Fave Foundation & His Faithfulness.

HI!

So today I’m talking about my favourite foundation. I love trying new foundations. I have tried many. Now with saying that I have tried many drugstore foundations, never any high end foundations like Mac or Kat Von D. I wish but they are so dang expensive! I’m sure they are amazing and when I win the lottery I will try them all. But for now I stick to drugstore foundations which can be pricey enough!

This little gem is $16. Which I think is a tad pricey BUT it lasts a long time and has great quality. You can buy it HERE.

This stuff gives me a glowy look but not greasy! It’s not a heavy foundation. It gives a nice even coverage and lasts all day. I’ve tried the Pro-Matte version of it and really liked it as well but I have dry skin so this Pro-Glow works better for me! I recommend the matte version for any oily skin types.

I start with a clean and moisturized face…

Then I like to use my ELF blender brush to put it on (you can now buy ELF at Walmart!!). It takes me less than a minute to buff this in! By adding more layers of foundation you’ll get more coverage but I find one layer is just perfect.

BLENDING is key!! Just keep brushing that brush all over your face in circular motions until you don’t see any streaks. Then you end up with an even looking skin tone.

BEFORE FOUNDATION                            AFTER FOUNDATION

Then I add some bronzer and mascara and voilaaaaaaa

This is my everyday look that takes me under 10 minutes to do.

Here’s what my everyday makeup bag looks like…ps my new NYX finishing powder smashed today when I was using it…it was so sad. I’m going to try and salvage it!

Now I do wear glasses quite often so if I do I add a little winged eyeliner to give me a more defined eye look. I find when I wear glasses that it looks better when I darken my eye look because it highlights my eyes from behind the lenses!

Now for some Jesus time…

I have a little testimony story I need to share with you guys.

Ever since I was in Grade 2 I have wanted to be a teacher. I went to school to be a teacher and graduated almost 3 years ago now from Teacher’s College. This was my dream! I was determined to go and find a teaching job even when everyone said it was impossible. I had worked at a daycare for the past 4 years on and off when I wasn’t in school. So I started working full time there for the summer while I prepared to apply for teaching positions. The summer turned into almost 3 years of full time work at the daycare. I had an amazing job at the daycare. I tried applying once for the school board but didn’t get in. So I did an online program to complete my early childhood educator diploma to further my opportunities at the daycare. I thought my teaching career was a lost dream. During my last placement in the ECE program I worked in a kindergarten classroom. It was amazing and my passion for teaching just fired right back up. I knew I wanted to be in the classroom! But there was a problem the school board hadn’t opened up for 2 years and there was literally NO JOBS. Unless I moved far away and left my husband which I wasn’t about to do lol. So I started praying. And my family started praying for me.

I remember having a conversation with my Grandpa and him saying “I am going to pray for you to get a teaching job and now YOU just have to believe that God will do it!”. And he prayed for me right there in the living room. I thought ya that’s true I need to start believing that He – the God that created this whole earth and can raise the dead to life – can do this for me! It’s bad but sometimes my faith is so weak and small. My thoughts take over. I think “well I mean I’m going to try and believe that God can do this for me but really it’s impossible because there are no jobs and the board hasn’t opened up for 2 years and I don’t speak French and I don’t have this qualification and that qualification…so ya I’ll pray about it but I won’t get my hopes up”.

A week after my Grandpa prayed for me I got an email that a board 45 mins away was opening for emergency supply teachers (they call you last minute when the real supply teachers can’t make it to their posting that day). I applied immediately and got on right away! It was awesome but not really enough for me to quit my full-time job for. A couple of other things fell right into place and doors just kept opening up and God gave me this sense of peace/told me to quit my job. So I did. It was so scary. I don’t even know how I did it to be honest because it was a GOOD job!

