Too Faced Peach Palette Make Up Tutorial

I told you guys..... I was taking 2017 by storm and that's exactly what is happening!

On New Years Eve, we had family over to hang out. My little sister, Mackenzie (who was kind enough to edit this video for me) and my sister in law, Megan were over. We were talking about make up and tutorials and all of this other stuff and I told them about how I was thinking of making a tutorial video. They basically forced me into making this video! And I am so thankful that they did!

Yes - I know the video quality is HORRIBLE! It was taken on my Mac, but hey, it was my first time so give me a little credit.

Yes - I know it's super long. My sister already lectured me about how I need to shorten it, but I just can't! The rest won't be that long unless it's for a very valid reason - promise!

Yes - I know I need to step up my game. Lighting, back drop, editing, I probably need to add a flashy intro and some cool music. I got it! I'm on it. These wheels are turning, trust me!

My first video of choice: the new Too Faced Peach Palette! My sister brought it over and I was instantly obsessed with it. The colors are super pigmented and it smells amazing (weird - eyeshadow smelling amazing - but it does)! It is definitely a "must have" to add to your collection!

So.... here it is.......

I hope you enjoy! Be sure to leave me feedback in the comments, give me ideas of other things you would like to see or topics you would want me to talk about, and be sure to subscribe to my channel here and share it! Thanks so much for supporting me and starting this journey with me! I promise it's going to be a great ride!!

xoxo,
Christine

2017 Here We Come!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a happy new year! Things were crazy (as always) in the Andrews house. The holidays bring a whole new meaning to the word "busy". Between Jake and myself, we have so much family to visit with that we are constantly on the go! Also, this was the first year that Easton really got the concept of unwrapping presents. He finally knows who Santa is (he can point him out in a picture and he will tell you that Santa says "ho ho ho") but I'm not too sure he understands the concept of it all yet. I think next year will really be our year of full blow Santa celebrations and what not. I decided against doing Elf on the Shelf this year mainly because I had so much other stuff going on. So next year we will start that too. We rung in the new year at home with family and we've really enjoyed the extra time we get with Jake during the holiday season. I tend to be a neat freak so the day after Christmas (9am the next morning to be exact) I took all the Christmas stuff down. I was over the clutter and madness of it all and boxed it all up and down into storage in the basement it went! We did a major clean of the whole house, did a toy haul and got rid of a bunch, and organized all the new things we got. It seems like the "busy" never stops, it just changes. LOL!

Now that the hustle and bustle of the holidays has come to an end, it's time to start the new year with a positive attitude - which is exactly what I did! One thing I knew I wanted to do this year was make a family resolution list for 2017! Basically it's a list of goals and things we would like to accomplish as a family this year. If you haven't made one, get on it! I plan on printing ours out and putting it in a frame in our living room so we have a constant reminder of them! Here's ours:

Rely LESS on electronics and MORE on each other

Spend one night a week doing a family activity

Do at least one large family activity once a month

Read a book every single night before bed

Live a healthier lifestyle; food, vitamins, exercise, sleep

Spend more quality time with family and friends

Dedicate time to giving and helping others

On to another exciting note.... I have decided to start a Vlog! For those of you who don't know what a Vlog is, it is a video blog! Basically; instead of typing out blog posts, I make videos saying what I would be typing about instead! I have found, for me, it is way easier than typing because I can do it on the go with my phone, or do it at home with my computer! I am super excited about this because I have been "himin and hawin" about it for a long time and finally decided to jump right in! I will post the videos that I make on YouTube and will also link them to my Facebook, but I will also still post them here on the blog so they are easy to view and easy to find if you ever want to reference back to any of them!

So thank you all for supporting me and reading my blog posts in 2016! I can only hope that 2017 is that much more better! Be sure to continue to follow us and our crazy lives here on the blog and on our YouTube channel for the vlog posts! If there is any topics you would like covered or any questions you have, leave me a comment below! And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a beat! 

Here is the link to our YouTube channel

Watch out 2017.... The Andrews family is coming in full force!!

DIY Decorative Throw Pillow

There aren't too many things that I enjoy more in life than decorating! I've seen every episode of Fixer Upper on HGTV and I think that if Joanna Gaines and I ever met, we would be best friends (at least I hope so; but who doesn't, right?). But decorating can cost SO MUCH MONEY! And being a stay-at-home-mom with two kids; ain't nobody got the cash for that! I'm that girl who looks at Pottery Barn and Pier One and tries to figure out how I can make the same exact thing out of stuff I have laying around or things from the Dollar Store.

Growing up, my mom decorated our house from top to bottom at Christmas time. She has the eye for tiny, little details and always knows exactly where to put that extra "something" to make things look perfect. This is our first Christmas in our very first home and I was DETERMINED to make our house into the perfect winter wonderland (thanks, mom). But with being on a budget, I had a lot of work ahead of me when it came to DIYs.

