Viva Las Vegas!

Last May, Damian and I went to Vegas to get out of North Dakota and have some fun! I had just turned 20 a couple months before we left so we weren't really able to gamble or anything. That means I had to come up with other things for us to do that would still make this mini vacation a blast. We took a trip to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, went to a Cirque du Soliel show, Mysterè, and visited Madam Tussade's Wax Museum. We also walked up and down the strip (countless times) to stop and watch the free shows that a lot of the hotels put on. We went for a ride on the New York, New York roller coaster and had so much fun we had to do it twice haha.

 

We stayed at The Grand Chateau. It is right behind Planet Hollywood and right by the strip. The free vallet and no resort fee definitely sold us on staying at this hotel, as well as a rooftop pool! We stayed in what they call a 'bedroom villa' so it had a kitchen, a separate living room and my favorite, a huge 

jetted tub!(: 

Next time we go to Vegas I guarantee we will have just as much fun, if not more, when we stay at the Grand Chateau and find new things to experience and new places to explore!

Eyebrows

The one thing I always wish I could have been born with; Perfect Eyebrows. Instead I have basically no shape to my natural brows. Here's my trick to getting my brows to look more arched than they really are. Everyone has different eyebrows but you could apply this technique to any shape and get the results you want.

Lets talk about the product I used in this post before we dive in. Its Benefit's 'Brow Zings' and I am in love! It has two different things in it which for me, are both necessities when it comes to doing my brows. First it has eyebrow wax. If you have never used a waxy brow product, I suggest you try it out a.s.a.p. It will change your life! The wax makes it so easy to apply, and it also helps with keeping your hairs in place. The second thing it has is eyebrow powder. I find that since I am over-drawing my arch area, I need some powder on top of the wax to help it blend in with my natural brow. This kit also comes with two mini brushes and mini tweezers for on the go!

My sister has pretty good brows and doesn't need powder so she uses Anastasia Dip Brow and thinks its been sent down from makeup heaven. It's also about $10 cheaper than the brow zings but it doesn't come with the brushes or the tweezers. If you have good brows and don't need to over-draw your arch or anything, I would go with the Dip Brow.

Using the angled brush from the brow zings kit, I always start on the arch of the brow first. Outline the shape you want your arch to be, but be careful not to stray too far from your actual hairs or it will
be way noticeable.

Start filling in your brows using the wax starting at the bottom and working your way up and out towards the tip. Don't start filling in the inner corner yet or it will get really dark, really fast.

Make a line connecting the bottom of the inner corner to the rest of the brow.

Without any extra product on your brush, blend that line up and over until all of your brow is filled in.

Now in the picture above, if you look closely you can tell where my actual eyebrow hairs are and where it is filled in. To help fix this problem, take some powder from the brow zings kit and fill in this area. See the difference that makes by looking closely at the picture below.

After your brows are all filled in, take some eyebrow gel and apply it to your brows. When I use eyebrow gel I always push the hairs upwards and spread them out over where I filled in the arch to help minimize the appearance of a drawn on eyebrow, and then just take the gel brush and clean up the hairs so they are in the lines of your eyebrows.

Now a big problem I used to have was trying to make my eyebrows look the EXACT same. I could spend a whole hour just trying to get my eyebrows to be identical. Here's the secret. Most natural eyebrows aren't the exact same anyway. Your eyebrows are sisters, not twins. 99% of people aren't going to be staring your brows down and won't really notice if they are a little off anyway. Hope this helps with those of you out there wanting better eyebrows than what you were born with!(:

Products Used & Talked About

Benefit Brow Zings

Mary Kay Eyebrow Gel (see local distributor) 

Anastasia Dip Brow

Anastasia Brush #12

DIY EasyThrow Pillow

I may be slightly obsessed with throw pillows. Unfortunately, they can be kind of expensive. I found this one on Wanelo and decided I could probably make it myself for a lot cheaper! The best part is you don't have to sew anything!

Supplies Needed:

3/4 yard Felt or 8 pre-cut squares

cheap pillow

hot glue gun

The first step is to cut out a whole bunch of felt in the shape of a house. I cut out about 20 pieces of one size and 20 of the same shape but a little smaller. I just eye-balled the size and shape. 

Then take a medium sized bowl and trace it to cut out a circle.

Place a large dot of hot glue in the bottom center of your house and then fold it in half. This will create a little dimension in each petal.

You will want your pinched part of the petal to be facing down, so get more hot glue and place it in the bottom corners of your petal. 

Start of by putting your petals in the 12 O'Clock, 3 O' Clock, 6 O'Clock, and 9 O'Clock, this will keep your petals a little more even. After you've done that, fill in the rest of your circle and start a new row. 

I only did two rows of the bigger sized petals and then started my third row off with the smaller sized petals. Keep making rows of the smaller petals until your circle is filled in. 

To make the center of the flower, take a piece of your leftover scraps from your petals and start to roll it up. Once you roll it up a couple times, fold the roll in half so you have two little centers and finish wrapping the rest of the felt around the two little flower centers.

Take some more scraps and cut little triangles and then glue them around your center piece. Cut out some small house shaped pieces and glue them around the center as well. This will help blend your center piece with the rest of the flower. 

Glue down your flower center to your petals and your flower is complete!

Take an extra square pillow that you have lying around and glue your flower to the center and that's it! you're done! All for about $6.

Now if you don't have any extra square pillow lying around you can easily make one. If you can sew a straight line you can make a pillow. Cut of the fabric to the size you want, place right sides together and sew all your edges except one corner. You'll want to leave about a 5 inch gap so you can stuff polyester filling into your pillow.

After your pillow is stuffed, fold the edges of the gap in so you can finish sewing it closed.

Hot glue your flower on and your pillow is done! 

You can always mess around with the petal shape to create different looking flowers. I made a second pillow and made a more rounded petal and it turned at way cute!