So in my last week working at the daycare I had stop leasing the car I had because I couldn’t afford it. I was soon to be job-less and car-less with a not-so promising job ahead of me. When I went to sign the paperwork for the emergency supply job they said they couldn’t guarantee work for us and we could be called anywhere between once every month to everyday, it varies. (sidenote: this was in November and I still have yet to be called in to supply teach for this board)

SO now I am poor and feeling stupid…but hey at least I trusted God right? lol. You can imagine I was freaking out! But in a weird way. Whenever I would freak out and have a good cry that my life is falling apart lol God would gently remind me of His faithfulness thus far and give me a peace. I didn’t want to except that peace at times because I thought no this is so silly I need to go beg for my job back what am I doing?!

That week that I had quit my job… the school board opened up (my dream school board, the one I have wanted to be on since I moved here!). I got an interview within 3 days of applying and then within 24 hours of the interview I got hired on as an occasional teacher AND I have gotten a call to work everyday since I started! ANNDDDDDDDD I needed a car right? So my husband and I went to go look at my Dad’s friend’s car that he was selling. When we sat down with him and told him we wanted to buy it, he told us that he wanted to give it to us for FREE! He said that God had been putting it on his heart that he was to give us this car. This man said something to us that I will never forget…He said that this car will be a stone of remembrance for you and your husband. Just like Joshua at the Jordan River and how he collected stones and stacked them up high in the river so that everyone could look at the huge pile of stones and remember God’s great faithfulness for all of the people of Israel. The monument served as a remembrance of how God had led the Israelites into the Promised Land.  

God is SO faithful! And sometimes I forget how faithful He is. But just like Joshua I want to remember these stones so that next time I think something is impossible or is a lost dream, that I can remember His faithfulness. He has brought me through and he will continue to bring me through.

If you are still at the end thank you for reading this. I just felt like I needed to share my testimony so that I could encourage maybe at least one person and to give glory to God for all that He has done in my life.

There will be good times and bad times but I will choose to remember He is faithful! Sometimes that is hard for us to do but He is so good and gives us ‘stones’ to show us His faithfulness as reminders. Everyday it’s a decision to trust God blindly and surrender your own plans for your life. It can be so scary but the reward is so amazing! I am living proof of it as I sit here writing to you a TEACHER! I thought that ship had sailed but God had other plans and I am SO glad He gave me the courage and peace to step out in faith.

 

 xo Kayley

Olaplex & Grace.

Hey guys! Sorry I have been absent for the past month or so. I have been in school/working full time and it’s been a bit of a struggle to even get groceries let alone blog. But I’m back and hope to be back for good. Anyways THANK YOU for reading my blog! Let’s get into the good stuff…

Is your blonde ends damaged and dry? Ok well mine are always damaged because I get Elsa blonde in mine like every other month! But I found a solution that seriously fixes the problem right away!

It’s called Olaplex! And it is seriously a miracle worker. It’s a product that magically repairs your split ends and makes your hair super strong and shiny!

I have been using Olaplex for over a year now. I would get my blonde done before using Olaplex and go home and feel like I just fried my hair. My hairdresser, Krista would say to me, “I know you want to go blonder but we can’t because your hair will seriously fall out!” lol. I love icy blonde tones so I would always ask for the blondest she had! My hair felt like straw when straightening it and it would take forever to grow.

Now with Olaplex I can go the most Elsa like shade and not feel fried. And my hair is actually healthy when I leave the salon after I bleach the cupcakes out of it. I cut my hair shoulder length and after 3 months it had grown 2 inches when it usually would take a year to get 2 inches of length on my hair and it’s all because of Olaplex.

Ok so Olaplex is great and all but you can’t just go out an buy the Olaplex magic potion and do it yourself. It takes training and a bomb diggity hair dresser to make the magic happen.

Let me introduce you to Krista… MY BOMB DIGGITY HAIR DRESSER.

She owns her own salon called ‘Krista’s Hair Studio’. Krista is the best hair dresser I have ever had. I know that I can give her any picture of colour I want and she will recreate it with ease! Have you ever been to a hair dresser that cuts off like 5 inches when you say just a little trim because I want to keep my length….not Krista! She shows you how much of your hair you should take off and then lets you make the decision whether or not you want to do it. I trust her not only because she upgrades her hair knowledge with special courses from Toronto and all the places where everything cool and new is coming from, but I also trust her because her hair and style in general is always on point! She is so modern and chic that I know whatever cut or colour she gives me it will be on trend. Everytime I leave Krista I feel like a rockstar with my new hair. She is so nice and wonderful to chat with. It really is a pampering experience going to her salon. AND the best part is, is that her prices are amazinggggggg. Go check her out at here!

