Get Ready With Me: Big Hair and Smokey Eyes

All right! Let's get to transforming!

To start with, I used LUSH Vanishing Cream as my moisturizer. I've actually reviewed this moisturizer before (and two other LUSH moisturizers, too) so if you want to check THAT blog post out, it's right here. Then, I used Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser. Then, I used ALMAY Clear Complexion Concealer to cover blemishes and discolorations.

For my liquid foundation, I used COVERGIRL Clean "Sensitive Skin" liquid foundation. Here's the deal: I tried this stuff out, but I do not like it. It gives crappy coverage and is too oily. Next, I used e.l.f. Studio Contouring Blush & Bronzing Powder. I used the bronzing powder under my cheek bones, up towards my temples, down my nose, below my jawline, and down my neck. I used the blush on the apples of my cheeks. I finished up with ALMAY Smart Shade Loose Finishing Powder. 

I used a light gray color all over my eyelids from my ULTA Jewel Palette. From the same palette, I used a darker color in the crease of the outer corners of my eyelids, I used a fluffy brush to apply it to really give it the "smokey eye" effect. I used Wet n Wild Color Icon eyeliner in black black along the outer corners of my eyelids along my upper lash line. I used the same eyeliner along my lower waterline. For my mascara, I used my absolute favorite mascara: Rimmel London Lash Accelerator mascara.

For my lips, I used Zum Kiss in lemon-ginger as chapstick and NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Tokyo as my lip color.

Now, the title of this blogpost is "Big Hair and Smokey Eyes" so, I think I should show you why the "Big Hair" bit is in there. Now, before I went out and about my day, I beat my hair into a bun. But, before then, I took several pictures (and made an entire fashion blog post) featuring my hair in all it's untamed glory. So... here. Check it out:

Camper Fashion!

To conclude our camp-themed-weeks here on beautythekat, I thought I'd throw together some advice for the fashionable campers out there. Because you know that you want camp-fashion advice from a seasoned girl scout. Seasoned with salt and pepper. 'Cause I have gray hairs. Right. So, here we go!

1. Take a page out of my book, and copy some fashionable campers from popular camp films, shows, or comics. I did a Camp Takota tutorial and a Lumberjanes tutorial on my youtube channel.

2. Plan for literally anything. Now, I'm not advising you to overpack. I'm just saying, it doesn't really matter that you're going camping in August: it could still get chilly, so bring some pants and a jacket. It doesn't matter that according to weather.com the skies will be clear: it could still rain a ton, so bring a poncho. Always be prepared. You don't want to wind up like Michael Scott, tearing up your suit because you're hot in the afternoon, and then trying to piece it back together because you're cold at night. So, plan for anything. Anything. Well, I mean, it's pretty safe to say you won't be needing a ballgown "just incase" but maybe bring a sundress. You never know. Jojo met that dude she was eventually mackin' on in RV. 

3. Embrace the braid. If you're a long-haired lady headin' out to camp, the braid is your new best friend. It keeps your hair out of the way. It helps you maintain your hair regardless of the elements. And it's fly as hell, so get to braiding. This summer, I've been ALL ABOUT the Fishtail braid. 

And because I love you, and want you to look supa fly while you're out in the woods, I've complied a list of some of my braid-related hair tutorials (I know. So generous. Not self promoting. Just straight up generositing.): 

• Basic Fishtail Braid
• Tangled Inspired Mega Braid
• Braided Top Knot
• Fishtail Braids + Vintage Bump
• Braid of Braids
• Braided Side Bun

4. SPF everything regularly. Yeah, if you watched my Sunkissed Summer Tag video, you know, I don't typically wear sunscreen. But! If I plan on being outdoors for an hour or more? Or if I plan on being in direct sunlight? Oh, hell yeah, I'm sunscreening up. There's nothing less cute than a sunburn. So get yourself some moisturizer with an SPF, chapstick with an SPF, and sunscreen. And apply it all throughout the day. 

5. There is, of course, no need to ever wear makeup. I don't just mean "you don't have to wear makeup when you're camping" I mean you don't have to wear makeup ever. But if you want to? You want to. It doesn't make you Lindsay Lohan's mean almost-step-mom in Parent Trap. If you're into wearing makeup, though, I'd like to advise you... keep it simple. Like: tinted moisturizer, finishing powder, chapstick, mascara, possibly tinted lip balm. Chances are, you'll sweat most of it off, anyway. So, you know, don't waste super expensive stuff, and try not to wear anything excessively chemically. 