Throw pillows are always the perfect way to top of a room with that added seasonal "touch". Whether it's in your living room, your bedroom, or maybe on a front entry way bench, they're the types of little things that make a house into a home (and give your room that added "magazine quality" look - am I right?). But they can be obnoxiously expensive. Seriously. I went to Home Goods the other day. Yes, usually you can find a lot of great deals at Home Goods, and trust me, I do. But when I was strolling through the decorative pillows, I almost died looking at the price tags. You want me to spend $29 on ONE throw pillow? Do you know all of the things I can get for $29? A case of diapers. Two cases of wipes. Six grande caramel brûlée lattes from Starbucks. I mean, the list goes on and on. Not to mention the fact that Jake would probably kill me if he ever found out I spent that much on one stinking pillow that I'm going to yell at him about laying his sweaty head on while he watches football on a Saturday. (Of course I would yell at him, that's a $29 pillow). So, as I kissed my throw pillow dreams goodbye, I headed home. And on that ride home, I started thinking. And once I got home, I started Pintresting. People make pillows out of everything, I swear. Old clothes, blankets, tablecloths, curtains. The pins were never ending. And everything called for sewing, and well, unfortunately I wasn't blessed with my Grandma's sewing genes. I can barely thread a needle, let alone use a sewing machine. So once again, I kissed my pillow dreams goodbye. Then one random day while scrolling through a Facebook group that I'm a part of, I saw a post about a lady who used placemats as pillows. Of course she sewed them back together and I got annoyed and exited out of the post and went to go do the dishes. Then, in the middle of soapy bottles and hot water, I had this crazy idea to use a hot glue gun. I knew this could be risky but I decided I had to attempt it.

I ventured out to Target. Of course. It had to be Target. One, because I'm obsessed. And two because, well, have you SEEN their Christmas decor this year? AH-MAZE-INGGGGGGGGG!!!! They have SOOOOO much stuff. Seriously, if you haven't gone and spent at least an hour obsessing over every single thing there, get on it! Anyways, off to the Home section. They had SO many placemats. Seriously tons. And they were pretty decently priced. One placemat was $4.99 but at the time, they were on sale on their Cartwheel App for $4.25. (If you don't have the Cartwheel App - download it NOW). And then even on top of that, I had a coupon for $10 off any $15 purchase, and I have the Target Red Debit Card so you get 15% off of every single purchase. Basically - Target is my best friend and once again, came through for me to give me a GREAT deal!! So with that good of a deal, I ended up picking up 3 placemats (and a couple packs of gum to push me over that $15 mark so I could use my coupon) and I only ended up spending a couple bucks for all of them!

Then I headed over to JoAnn Fabrics to get the pillow "filling". I spoke with an employee there and she suggested using a polyester fiber fill because it doesn't bunch up and it's washable. So that's what I went with. And if you are a shopper, you know that there are always some type of sales going on at JoAnns or Michaels and you can always find coupons online for them. I picked up 2 (2lb each) bags. I know it seems like a ton of filling, but I used a whole bag and a little bit from the second bag on my three pillows. They were originally $12.99 each, but they were 40% off so I paid under $17 for both (and I still have enough fill left to do two more pillows so you know I'll be heading out to Target this weekend to get me some more placemats)!

And then, I set home to start my project. It took MAYBE 20 minutes from start to finish for me to do all three pillows. It's taking me longer to write this post! And being a mom of two toddlers, I can only distract them for so long without them wanting to see exactly what I'm doing and to start "helping". Easton did "assist" me with stuffing one of the pillows, so I think this would be a great project if you had kids that were a little older. Maybe let them pick out their own placemats and they can do their own pillows. Super quick project that you are guaranteed to love!

DIY Decorative Throw Pillow!

Materials:

- Placemat

- Fiber Fill

- Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

- Small Scissors or Box Cutter

* I will post links below of the exact materials that I used *

Directions:

Remove the price tags from your placemat and plug in your hot glue gun so it can heat up.

Using the small scissors (which is what I used) or the box cutter, cut a tiny part of the thread that is holding the front and back pieces together. I cut mine on the bottom, but you really could cut the top or either side, I don't think it matters.

Continue to carefully cut an opening that is just large enough for you to get your whole hand in there.

Now for the fun part - take that fiber fill and start stuffing....

.... and stuff ....

.... and stuff ....

.... and stuff!!!

Make sure you get into all the corners and stuff that baby until it's nice and fluffy! Once you got it fully fluffed, it should look something like this:

Now, on the inside of your placemat there should be a small overlay of fabric that looks like this:

That is where you are going to put the glue at. I worked with about an inch at a time. Put a small line of hot glue on and then pinch the two pieces of fabric together and hold it for about a minute to insure that the glue is binding both pieces together.