First step in olaplex is step one (there are 3 steps in total but the last one is optional as it is a take home product). The step one can be mixed in with your colour or you can have it done as a treatment like I am having done in the pictures 🙂 This stays on your hair for 30-40 minutes or however long your colour stays on for…

Then you get step two which is a treatment that is left on your hair for 10-20 minutes…

Then you rinse that out and get a glorious head massage…

Then you get all blow dried up and a wonderful style that will last for days (if you’re like me and never wash your hair)…

You’re left with no split ends and shiny, strong hair! After every appointment I’m amazed that I walked in with split ends and then walk out looking at my ends and can’t find a single split one!

You can then buy the step 3 and use it to upkeep your luscious hair that you now have. Krista has it for $30 at her salon. I like putting it on my ends before I go to bed or leave it on for a movie then wash it out after. And you can just buy this treatment without have step 1 or 2!  It will help to repair damaged ends.

Now for some Jesus time…

I have been so busy with school and full time work plus just everyday normal life stuff like social events, church, hair appointments, zumba, etc. I had a pity party about every two days one week because I was just so swamped. My poor husband didn’t know what to do with me haha I was crying over the silliest things like running out of my dry shampoo because I was on day 846970 of not washing my hair.

So all this to say it was not pretty and I did not have time to do devotions or spend any quality time with Jesus. It was a quick “Hi Lord just me again asking that you would make all the lights green today so I can get to work on time…ok bye!”.

I wasn’t giving Jesus the time He deserved, let alone time for Him to work at my heart and speak to me to help me be more like Him.

So I broke down one day and just cried out to Him. I was in the bathroom crying over the sink and said “I just lay it all down at your feet. I’m sick of trying to do it all by myself and being so exhausted because I obviously suck at trying to take everything into my own hands.” The next day I tried to get up 10 minutes earlier so I could spend some time with Him. As I sat there reading my devotions He reminded me of something…”my grace is sufficient for you” …I quickly googled that and found that it was found in 2 Corinthians 12:9. I put this as my background on my phone that day (just right click this image or hold it for 2 sec if you want to save it for your phone or laptop background. It’s from Pinterest):

 I realized through reading that verse that God’s going to give me grace whether or not I’m getting up and doing a devotion or listening to just worship music. I mean spending time with Jesus every day is definitely something I strive for because it helps me be filled with His holy spirit and then when I go to do or say something, it comes from the holy spirit rather than my flesh (that’s a whole other blog post!). BUT on the off chance that you are having a horrible week and haven’t had one single moment to just breath, let alone spend time with Jesus (I’m thinking a lot of mom’s could relate to this lol) then guess what?? God’s grace is sufficient for you! Isn’t that awesome? God’s going to carry you through your horrible weeks and your amazing weeks because He is just that good! Isn’t it awesome that there’s no measurement of performance that we have to live up to for God’s grace? All He needs is for us to have faith in Him that He alone will carry us through and give us strength when we are weak! In our weakness His power is perfected!
That’s all for now because I need to go shower this orange-yness off of my spray tan that I got for MEXICOOOOO…it’s vacation time for my hubby and I!

See you in a week chilly Canada!!

Xo Kayley

Fake Tan & Lamentations 3:23.

 

 

Where to buy: Sally’s Beauty Supply Store

Guys this tanner is seriously my favourite. It won’t break the bank like all those all self-tanners from Sephora. It’s only $13 bucks and this bottle lasts me close to a whole year! For those of you who have never faked it you should try it! I burn to a crisp in the sun so I can never get a good tan ever AND I don’t want skin cancer or leathery skin when I’m older.