6. Bug spray regularly. The only thing less cute than a sunburn? Itchy red splotches all over your body.

7. Consider any potential camp-specific dress codes. If you're going to church camp or girl scout camp you may have dress codes to consider. Most commonly, I've encountered the "not shorts shorter than knee length," "no spaghetti strap tank tops," and "no two piece bathing suits." Maybe you don't agree with some of the dress codes (seriously, I went to one session at a church camp and I had to wear /shudder/ capris all week) but you'll probably want to abide by them. 

8. Don't go too fancy. Seriously, camping always ruins stuff. It almost always rains and leaks into your tent and soaks all your belongings. Your shoes get coated in mud. You rip holes into your shirts. So, please, just leave your favorite pieces at home. Look cute, of course. But be sensible. You don't want to mourn the loss of your cutest shoes.

9. Drink lots of water. Dehydration? Not cute. Not cute at all. Plus drinking a lot of water is good for your skin. And it helps to relieve you of stress. Relaxation is super cute. 

10. Shower shoes. They can be anything: flip flops, water sandals, crocs. Yes. That's right. If you were duped into buying a pair of crocs back in 2009, congratulations. You've found some place appropriate for wearing them: the nasty cement shower in the middle of a campground. Seriously, avoid foot funguses at all costs. Even if "at all costs" means "potentially getting caught wearing crocs." But, I hope, for the sake of style, you just get a pair of $2.00 foam flip flops from a department store.

11. Hats and bandanas! Hats and bandanas are cool AND they keep you cool, too. You'll probably find  a lot of people rockin' the baseball cap on the campgrounds and this is a top notch choice. I mean, the baseball cap (despite being featured in Kim K's Hollywood) isn't necessarily stylish, but it's one of those pieces that isn't ever really out of style, either. Plus, the brim helps protect your face from sunburns! Yay! Plus if you're having a bad hair day (and let's be honest, you're outdoors and sleeping on the ground, so you're probably having a bad hair day) it can totally help hide the hideousness. As for bandanas... bandanas are hella fly. You can wear them around your neck, you can use them to mop up sweat, you can tie them in a band around your head, or you could do that little triangle flap hat thing that fourth grade girls do with 'em. I think I look super cute in a bandana, so if I were to go camping that's what I'd wear.

Along with my awesome hat tips, you should know: some people wear those floppy fisherman hats. Here's the thing: I totally support anyone wearing whatever they want. But that's a lie. I hate floppy fisherman hats. They're stupid and limp. So just get a regular freaking hat, okay? I don't care that floppy fisherman hats protect your face from the sun. I don't care that they help protect your head/face/hair/ears from getting fishing hooks caught on them. I think they're stupid. So if you wanna wear them? Go ahead. I support you in the "wear whatever you feel like" sort of way. But don't let me see you wear them. Because I cannot support you assaulting my eyeballs. 

12. Chacos. Here's a thing, my best friend is a camp counselor. And according to her, chacos are all the rage amongst the cool camp counselors. She explained the reasons (and I'm quoting verbatim here) that Chacos are so popular as: "They have good arch support and are comfy, are adjustable, you can get them wet, dirty, hose them off, they're more or less indestructible, and you can get them resoled or restrapped, [amd] they give you an awesome tan line." 

13. Wearable camp crafts. If you're going to a camp, rather than just going camping, there are usually activities, including crafts, planned out for you. In these situations, there are certain wearable camp crafts that are often crafted while at camp. For instance, friendship bracelets made with embroidery floss or tie dyed t-shirts. You should definitely wear this stuff. Why? Well, because, they're cool anyway. Like, even if you aren't at camp. Alli (best friend, camp counselor, chaco fan) wears friendship bracelets all the time and she is hands down the coolest person I know. And there's a reason people still tie-dye stuff. And it isn't because accidentally dying you're hands blue is super fun. So, if you've just made some friendship bracelets or a tie-dyed t-shirt? Wear it! It's a physical representation of your involvement, it's super camp culture, and it's hella rad. Before you go to camp, though, consider these wearable camp craft tips:

