles where there are Starbucks everywhere. I found the cookies at a nearby Starbucks. Oh the joy!!!

Trust me when I say I was so close to buying nearly all of them just to stock up! My little nephew loves them. One of my best friends loves them. We would all be in seasonal cookie heaven.

Until next time holiday menu....you will be greatly missed and craved.

<3<3<3