Beauty Products I'm Loving Lately

For Christmas this year, Santa brought me all kinds of fun beauty products.

Though I've been semi-chained to the house lately, having some fun beauty products to play with to make myself feel somewhat presentable during an afternoon walk (or so that I don't totally scare Shaun away with my no make-up, oversized t-shirt wearing self as of late).

Here are the key beauty products that I'm loving lately...

clockwise from top:

1. Kiehl's Creme de Corps Soy Milk & Honey Whipped Body Butter. I loooove this stuff. It looks just like butta. It's thick and creamy but not greasy and has just a light honey butter scent. It's especially glorious while pregnant...the perfect stuff for preventing stretchmarks (40+ weeks and I've still got zero of 'em) and I love it for rubbing on my dry legs after a shower.

2. Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer with SPF 20. I used to adore the Kiehl's tinted moisturizer in light but it has since been discontinued. The Laura Mercier one is nice and light and I actually put it on top of a regular Aveeno moisturizer. It's barely tinted and it really just adds a bit of evenness to my skin. Oh and it makes my face feel super soft. 

3. fresh Sugar Lip Treatment. These are great little lip balms. I have berry, honey and passion and love each of them equally. They go on like a non-sticky gloss and add just a hint of color, mostly for achieving that 'I just ate a red ice pop' look.

4. tarte Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush in Exposed. Thanks to my sister Christine for introducing this blush to me. It is the most natural looking blush I've ever worn. It goes on like a dream and adds just enough color to give my face some brightness and life.

5. hourglass Full Spectrum Mascara in Film Noir. Another gift from Christine, this is my favorite mascara I've ever used. It's incredibly soft and my lashes have never looked so naturally long. It doesn't clump and again, looks super natural.

6. Urban Decay Mariposa Palette. Urban Decay has become the only eye shadow that I will use. I have used the Naked palette non-stop (read: every single day) until I received this one. The colors are gorgeous (my favorite in this palette is Mushroom), it goes on beautifully and lasts for the long haul with a little primer. I can thank my wonderful husband for this one...he scoured my make-up box before Christmas, found the Urban Decay name on the Naked palette and went in search of another palette by them. He's a keeper, that one.

So there you have it. The beauty products that I just can't live without these days. Isn't trying new beauty stuff fun?

What beauty goods are you loving lately?

What do I need to add to my list to try?

40 Weeks + the Final Nursery

Well it's officially official.

Today I'm 40 weeks pregnant.

And in case you didn't know...today is supposedly the day! At least according to my pregnancy app.

 

Though my doctor told me that only about 5% of women go into labor on their due date (can that be true?!), I am still holding out hope that I'll have a January baby. She's got about 36 hours to make it.

Mostly, I continue to feel really good. Shaun and I have been staying pretty local. We spent the last weekend putting the finishing touches on the nursery and eating brunch. Lots of pancakes happening for this lady. And somehow, I'm back on bananas.

I am seriously going to miss eating whatever I want.

I think the most exciting part is that we finally finished the nursery! I'm so excited to share our finished photos with you. This weekend, we hung up some artwork, attached the changing pad to the dresser top and put on all of the finishing touches. Of course, there is still a little more work to do once she arrives (like hanging a wall applique of her name), but I think for right now, we are pretty set. So here goes!

If you recall, months ago I had whipped up this little nursery moodboard to get some inspiration for how I wanted the room to come together:

I'm thrilled to report that most of this came to fruition!

So without further ado, here is the {almost} final nursery! And I'm going to let the photos do the talking...

So there you have it. Our final nursery! I seriously love it so much, I often just head on in there to admire it all. And of course, we've got a pretty awesome closet all set up for her too.

We've got everything all set and ready...we just need a baby! I'll be sure to keep you all posted in the coming days with any news :)

Thanks for all of your well wishes and kind words over the last 9+ months. It has meant the world to Shaun and me!

Baking Supply Organization

Have you noticed a theme around here lately?

I've been organizing and DIY'ing like it's my job. This weekend, I hot glue-gunned AND Mod Podged something. It's like I don't even know myself anymore.

While I've been waiting for baby girl to hurry up and get here, I've been taking advantage of some extra free time - and some seriously crazy nesting instincts - and getting around to all of those little projects that I simply never had time for previously.

It's like anything that gets in my path is going to get reorganized...and if this baby doesn't show up soon...well, there's no telling what I'll do.

This weekend was mostly spent relaxing at home and getting some final things finished, like hanging artwork in the nursery, putting together a little bouncer and reorganizing some cabinets. The first thing on my list? My little baking pantry. Of course, I got right in there and neglected to take a before photo...but I'll just describe it as half-filled mason jars of random ingredients (first organized here), and a bin of sprinkles, food coloring and baking cups...none of which could be identified in any easy way.

After just 20 or so minutes, my two baking supply shelves looked like this:

Not bad right? I know you have nothing to compare it to...but just trust me when I tell you that it's like..100 times better than it was.

You see, I have this small obsession with mason jars. I use them for just about everything. I love that they can hold just about everything - from rice or oatmeal to chocolate chips or food coloring. Not to mention that they make perfect party favors. 

I started by emptying out the jars that had little to no ingredients left in them or consolidating what I could (like two half-filled jars of chocolate chips and 3 - yes 3 - partially filled jars of chopped walnuts...yeah, I dunno). I then washed and dried the newly emptied jars.

Next, I took down my little bin of god-knows-what goodies and emptied it. I threw out any containers of sprinkles that were mostly empty and finally got a good look at how many baking cups (like, 100s) and half-filled food colorings I had, not to mention 3 half-empty boxes of birthday candles that had opened and were flying around in there. Yikes.

And so it was (once again) Ball jars to the rescue!

I organized the baking cups into 3 piles: everyday, Christmas and other holiday. I then popped each grouping into a wide-mouthed Ball jar.

Then I put all of my smaller sprinkles containers into a tall Tupperware canister. And the candles? I took them all out of their opened & falling apart boxes and just dumped them right into a jar. I actually think they looked really cute and fun this way...kind of like crayons!

And lastly, I popped all of the little food coloring bottles into another jar.

I love everything about this since now I can see exactly what I have and what I'm missing!

And as for the larger sprinkles containers, I just stacked them on top of the jars to save some space. 

Voila!

A newly organized - if not quite 100% perfect - baking cabinet! 

I think my favorite part is the baking cups in the jars. Such a cute and easy way to wrangle baking cups, not to mention that I can now easily see that I have like 200 Christmas cups and probably won't need to buy any new ones come December.

So what do you think?

What are your pantry cabinet tips and tricks?

What have you been organizing lately?