Beauty Newbie: Oooo Shiny!

My makeup shelf hasn't seen much excitement lately. Until I got these! :)

Girl Meets Pearl
Liquid pearl for face by Benefit
Now if there's a bunch of people who know how to name and package their stuff, it's Benefit. It's so fun just going into their stores and browsing.

So, my tube of Girl Meets Pearl came out of the I'm Glam Therefore I Am kit. Haven't tried everything else yet - had to crack this open really quickly when I decided to quit trying to make the little bits I had left in my Too Faced palette work.

Image from benefitcosmetics.com

I was smitten from first dab. Really love the way it is so easy to use. Was a little worried that it would be a little harder to apply evenly than the palette one I've been accustomed to. It is, a little. But nothing one can't figure out really quickly.


Nail polish in loads of awesome colours!
I've got this whole love hate thing going on with nail polish. I spent my teenage years (and actually, to this day), struggling with getting a decent coat of nail polish on, and keeping it on in perfect condition for at least 24 hours. Yes, even with proper use of a base coat and top coat.
Admittedly it's usually because there isn't a manicurist who's telling me "No, stay there at the blower" every time I go "Are we done yet?". Tsk tsk. Impatience, I know.
These days, I usually get frustrated and either go to a shop to get it done, or just go without.

BUT I couldn't resist this set of really awesome colours when I came across it in Sasa.

All my favourite nail colours in one set - each bottle is 4.5ml (the typical size is around 15ml). Perfect for my sudden bouts of enthusiasm to try stuff I see on Pinteret.

Bad Hair Year - Part 4: Shiseido Fuente Forte Scalp Care Shampoo

Having not much success from the past 3 shampoos I tried (from Kheils, Burt's Bees and L'occitane) to fix my post-natal hair loss and itchy, flaky scalp, I was desperate to find one shampoo that would work for me. So when my hair stylist recommended the Shiseido Fuente Forte Scalp Care shampoo, I said "yes"immediately. At that time I was about ten months post delivery. The itching and flaking had gotten worse and I found myself having to dust off the flakes on my shoulders ever so often. Honestly it had gotten embarrassing and I had hoped that this shampoo would be the solution.

Description:
Eliminates sebum and impurities that cause scalp problems, leaving hair and the scalp clean, while maintaining moisture.

[*This was the only description I could find on the shampoo but hey all I read from that was "eliminate scalp problems, leave scalp clean".
I was sold]












My verdict:
Like a lot of Shiseido hair and body products I have used, I can only describe the scent as fresh and green with a tinge of a herbal smell. Wasn't crazy about the scent but did not dislike it either. The shampoo lathers very well with just a small amount. What I didn't quite like was that there was no conditioner in the same product range. The other 2 products in the range are a scalp treatment and a scalp serum. The stylist recommended that this shampoo not be used on a daily basis so I alternated it with the mud shampoo from Seacret (More about that in part 5). And for the most important part, did it help with the itching and flaking? Sadly, the answer is no. I really didn't feel the shampoo make a difference for my scalp. Second strike on scalp care shampoos. They just don't work for me.

By the beach

Another weekend of my continued effort to keep weekends interesting. This time, to a new place (for me at least), with good company.

This short weekend trip finally allowed me to check Port Dickson off my "places to go to" list, and also just chill out with a bunch of really fun people. Wasn't all that much to do there - which was exactly what we wanted. Strangely, a road trip with a killer playlist & fun people in the car doesn't happen as often as one would think.

Once the actual road trip part is over, other things to do were:

Stay in and play charades - another simple thing we don't quite do enough.

Go grocery shopping - we were supposed to stop by to pick up mixers. We ended up with a whole trolley that looked like full on stock-up-the-household groceries. We're weird shopaholics, I know.

Enjoy a sunset by the beach and then go for a swim, in the pool, of course.

Take silly photos with friends

And then stay in and play more games. Plus eat all that food we bought.

Then wake up the next morning to go food hunting.

Vintage Mini Album

I finally finished my very first mini album...a project of mine which has been almost 3 years in the making. I started this after having watched one too many mini album reveals on youtube.  All the gorgeous, intricate and detailed projects made by so many talented ladies out there really got my crafty wheels spinning. Think I completed about 90% of the project when I was pregnant and then came baby. After that my almost completed project just sat on the shelf till this month when I told myself I had to finish it, part of my resolution this year to try to complete the many unfinished projects I have lying around.