Here’s one for $9: Amazon.ca

This is a foam which I personally love because I feel like it gives me a streak-free application. I also apply this tanner with a tanning mitt.This mitt is awesome! It is plushy and lined on the inside so it won’t leak through. And it comes with this cute little face mitt. I bought it on amazon for $12 bucks (the brand is thermalabs) but they don’t sell it anymore for that cheap but you can still look on amazon for cheap ones or sometimes shoppers sells them.

 

So here’s how I apply!

First I pump two pumps per each arm and leg. Then for neck and shoulders I use one pump on each side and then one pump for the belly and lady lumps 🙂

Second I fold the mitt in half to even out the foam on my mitt. Then I rub it all over!

Third I let my skin dry for like 10 mins and then I put on dark coloured jammies and head straight to bed! Don’t go near any water lol. Don’t brush your teeth or wash your hands (do all this before you out the tanner on) just go straight to bed!!!

Fourth When you wake up you will look like you turned into a Dominican princess! BUT it will look a little blotchy. Just jump in the shower really quick and rinse off the tanner with warm water (really hot water will take more tanner off than just the excess) then just pat dry with a towel. VOILA you are all tanned up and it will last about a week! Ps I suck at doing before and after pictures. These pictures are very drastic but in real life its way more natural. And if it’s too dark just use an exfoliating scrub in the shower.

 TIPS:

• When you pump it on the mitt fold the mitt in half to distribute it evenly on the mitt!
• Do it right after you get out the shower! Dry off and then put lotion on elbows, ankles, hands, feet and knees.
• Use an oil free lotion (the oil takes the tanner off) for the days after you have your tan on. The more you keep your skin hydrated with drinking water and moisturizer it will not shed as much which will help your tan last a lonnnnnng time!
• This tanner has a tad bit of a smell to it (that burnt carrot smell) and it will go away once you body shower in the morning!
• The most important tip is to exfoliate and shave before you tan! Any exfoliate will do and I use one of those exfoliating shower gloves as well just to really scrub off all the dead skin.

JESUS TIME…

Btw I try and put these verse pictures big enough on the blog so that you can right click and save the picture to put as your phone background if you want 🙂

Ok so Lamentations 3:23 is probably my favourite verse ever! When I was little my Mom would tuck me into bed at night and tell me that tomorrow is a clean slate and it’s a fresh start, then she would quote this verse to me. I love the feeling of waking up and knowing that I have brand new mercies for my day. And I don’t mean abusing the mercy that God so willing gives us every morning because God is a just God and He won’t be used! I mean waking up and trying my very best at serving Him through my words, actions, thoughts, decisions, etc. And knowing that the yucky stuff I did yesterday is all forgiven and taken away. The God we serve is the such a loving Father. He convicts us of our sins and shows us where we went wrong but then he says “ask for my forgiveness because I died on the cross to pay for your sins”. As soon as you ask for forgiveness, that yucky stuff is forgiven and forever gone away in God’s eyes. He doesn’t look at you differently like the rest of the world does when you make a mistake. He sees you as His beautiful daughter and sees your strengths instead of your weaknesses.

Such a cool feeling that God allows us to to wake up with a clean slate full of new mercies so that we can walk in peace that we are not mess ups, we are chosen children of the King and He wants to walk with us and help us in our day to day lives.

Here’s Lamentations 3:22-30 in the Message if you want to read it:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,

    to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
    quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
    to stick it out through the hard times.

 When life is heavy and hard to take,

    go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
    Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
    The “worst” is never the worst.

 

xo Kayley

 

Mustaches & Isaiah 40.

Ok so we all have mustaches. Some girls have little hair or a lot of hair on their upper lip or on their face in general. I have a lot of hair but it’s all blonde which is awesome butttttt it still bothers me. I don’t like the fuzzies on my upper lip or on the side of my face because my makeup doesn’t go on smoothly. So these are all the tools I use to get my face super smooth and hairless! I don’t do this often but usually once a month or so. I just feel so much better once I do all these little treatments to my face and my makeup looks sooo much better!