Continue to do this in small sections at a time until the entire hole is glued back together.

I then took a small pair of scissors and trimmed up any tiny pieces of thread that were hanging and any large pieces of glue that maybe squeezed out.

Time to fluff things up again to spread out all of the fiber that's inside. And finally..... throw that pillow on your couch or bench, sit back, and enjoy the beautiful masterpiece that you just made! (And high-five your bank account for all the money you saved!)

Links to specific items that I used:

Poly-Fil Fiber Fill

(This link is for a 16oz bag from JoAnn Fabrics; I used a 32oz bag but only the 32oz bags are available in stores)

Green Plaid Car w/ Tree Placemat

Cream & Gold JOY Placemat

Velvet Reindeer Placemat

Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks

This project was cheap and seriously only took a couple of minutes! It's the perfect way to add a little something extra to your rooms for all the different seasons. They have placemats for everything so you can do so many different ones and switch them out often! You could even make some and give them as gifts! I hope you try your hand at a couple and if you do, please let me know how it goes and send me some pics!

Happy decorating!

- Christine

Disclaimer: I was not obligated in any way to review or share the products that I used with you and I am not being compensated to mention them. 

DIY: Refurbishing an Old Dresser!

Hey guys! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We enjoyed great food, spent time with family and friends, and we even got in some Christmas shopping. I know it's been a couple of weeks since I've made any posts but I have a very good explanation! I've been busy doing some refurbishing. You read that right. Refurbishing. An old dresser - to be exact. I NEVER thought in a million years I would be able to tackle this kind of project but I did and I was so happy with it that I had to share.

I owe two HUGE shout outs. The first: My cousin Amber. She has refurbished (what seems like) a million pieces and each one looks flawless. So of course, I was a never ending basket of questions for her. Seriously. I had to of called or texted her at least 500 times to ask her about spray guns and paint and sanding and so many other things. And, like always, she helped me and was so nice and encouraging. It made the entire process that much easier. Thanks Amber!! And secondly, a shout out to my husband Jake. I really thought he was going to hate me by the time this project was done but thankfully he doesn't. I asked him just as many questions and I made him do some of the staining and spraying because, well, we have kids and I wasn't going to let this project sit in the garage for 5 months partially finished. So he helped me out a ton too. They both made this project possible. So here's all the details.....

Now, on to the dresser. I had been on the hunt for a buffet for in our dining room for awhile now. But the dang things are just so expensive. There was no way we were fitting a $500 buffet into our budget. So on to Craigslist I searched. After a couple of days, I finally found one. It has a really nice mirror with it and I plan on refinishing that shortly to hang in one of our hallways. But the dresser/mirror combo wasn't local. In fact, it was about 45 minutes away from our house. And after a little while, Jake caved and agreed to go with me to pick it up. So we went out on a Sunday afternoon and got it. It was super heavy so I'm glad that I brought Jake along, and he thought it was best to bring our utility trailer.

Once we had it all strapped on, we made our way to Lowes to pick out paint. I knew I wanted a medium grey shade. We decided on Sherwin Williams "Armitage Grey" color. I thought it was the perfect grey that I was looking for. While we were there, we also picked up some "Flood- Floetrol paint thinner" to thin out our paint.

First things first, we unloaded this beaut into our garage and set up shop to get this thing looking amazing again. I took off all of the hardware - and SAVED it. I wanted to use the original hardware because I liked how it looked. I guess you could use new hardware if you wanted to; you might just have to fill the original hardware holes with wood glue or filler if they aren't going to be the same size. Also, the dresser that I got has a door on the front that opens up to more drawers, so I took the door off as well and all of that hardware. I also took out all of the drawers and set up a station on a folding table to work on them separately.

Next, it was time to sand. I can't express enough how important this step is. You have to give your primer and paint a good surface to adhere to and the best way to do this is to give everything a really good sanding. I used an electric hand sander on the large, flat surfaces and then used a rough sand paper by hand in all of the small, detailed areas that a hand sander couldn't get to. After that, I wiped the whole thing down with a damp cloth to get all of the sanding dust off.

On to priming. We bought a paint spray gun from Harbor Freight for $16 and I swear, it's one of the best investments we've ever made.

It made this project go by so much quicker and I think it made the paint look so much more professional. They are totally worth it! Although make note that when you use a paint spray gun, it is best to thin out your paint so that it sprays better.

We used regular, good old KILZ premium primer and thinned it down with some water. (Your primer should have a recommended amount to use when thinning that will be listed in the directions.) We suggest you use some old cardboard and test out your spray gun to get the hang of things and the right amount of paint flowing before you actually start on your project piece. They do say practice makes perfect, right? We did one good coat of primer and then let it dry. Because we used the paint sprayer, it dried fairly quickly.

