Mothers are Special

Moms everywhere deserve to have a beautiful day this Sunday! I made a long list of things I wish I could give to my mother, whom I love and adore. I want her feel extra special on this day. The list was long and some of the things were pretty expensive so I paired it down a bit.  The cruise to Alaska and the trip to Ireland are just not in the cards this year. I thought I would share the short list of some less expensive and very much last minute ideas you could do for your mother. Things that will let her know your heart is really in it even if your wallet is not.

• Flowers are predictable, but defiantly easy. You could step it up just a notch by buying a rose bush or a beautiful hydrangea this year and actually showing up to plant it for her! Then she would be thinking of you all year round when she looks at it! 
• Breakfast in bed. This is my favorite treat! My girls are awesome for this most years. This is a great way to make the woman that usually tends to every meal in the house feel appreciated and loved, like she deserves to be! Follow up by making sure that all the dishes get done and taken care of. It will mean more than you think. 
• Gift certificates. My mother loves to eat out! If you can’t take her out to dinner or lunch consider sending or giving her a card to a place that she loves to eat at. Don’t underestimate the beauty of this gift. The reason women love to eat out is because we are always the ones cooking, setting the table and cleaning up when it is all over. It is so nice when that part of the equation is taken out for us and we can just sit back and enjoy. 
• A picnic. This is right up there with the no dishes, no planning part, for us moms. Think about where you could take her. Plan the menu, pack the meal and haul her out the house to a surprise picnic. What a lovely way to spend mother’s day! Creating memories for a lifetime with a woman that is all about creating memories for you. 
• Salon services. Nothing says pamper and taking care of you like a salon service. Whether it is a body massage, manicure, pedicure or facial these are typically things some women hesitate to spend the extra money for themselves. Us girls all love being pampered in this way but it is hard for us to justify spending the extra money on ourselves when we could be buying shoes for our children or purchasing some other, always pressing household necessity. 
• Acknowledgement. Especially if you don’t have much money, I would put this as number one. It is just nice when my family takes the time and goes through the steps to show me that they truly appreciate how hard I try to make the rest of the family feel special on their day. So honestly any effort that looks and feels like they spent a day or two thinking about it and planning it is the best gift ever! 

So there are my suggestions for a flawless mother’s day. Incorporate any one of these suggestions and I give you my guarantee that you will be making some mother a very happy girl this Sunday! 

Thank you for stopping by my blog! 

Hope you have a fabulous week and mother’s day weekend. 

Michon :)

Behind the Chair

Just sharing hair tonight! 

Cute messy bun on one of my sweet clients! I curl it all over and then add a little back combing, put it in the bun and then next day she can take it down or fix the bun. Sometimes lasts her three days.

Ombre is one of my favorite techniques! This is what was happening in the studio a few weeks ago. Love how it turned out! 

Fun for a night out or a day at the beach or... anytime really. Double braid with a flower tying it all together in the front. Loved this. She had super thick hair. It works best with this type of hair. 

One of my cute little teenagers wanted something special to mix it up with! Fun stuff! Reminds me of Hello Kitty for some reason! haha! 

And finally this beauty! I love doing the underneath hair darker and the contrast it  contributes to the overall look on a simple updo like this. Fun easy and super cute! 

Thanks for dropping by my blog. Leave me a comment if there is something you would like to see me create or post! I am giving away a free sample of shampoo and conditioner to some lucky commenter in the the comments below. Go ahead and leave a comment! You might win! 

Have a great hair day! 

Michon :)

Eye Shadow Tutorial

Many of my clients tell me that they don't wear eye shadow because they don't know how to apply it. Here is a quick tutorial to get you started. You can go full blown as shown in the after picture or you can stop anywhere along the way and call it good depending on how heavy or how minimal you want the look to be.
So here is what we start with. Thank you Makayla for being such an awesome model! :)

Before without a stitch of makeup which is her preference, but today she succumbed to my pleading! haha
So we are going to start off with some primer and this is the palette and the primer that I used for this tutorial.

 

My favorite palette to date. The colors on this are not true to my computer screen. The second to the end called Creep, is really black or smoky black. It looks blue on my computer. Just FYI there. 

Anyhow we are going to start with the first color in the palette called Virgin. 

This is beautiful by itself. I just evens out the skin tone and makes the eyelid lighter and happier in general. This with just the creep at the end is generally what I wear on my days off. 

Add contour color. I used a combination of the Naked and Buck #3 and #5 together. Apply these colors over the crease of the eyelid, blending them as you go. 

Add the drama. This color is called Smog it is #7 from the inside edge of the iris to the outer most edge of the eyebrow apply shadow as shown and blend. This picture is showing the result before blending. 

In this step you can see that I have blended the last one and added a fine line with the brush provided in the palette to create a smudged line above the eyelid  and underneath the eye to create a smoky drama that will really WOW him! :)

Hope you liked this little tutorial! More to come. Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you thought of it and if it was helpful or not. 

Thanks for stopping by, 

Michon :)

To A Beautiful New Year!!

I really do believe that what you are on the inside is what reflects to the outside.