So first off I use Nair Hair Removal Cream to remove my upper lip hair. I do all these things once I have showered or washed my face with a gentle exfoliate wash. This helps get all the dead skin cells off so that you are left with a fresh face so that the nair cream can easily sink into the root of the hair to remove it. This nair cream doesn’t hurt at all! It’s not a wax, it’s just a cream that you leave on for 3 minutes and then wipe it off and voila all the hair comes off. I use this pink tool that I got with one of my old hair removal kits because then you don’t have to apply and take off the cream with  your fingers  (the cream leaves your hands feeling really weird!).

Then I go in with facial razors. I know these look scary but these are really blunt razors that just take away any fuzz that is extra on your face. I pull the part of skin that I want to shave down and then gently do little strokes with the razor down my face. I use this for my jaw line mostly and my ‘sideburn’ hair lol. You could always do your upper lip with the razor too if you don’t want to do the nair option.

I was always afraid to try these because I thought that my hair would grow back darker and thicker but it doesn’t! I did lots of research and then I tried it out for myself and I have never had one dark or thick hair grow back. These razors are so cute…I got them at Winners for $5.99 but you can also buy them at Sally’s Beauty Supply or order off Amazon.

And my last step is to tweeze my brows! I just use regular old tweezers to clean them up and reshape if needed.

 

Now for some Jesus time…

I have this as my background for my phone screen right now as a reminder to TRUST the Lord! Sometimes it is so hard to trust anyone let alone a God that you can’t even see. I have found though that the more I trust in Him the easier it gets because once you put your trust in Him you really do find a new strength just like this verse says and it makes you want to trust Him again and again!

I want to type out a whole section of Isaiah 40 for you in the message translation of the bible because when I read it from this translation it just clicked with me and helped me so much!

ISAIAH 40: 27-31 MSG

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
 or, whine, Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening?
God doesn’t come and go. God lasts.
He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
 young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don’t get tired,
they walk and don’t lag behind.

 Isn’t this verse refreshing? He is with you! And He gives you a new strength when you’re the weakest. This is such a calming verse to me. When my whole life feels overwhelming and crazy and I don’t know where my life is going, I read this verse. This is why I am so thankful for His word.

Kayley xoxo

Eyebrows & Isaiah 61:3.

I never knew the magic of having nicely shaped brows and once I figured it out … well let’s just say for about 5 years now I haven’t gone a day without filling in my eyebrows! Having a shaped brow not only frames your eyes but make them pop! I always feel better when I have my brows ‘on’ lol. Look at how Lauren Conrad’s eyebrows change and that makes her eyes pop…

If you have never had a good shape to your brows not to worry! That’s why there are hundreds of brow products out there to give definition to those beautiful caterpillars. I would suggest getting your eyebrows waxed first and then upkeep them by plucking or getting them waxed every few weeks – I personally pluck because it’s cheaper. Bring in a picture of what shape you would like and then the salon will work their magic and give you a shape to work with.

Once you have somewhat of a shape to follow then you go in and fill in the areas that aren’t thick enough or areas where there are sparse patches.

This is my messy eyebrow powder that I use. I got this from H&M about a year ago for like $6 bucks. I mostly use the dark colour because I personally love the whole blonde hair with dark brows look. Another great eyebrow powder is the one from elf makeup which you can buy online or sometimes at stores like Winners or Superstore. Elf makeup is also where I got my small angled brush that I use to fill my brows in with. The powder and brush are both only $3 dollars! Elf is so cheap and great quality.

HOW TO:

I use my brush to make a line starting from the start of the brow up to the highest point of the brow (the peak of your brow). Then go back and fill in the whole brow with small strokes. I like to keep it natural looking so that’s why I use powder but if you want a more defined brow I would suggest a brow pencil!

BEFORE

AFTER

And then you’ll have great brows no matter what the shape or colour is!