Time to paint! The directions that were on the back of the paint can for thinning were really confusing; so I basically had to do a lot of trial and errors with measurements. For our paint sprayer, I found that our perfect measurements was: filling our paint sprayer bottle halfway with paint, adding two tablespoons of water and two tablespoons of the Flood Floetrol paint thinner. Then I mixed it all up real good before putting the spray gun all together. Remember: test your sprayer out on an old piece of cardboard before you go spraying your project piece. Once we got the spray gun rocking and rolling; it was go time. I - yes I - (I didn't even let Jake do this part because I thought the spray gun was so cool and I insisted on doing it myself) - started spraying away. The dresser and then onto the drawers. To do it all, it took maybe 10 minutes. Then we cleaned up and headed inside for the night to let it dry.

The next day, I woke up in the morning and I sanded with a very light piece of sand paper to prep it for the next coating of paint. And then I sprayed it all over again. This time, I made sure to really take my time and get a good, even coat - as this would be the final coat of paint. After I was done, I left it to dry for the rest of the day.

Now on to the hardware. Give it a good washing. I just used Dawn dish soap and hot water. I wasn't too worried about what it looked like because I knew I was spray painting them. Once they were fully dried, I sprayed them all with white matte spray paint. It only took about 30 minutes to dry before I moved them and spray painted them again, making sure to get all the angles and giving it a good coat. This next time I waited a good couple of hours to really let it dry. Then I sprayed them with a Polycrylic protective finish clear gloss top coat and let it dry.

After letting the dresser dry, I came back outside and went on to sanding the top. I didn't think things through at the beginning (If I had, I would have tapped off the top to avoid any paint getting sprayed on it - but I didn't think of that) so I had to sand off all of the excess paint that got sprayed onto it. The good part was that I was able to use the hand sander so it went by pretty quickly.

Once I was done sanding, it was time to stain the top. I wiped it all off with a damn cloth to get the sanding pieces off. Then, I doubled up on disposable rubber gloves and got an old towel that I ripped up into a couple pieces. We decided on Minwax Polyshades Espresso colored stain because it is the same stain that is on our dining room table and I wanted it to match. We bought the polyshades because it has stain and polyurethane in one, and we bought it in gloss finish. I shook the stain up really good and then opened it. Next, I dunked about 2-3 inches of the towel into the stain and rang it out a little bit. Then I went to staining. It is best, when staining, that you only run along the wood grain. So I continuously ran the towel back and forth, from side to side, following the natural grain in the wood. I did this over and over; re-dunking my towel into the stain when needed. Stain goes a long way, you don't need a lot. And you don't want to cake your stain onto it, you really want the wood to absorb the stain so you have to be patient and really take your time. After the entire top was done with the first round of stain, I let it dry over night.

The next morning, I came out and sanded the top with a 220 grit sandpaper. Just enough to get it a little rough so the next coat had something to adhere to. Then, I did the same staining process all over again to add more stain. The best part about stain is you have to work in steps so you can decide just how light or dark you want to go. After applying the second coat and letting it dry, we decided that we liked the color of the stain where it was and that was our last coat of stain.

Last but certainly not least, it was time to put on a top coat. Jake thought it was best to use Minwax water based Polycrylic protective finish clear satin top coat so that's what we decided to use. He made the decision to "yolo" it and apply the top coat with the paint sprayer gun. It was reallyyyyyyyy strong so we opened up the garage doors and I stayed inside because it was that strong. So next time, I would suggest applying it with a brush instead. But he used the spray gun and it worked! He did two coats of top coat and we let it dry for 24 hours.

We brought it inside and put it where we wanted. Then it was time to install all of the hardware back on.

Once all of that was on, I put the drawers back in their spots and stepped back to take a look.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
HOLY SMOKES; DID I DO THAT??
It is such an amazing feeling knowing that YOU worked on something so much to make it so beautiful!

I stood in amazement for maybe 2 minutes before I had to start decorating it for Christmas! The best part of the year; Christmas decorating! When I got all of my favorite things on there, I was even more in love with it! It isn't perfect, and it isn't Art Van worthy, but it is something that I worked hard on, something that I'm proud of, that I love, and something that works great for our family! I just love my dresser-turned-buffet!

I can't wait to start on more projects. I plan on painting our kitchen cabinets and we have plans to remodel our master bathroom and I plan on refurbishing an old buffet into a bathroom vanity. But I'm sure those will also be worthy of their own posts so watch out for those! Have you refurbished anything?? Show me a pic and let me know how your project went! Also, I'm always up for tips and tricks!

Have a blessed Sunday!
- Christine

Disclaimer: I was not obligated in any way to review or share the products that I used with you and I am not being compensated to mention them.