• Study up. Watch some ColorfulSteve videos to get some tips on rad tie-dye designs. 
• Bring a few extra white t-shirts. Then, maybe you can do MULTIPLE tie-dyed shirts. OR if some of the other girls left their shirts at home, you could give them your extra shirts. And ta-da you're the most popular girl in camp. (Semi-related: ladies! Always carry lots of feminine hygiene products on you. Because when you run into a lady in need of a tampon in a public restroom, you can GIVE HER ONE and ta-da you have a new friend.)
• Make a bunch of friendship bracelets before you go to camp. Then, add another 1-2 every day. Pretend other campers gave them to you. Suddenly, your wrists have so many friendship bracelets on them and that must mean that you have so many friends. And then because you look like you are friends with basically everyone, basically everyone will want to be your friend. And ta-da you're the most popular girl in camp.
• Look up a variety of friendship bracelet tutorials so you can make a wide variety of super cool friendship bracelets. For instance, you can check out these tutorials for a fishtail bracelet, a chain bracelet, and a wrap bracelet. 

All right, now go get 'em you stylish little camper, you!

Oven Baked Chocolate Banana Boats!

Well, there's only a breath of summer left! Late summer and early autumn always bring back memories of one thing for me...

CAMPING.

When I was younger, my family used to gather throughout the summer to have campouts. This lil' pic is of my cousins and I playing in a lake. (It's a funny story, but I use this picture all the freaking time and tell that story all the time, so I imagine you've all already heard it. If not, let me know and I'll by all means tell you again.)

I also would go to camp and on retreats with my youth group. And, I was a girl scout from kindergarten to senior year. We went camping all year round and I have a ton of fond memories with them, as well.

So anyway, the point is... camping.

I love camping. But also I hate it. It's outdoors and usually hot. There are bugs in the showers and toilets, or, even worse, there are no showers or toilets at all. Fires are fun, but the smoke constantly blowing into your face is less so. You get eaten by mosquitos and someone gets poison ivy and if it rains there's a 98% you, your sleeping bag, and all your clothes are getting soaked tent be damned. So, at two in the morning, when rain is beating down and cold water is seeping through the walls, and the campsite cats have crawled between your tent and the rain fly and they're screeching because they are so displeased, and you start to wonder: is this really worth it? I just wanted to hang out with some friends and eat melted chocolate.

So, I like to do a lot of "campy" things in the comfort of my own home. Earlier, I provided you with a fabulous oven baked s'mores recipe, and today, I'm going to show you how to make another campfire dessert in an oven. This time... banana boats.

Banana Boats are a delicious campfire food. Usually, you slice a banana down the middle, stuff it with chocolate and marshmallows, wrap it aluminum foil, and toss it on the fire for a bit. My recipe is going to differ a bit, in ingredients as well as in cooking mechanisms.

This recipe calls for three simple ingredients: bananas, dark chocolate chips, and creamy peanut butter. You'll also need an oven (Or a fire if you're actually camping/if you're a pyromaniac. Whatever I don't judge. Just kidding! Don't play with fire, kids), a knife, and aluminum foil. 

Start with the aluminum foil shiny side down, and put the banana on top of it. Make one slice down the length of the banana, and then several shorter slices cutting across the long line. You want the perpendicular cuts to be shorter than the width of the banana, and shallower than the first slice.

Spread peanut butter inside the banana, completely coating the insides of the banana.

Stuff the banana with dark chocolate chips. As many as you can fit. Melty chocolate for the win!

Now, wrap up the banana (shiny side out) and set it in the oven. You can just straight up sit in the oven, you don't need a pan or anything. I set my oven at 350* Fahrenheit. If you're using a campfire, you can totally just set the thing in the fire, but you want it to be kind of to the side. Like, don't just throw it in the thralls of the fire. That's just common sense, yo.

The amount of time you want to leave your banana boat in the oven totally depends on your oven, but I think somewhere in the 5-10 minute range is probably your best bet. I went with seven minutes. 

Then, take your delicious mess out of the oven and enjoy. Seriously. It's super good but super messy. Enjoy!

Nate The Great Birthday

Well, as you may know, I recently turned twenty-three. To celebrate, I threw a birthday party themed after the best book series ever. Based on my last few posts you might be guessing that I'm taking about Harry Potter. Well, if that's what you're thinking...

You're wrong.

Clearly I'm talking about Nate the Great.

Great is an understatement.