Now for some Jesus time…
Isaiah 61:3 tells us that God “will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair”. Isn’t that cool that we can come to God and give him all of our yucky stuff like fear, insecurity, sadness, anger or things we feel like it’s impossible and he gives us back BEAUTY! What an incredible God we serve that he would do that for us. All we have to do to receive the beauty is give him our ‘ashes’. That’s all we have to do! But that can be hard. It’s hard to let someone in and help you. It’s hard to trust them with your problems and your hurt. I get that but if you should let anyone in…it should be Jesus! He will do things for you no other human or thing in this world can do for you. Just try it today. Surrender your ‘ashes’ and tell him that he can have the control over those things in your life and watch to see the amazing things start to happen with those ‘ashes’!

xo kayley

 

 

makeover & confidence.

I love getting all prettied up. I’m no makeup artist but I love watching youtube videos on how to do makeup and I feel like I’ve learned sooo much from them. I’ve been asked to do wedding makeup and have got compliments on my makeup and I never used to. I didn’t know how to do makeup at all but I always loved it! These are some of my fave youtube beauty gurus (click on the links to go to their page):

SMLx0
Maskcara

Elanna  

So here’s my go to look when I want too get prettied up for date night or girls night or really anytime I have time to do my makeup I do this look.

Here are some of the products I used (click on the pictures to get more info on the product):

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/maybelline-new-york-lash-sensational-black-pearl-mascara-black/6000193457151

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/baby-skin-instant-pore-eraser/6000187151521

http://www.hm.com/us/product/87398?article=87398-A

https://www.amazon.ca/AwesomeMall-Palette-Colors-Contour-Foundation/dp/B00JA4TWU6/ref=sr_1_11?s=beauty&ie=UTF8&qid=1460770123&sr=1-11&keywords=contour+kit

http://www.nyxcosmetics.ca/on/demandware.store/Sites-nyxcosmetics-ca-Site/en_CA/Product-Variation?pid=NYX_005&dwvar_NYX__005_color=Nude

http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/loral-paris-infaillible-matte-classic-ivory-concealer-classic-ivory/6000189234930

I love following those YouTube gurus but I don’t like buying all the expensive products they use to get the look. I buy all my makeup from Walmart, Shoppers Drug Mart, Amazon or random places like H&M 🙂 All these products are under $16. I used other products too but I will devote another post on how I got this look and exactly what I used another day!

…Now for some Jesus time 🙂

I LOVE this quote. It’s so true! Sometimes girls do that dumb comparing ourselves to each other thing. Why do we do it so much?? We are all so beautiful in different ways, inside and out. Our society has created this scary image of what beautiful looks like. This used to be a huge problem for me. I felt like how could I ever measure up to these beautiful woman and also be humble, kind, caring but still kick butt like a boss and get things done like my job, being a great wife and one day a mom! I still struggle with it but I was given some encouragement along the way that helped…this encouragement was scriptures and prayer. Then to take matters into my own hand I found this book on amazon:

This book is awesome! It talks about being confident in who you are in God but also gives you practical ways to go about your everyday in a confident yet humble way.

Here’s a verse I say out loud in my car to work in the morning that helps me start my day as a confident woman of God:

  
This verse has made so many of my mornings peaceful when they were filled with self-doubt and worry. Scripture is so powerful. It is God’s love letter to us ❤ 

xo kayley

 

 

 

 

 

Hello.

Hi everyone!

 

My name is Kayley. I LOVE following blogs. I love beauty blogs, fashion blogs, lifestyle blogs, hair blogs, God blogs, food blogs, mom blogs, teacher blogs…you get the point. I have always wanted to start one but was nervous to put myself out there. What do I have to offer?? I have had this blog idea for about 2 years now and I am finally doing it! YAY!

I follow A LOT of beauty and fashion blogs but I also follow a lot of God blogs (blogs that are like a daily devotional and talk about God). These two types of blogs are very different and I have yet to come across a blog that does both. SOOO…that’s what I am trying to doing. I am talking about my favourite beauty products, hair products, fashion items, life and at the end of it all how I have an amazing God that I serve!

Oh and I love donuts and mermaids.

Also this is my cutie husband, Caleb. He’s the best. Kind, really easygoing and super funny! I love him.

So I’ll be here doing my thang on the Blonde Notebook and you are welcome to join me!
xo Kayley