As we come into 2013 I hope you are all feeling as optimistic about the future as I am!

Here’s to change and positive movement forward as we start our New Year’s Resolutions with some things that will benefit us all. 

Tips for feeling beautiful from the inside out:

1. Keep a Gratitude Journal. Jot down a couple of things you are grateful for. No matter how mundane. Write something different everyday. Think simple things... flowers, snow, ice, dogs, children’s laughter, snow tires... 
2. Imagine the possibilities. Anthony Robbins says, “If you can’t imagine or “see" yourself doing something, you will never be able to achieve it”. So whether your goal is to be a size 9 or your goal is to run a marathon, you need to visualize yourself everyday doing this thing you hope to achieve. 
3. Uplift others through your words. Say a positive word. Every day, in your contact with others try to find something to compliment them on. "Awesome scarf." "Nice jeans.” "Love your smile!" No matter how small the gesture seems, this is something that makes everyone feel beautiful about themselves and what better gift can you give? 
4. Create a sanctuary.  We are "the Refuge" from the outside world for our families. Whether you are someone’s big sister, a little brother, a husband, wife or mother, it is easy to do some little random act of kindness. Try something as simple as a post-it note with a sweet message. It is our privilege to protect, nurture, care for and compliment our loved ones. It will make you beautiful in their eyes.
5. Take time for yourself. When you fill your cup, you are much more able to to be there to “fill others”. Take a long bath, a hot cup of tea with a book, a facial and a pedicure. Whatever “your” indulgence is... It is important that you refuel. They are going to need you when they get home! And you are going to be much more patient with everyone when you are taking care of yourself. 

I would love to hear about things you do to make yourself feel beautiful, physical or metaphysical. 

Please feel free to share in the comments below any ideas or tips that help you. 

Good luck to you on whatever lofty New Year’s resolutions you may have. 

To a fresh new beginning and a beautiful new year inside and out! 

Aunt Denny’s Peanut Brittle

This is a little more involved than the last two Christmas Recipes but if you like peanut brittle you should give this recipe a try. I have been told by Peanut Brittle connoisseurs (aka my stepfather) that it is their favorite.

Aunt Denny says it is all about the cast iron pan. Honestly it is the only time I break that darn heavy thing out of the cupboard. So the ingredients are pretty simple.

• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of corn syrup
• 2 cups of raw spanish peanuts
• 3 TBSP of butter
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of vanilla 

Bring those ingredients to a boil and bring up to a hard ball stage. Denny says it has to spin a super fine hair. I tried to capture a picture of what that looks like for you here. When the mixture looks like baby fine hair and just kind of floats away you know you are there. 

Add 2 cups of raw peanuts to the mixture at this point. Stir frequently and continue to cook until it reaches a nice amber color. This is kind of guess work. Each batch that I do is varying degrees of this color.

Once the amber color is reached, remove from heat and add 3TBSP of butter, 1 tsp of vanilla and 11/2 tsp of baking soda. Stir all that in until it is well mixed. It will foam up. Turn this all out onto a VERY WELL BUTTERED cookie sheet. The cookie sheet I use is 12 x 15. Much bigger than your average cookie sheet. I suppose it would work with a smaller one you would just have thicker peanut brittle. 

And finally allow to cool for at least an hour and half. 

Happy Baking Season!

Thanks for stopping by the blog! 

See you next year! 

Christmas Mice

A dear client of mine gave me one of these cute little guys several years ago, BP (before Pinterest).
They were so cute! I had to recreate them.
And I have every year since.
They are time consuming but they are relatively easy.
Here are some pictures and some directions that should get you on your way relatively quickly.
Here are the main ingredients.

• 30 - Hershey’s Kisses
• 30 - Maraschino Cherries with the stem on
• 60 - sliced almonds
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 30 - Oreo cookies split
• Frosting (red & green)

Drain and dry the cherries on a paper towel for 30 minutes. Separate all cookies so you have only the white stuff on  top to decorate. While the cherries are drying, melt the chocolate chips in a container in a microwave for 1 minute. Stir the chocolate chips and continue to cook in microwave for one minute at at time until melted completely. Dip the dry cherries into the melted semisweet chocolate, adhere the candy kiss as shown and adhere the almond slices to simulate ears as shown. We made regular frosting for the whites of the eyes of the mice and then re-melted the chocolate for the pupils and used toothpicks to apply the eyes (whites and the pupils), Then we added a ribbon of green and red at his feet to make it all look cute!  This year we used the red and green gel frosting. I am not a fan of how the gel turned. I will be using decorators icing again next year.
They add such a cute little presence to our holiday trays!
Thanks for stopping by today!
Have a great weekend.
Michon :)

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...

Okay,
Here we go.
If you love all things beauty related and enjoy surfing for beautiful images I hope to be a source for you.
If you hate typos and grammatical errors, you are going to hate this blog. Consider yourself warned! :D
I am working on finding a better location to photograph my work and hoping to bring you some cleaner images on a consistent basis but for now we will have to suffer with my iphone pictures inside the studio and out back on our patio.
Hope you enjoy and subscribe to my new blog.
Sincerely,
michon :)