This Just Pinned!

My top 5 pins for this week.

#1 - Changeable Mantel
This one is a Christmas theme using felt snowflakes from the DOLLAR STORE & double-sided tape. I aspire to be this kind of homemaker, changing things around for the seasons & then posting nauseatingly adorable pics on facebook & such so that others feel jealous inspired. pin

#2 - Game Day Dresses from T-Shirts

I'm gonna need to pilfer through the Mr.'s gargantuan Alabama t-shirt collection & go all Martha Stewart to whip up a fancy game day dress that is a bit more than what I've found. Too many are a plain crimson dress with a Bama "A" stuck on it so they can jack up the price to $60. Bonus: the Mr.'s shirts are all 100 years old & have been washed a zillion times so they are super soft! pin

#3 - Easy Nail Art with a Bath Poof!

This is SO CUTE! Maybe a lighter color for the base? Black is a bit goth for my taste. Maybe a dusty pale pink or a soft grey? Oh, and nix the ghetto fabulous rhinestone.

It reminds me of Sally Hansen polish strips in fishnet stockings but I'm not about to pay $10 for some stickers. Sheesh. pin

#4 - NO MORE STINKIN SANDWICHES!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice Dagwood as much as the next gal but sometimes I just get to the point where I cannot ingest another freaking sammich!!! This link has hundreds of ideas that will keep me from eating 2 Cliff bars, dry cereal, half a thing of Tic Tacs & a stale Milky Way something else for lunch. pin

#5 - Metallic Paint to Transform Old Furniture

When the Mr. & I set up house (hopefully before I'm too old & decrepit to do any of this crap) I would love to transform our mismatched furniture into Pottery Barn-esque pieces such as this.pin

Target Beauty Bag

Some of the beauty bloggers I follow know all kinds of info before it goes public & one of them is when the Target Beauty Bags are available.

Let me explain...this is a FREE bag from Target containing several deluxe-sized samples. EEK!

It was leaked exactly when the bags were available & I'm not ashamed to say I logged on way too early & refreshed my page until I got through.

Behold! The results of my labor:

Besides the cute bag (see previous post for another mention of my bag-hoarding tendencies) I got the following:

L'Oreal's Magic Lumi Light Infusing Primer (it's says MAGIC! FUN!)
Neutrogena's Visibly Bright Facial Cleanser
Nivea's Extended Moisture Lotion (Judd is a Nivea addict so this will be a fun little prize for him)
Pantene's Flat to Volume Conditioner
Simple's Facial Cleansing Wipes

AND a little booklet of some pretty high-dollar coupons for beauty products from Target.

Well worth my repetitive refresh clicking!

April Birchbox 2012

I don't really do a lot of things just for myself but I do subscribe to Birchbox for $10 a month. (I've all but stopped eating out at all during the work week so I justify the money.)

The feeling I get when I see that hot pink box in the mail is probably more thrilling than it should be. It's like a little box of surprises!

Here's my April box

Now COME ON! Who wouldn't squeal just a bit when they see that?!

Every month has a theme, this time it was 'Natural Wonders' with all natural products for spring. Usually the paper inside is hot pink as well (Christmas was silver glitter) but this time it was lime green - cute!

#1 Juice Beauty Oil-Free Moisturizer:

This uses a 'blend of juices such as organic apple, grape & pomegranate' instead of water like most other moisturizers. It doesn't have any actual blemish clearing ingredients but the hyaluronic acid is a good replacement for oils. Retails $28/2oz

#2 Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine Petite Cologne Absolue:

That's a really long fancy name for something that smells like Orange Clean. Seriously, I wanted to polish my furniture with this stuff. Retails $55/30ml

#3 Erno Laszlo Active pHelityl Soap 

First of all, I know this is a SAMPLE box but that has to be the tiniest bar of soap I've ever seen! (Just ask Judd, I know my share of tiny/mini/travel sized products!) This claims to balance pH levels in the skin which should be great for uneven skin tone & blemishes. Audrey Hepburn was said to only use this on her face. Next time I plan to eat pastries outside Tiffany's I'll wash with this first to get the full Audrey effect. Retails $40/6oz bar (gulp!)

#4 Pur Minerals 4-in-1 Tinted Moisturizer

I'm not huge on tinted moisturizers. I mean, if I'm gonna take the time to shmear something on my face I want to see some results. This has a moisturizer, primer, tinted foundation & SPF 20 in it. It might be nice for the SPF factor. Retails $34/1.7oz

BONUS: MicrodermaMitt Body Mitt

When I first pulled this thing out I thought it was a little bag to store crap in. Let me just tell you now, when Hoarders comes to my house I'm gonna be the lady with a freaky amount of little bags & boxes. I love them! Can't get enough! Then my goober self read the card & saw that it was an exfoliating mitt! EEK! Perhaps second to my love of organizational bags & storage boxes is exfoliating! Seriously. When you see me rest assured you are gazing upon a fresh layer of skin. It totally grosses me out to have dry skin so I am a big fan of buffing, scrubbing, sand blasting, whatever it takes to get that mess off me! Retails $28.50/mitt

THOUGHTS: I'm ok with the moisturizer. I've been using it for about a week now & I like how light it is but doubt I'll switch from my Clean & Clear Dual Action Moisturizer. The cologne was horrible, made me think of citrus Pledge. I haven't used the little bar of soap yet but I'm kinda excited to try something my gal Audrey liked. The tinted moisturizer is just eh. I'll use it for the SPF and that's about it. The game-changer in this box was the mitt. A full-size $28 exfoliating mitt is a nice bonus in a $10 sample box.

I feel pretty

I'm cheap as hell thrifty.

I like drug store beauty products (stacked with a coupon & sale of course) but swoon over incredibly high end luxuries. I then scour the web & consult my army of beauty bloggers for dupes. It's like a game. Or war. Whatever.

Treating myself is something I don't normally do because of the guilt (seriously, like a Jewish Grandmother!) in my head so I decided a manicure is just the ticket. NOT a salon manicure where you can catch your death from a nail file these days (I warned you I have a Jewish Grandmother in my head) but one of my own design - FOR FREE!

This was my Easter manicure using Wet N Wild's Tickled Pink with an accent nail (yep, I'm 32 & doing an accent nail like the 20-somethings!) of Petite's Vintage Grey & Mary Kay's French White dots.

I was so excited to be all fancy that I posted it on my fav beauty guru's page & got so many sweet comments! Check it out HERE.

I'm thinking this should become a Sunday night thing. 

It makes me feel pretty.

And it's free.

And nice comments from people in the beauty world makes me feel special.

Don't judge.

Oy vey.