My "Memories" mini album will be a collection of great photos & some small souvenirs hubby and I have collected across the decade we've known each other.

The cover has fabric and paper flowers and the title Memories. The album is held shut with a magnetic ribbon clasp.

1st page: Simple distressed page with vintage dress form stamp.
2nd page: Small pocket for a pull out book, with embossed vintage stamps and tags. The little pull out book flips open has pockets for tags and lots of journaling space.

Close up of the stamps and embossing. The bird cage and journalling spot at the back of the pull out mini book.

3rd page: A little envelope page with black ribbons & flowers. The scalloped ribbon on the top of the page is handmade.
4th page: Photo mat which opens up.

The envelope containing sparkly black photo mats is held shut by magnets.

5th Page: More pockets for my many vintage tags. The front of the pocket with the beautiful red flower I'm also going to use a photomat. Also added some bling swirls for some interest.
6th page: Little flip open library pocket with more tags.Simple paper lace on the pocket is from the 100 Yen shop distressed with glitter mist.

7th page: Flip open mini book with lots of empty space for journalling.
8th page: Big pocket for more tags and a place to store sore souvenirs (movie tickets, entrance tickets from our travels, photos etc.)

The insides of the little mini book is sprayed with glitter mist and with its embossed flowers for a little more vintage feel. Edges of the book are scalloped with lace and tied with a simple white ribbon.

9th page: Vertical pocket to hold tags are lined with lace paper and ribbon and layered with a row of bold red 3D roses.
10th page: Beautiful vintage paper at the back will be a great journalling page. Also added a small pocket to hold another mini book.

The lace flower here is handmade and some stamping details on the mini book.

Interior Sketches

"Our homes should be designed around the way we live".

I couldn't agree more with Australian interior designer Shaynna Blaze. She gives this and other pieces of very good advice in her book Design Your Home.Sure, I salivate over well styled interiors featured in glossy magazines (and Pinterest) but in the every day life, I agree that practicality comes first. So when planning our new home, the hubby and I decided on a simple strategy; plan the practical (need to have) stuff first then slowly layer in the fluff (decorations and want to have stuff).

Here are some of our early sketches of what we wanted our interior layout to look like. It was important for us to roughly map out the placement of key pieces of furniture and work out the flow of the rooms.

 

 

Our early sketches also helped a lot in communicating our vision of the house to the contractor (having not hired an interior designer). They also went a long way in helping us make good and fast decisions when shopping for furniture, giving us a sense of what pieces were require, what extras we had room for and the rough dimensions of the furniture we could use.

I am so glad the hubby and I sat down to do this up front. I imagined it also helped the reduce the number of disagreements we might have had. Now as the renovation of the house is in progress, I'm even happier we also sat down to plan out lots more of the tiny details. Boy, did we really get down to the nitty-gritty. We even have drawings after drawings and a multitude of spreadsheets detailing locations of each of the electrical sockets (number of points carefully decided based on our usage), TV points, phone lines, LAN cable, lighting, fans, air cons etc. Can't help ourselves, both beings nerds by profession.

Maybe I'll share those in another post....we'll see.

One night in Ipoh

Weekends.

How to keep them interesting?

For this lazy girl who loves her comfort zone, the most interesting ones usually involve the least planning. Like this one weekend when I just hopped on the proverbial bandwagon of someone else's plans. 

Try a different mode of transport. 

I'm pretty sure I can count the number of times I've been on a train in Malaysia on one hand. But travelling interstate? A definitive zero.

So when I heard that we were going to be travelling by train for this trip, and that it would only last a bearable two and a half hours, I said why the heck not?

Indulge in food. 

As always, discovering good food in new places is always a plus!

Stay in an awesome place. 

I went only knowing where we were going to stay, and all the thigs people have told me about other Sekeping er...hotels? 

Did not do any research on the one in Ipoh. 

When we got to Sekeping Kong Heng, the first thing I saw was the library. 

Fell in love instantly.

Soak in the place. 

Taking a walk about the town, randomly discovering stuff, and just watching what a Sunday looks like here was pretty awesome. Even better when you have commentary from a former local. 

Quote of the Month: July 2014