Anyway, this blog post is going to take you through the planning, preparation, and execution of my shindig. Does that make it sound like a boring post? It's not going to be boring. Just keep reading.

Some things (guests, date, time, etc.) shouldn't really matter to you. My mom decided the date and time because my original plan was "avoid everyone in order to also avoid any potential disappointment" and she decided that was unacceptable, so she stole my phone and contacted a bunch of my friends. (I'm really glad she did.)

First things first, I'm a realist. Wait, no. That's not where that was going. Oh! Right. The most important thing is... probably location. But our location was just "our house." It's important to decide a location because your location can be impacted by other parties, time of day, weather, and etc. AND your location can impact the number of guests you can invite and the activities you host. But assuming you aren't throwing some super special party and you aren't being filmed by MTV and planning on throwing a fit because your parents bought you a car painted the wrong shade of silver... then you probably don't have that many options for venues.

Anyway, the second most important thing to consider is food. Obviously.

So, if you aren't familiar with Nate the Great, you might not know this, but... Kid detective, Nate the Great, gets a bit "stumped" every book and has to go home, eat some pancakes, and think. Pancakes are his favorite food. So for my shindig, we had a pancake bar!

Now, we could have done it where there was mixed up batter and guests just made their own. But I have a very lovely mother who offered to make all the pancakes. We had two batters, one from a box buttermilk and one homemade whole wheat, and blueberries and chocolate chips as additives. On top of that, we had a whole spread of things (strawberries, syrup, butter, blueberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream) that guests could top their pancakes with.

And we had some non-pancake things (like watermelon and deviled eggs) in case I somehow invited any pancake-hating heathens. (I didn't. Yay.)

Now, onto activities. This was a kind of hard thing to plan. First, I wanted to pick stuff that somehow fit into my theme. Second, I wanted to pick stuff where I wouldn't ever have to go, "All right, guys, it's duck duck goose time" or whatever. I also really wanted activities because as fun as sitting around and chatting is... sometimes it gets boring just sitting around and chatting.

So, I did a little research, (seriously I spent about a week reading Nate the Greats), and picked up a couple loosely-related activities.

In the first book, Nate the Great, Nate must find Annie's painting of her dog. She only paints in yellow, and her little brother only paints in red. (Spoiler alert: Nate figures out that her little brother painted over the dog painting because one of his paintings is an orange, three headed monster.) So, I set up a paint station with three shades of yellow and three shades of blue. (Then, my dad who hadn't realized the only-reds-and-yellows-thing was intentional, added some blues. But these things happen.)

In another book, Nate the Great Goes Down In The Dumps, Nate's "strange" friend Rosamond sets up a fortune telling booth but loses her money box. So, I set up a fortune telling station, with chocolate chip pumpkin muffins that were wrapped in fortunes and a ton of pre-folded fortune tellers that you could fill in.

My final "station" was inspired by the book Nate the Great Where Are You? in which Nate has so many cases that he goes to a costume shop and tries to disguise himself so that he and his dog can hide from his friends. So I set up a photobooth with props that my guests could use to disguise themselves with. I used some props that I already had--bunny ears that I made for a costume a few years ago and some funky hats--and I also created some props with a little help from Oh Happy Day and Make A Wedding Blog. Then, I set up a tripod with one of my cameras and a sheet. My thinking was that people could use the timer, but most of the time we ended up just having someone else snap the photos.

Post party, I used ribbet to put together multiple photos in true photobooth fashion!

 (Here they're presented like it's just one giant chunk of photos, but that's just because I couldn't make the formatting on blogspot line up right. So to display multiple photos, I opted to just giant chunk it. In reality, I set them up as 2-4 photos lined vertically.)

Anyway! I also created an awesome "birthday brunch" party playlist that is mostly comprised of calming music that would mesh well with the brunch and not disrupt conversations. But there are some dance-y sorts of songs thrown in there, as well. You can listen to it here on spotify!

Finally, no party is complete without properly thanking your guests. So my brother and I developed an "activity booklet" as a party favor. I wrote a page of anagrams and riddles, and Nash wrote a seriously intense logic puzzle. If you want to play along, then it's your lucky day! It's free to download right here!

It was a pretty spectacular birthday. So an extra special thank you goes out to everyone who made it possible. <3 

Anyway. Those are all the tools you need to create your own Nate the Great shindig!