December 2016 in Pictures

 

Happy New Year!!! 2016 is over! It was a rough year for pop culture and politics but how was it for you personally?

My 2016 wasn’t too bad at all really. I feel like a grew a lot this year,  a lot of personal development and what have you. I’m happier than I have ever been really. I feel like I have really found my niche in the makeup community, landed a little job in PR and booked some freelance makeup gigs.

My husband and I finally embraced a healthier lifestyle this year and love of the gym, particularly weight training. I’m looking forward to a new year with my little family continuing and improving our healthy lifestyle. We’ve also had a wonderful addition to our little household, my roommate, Chandra!

This year has shown me how great family is. Despite losing my Uncle this year which was pretty hard on my family, I feel like we are all a little closer. I’m so happy my brother and his wife visited this Christmas and we got to really bond and spend time together. I can’t wait for them to come back!

My husband’s family has been amazing too. Always there when you need them. I forgot what that was like honestly, they are so warm and welcoming.

Then there our friends, who are our family too. So many good times were had, despite the challenges each one was facing in their personal lives, with jobs and ailing family members we could still laugh and have fun together. I’ve never known so many truly good people who could be so selfless and caring no matter what was going on.

As far as resolutions go, I don’t have many other than to keep growing and improving my mind and body. Getting my house more even more organized and tidy (and keeping it that way) while moving toward a more minimalist lifestyle. I do also want to get better organized and scheduled with my blogging. Not procrastinating so damn much and to not forget who I am and my style when I do blog. I think was I little caught up in trends and keeping up with the Jones, I lost a little bit of my personal style trying to fit in kind of. Eff all that. LOL.

2017 is the year we love ourselves!

Now on December in pictures. Since, I’ve finished the 100 Days of Makeup Challenge I decided I will do a couple monthly post, one like this one which will consist of various things that happened through the month that I took pics of, and another that will be devoted just to make up. It will include products I have been loving and MOTD’s. Generally, anything beauty and fashion related with these posts will be more about lifestyle I guess. Anything non-beauty. Let’s jump in, shall we? The first thing I want to show you guys is how I decorated for Christmas. While I don’t mention it a whole lot (but hopefully will in the coming year) I love decorating and interior design. It’s my other passion. I love all things home design.
Here we have our entertainment center and the focal point of the living room all done up for the holidays. It’s a tad busy but I wanted to keep some of my other decor out this year to show my brother. Normally I would have less non-holiday stuff out. The following snapshots are done in a vignette style to show little nooks of decor that I feel tell a little story. My holiday day decor theme I try to stick to is a victorian Christmas using lots of gold, burgundy and soft dusty roses with hints of pale green. These little iridescent glass trees are one my favorite decor pieces. They’re simple, yet so pretty and delicate.
On the opposite of the shelf, I have my angel tree topper which was my grandmother’s tree topper. My tree is never large enough to fit it so she has her own corner of the shelf so she can shine because she is special to me. 
Along the vertical shelves, I had a section of sentimental pieces and some I just think are pretty. This nativity set belonged to my mom, it’s a vintage set from the early 70’s possibly late 60’s. While I’m not super religious or anything I still put these out yearly because they are sentimental and beautiful.
Next, up I have a few vintage glass balls hanging from ornament hangers from the 60’s. These were from my grandmother’s tree next to one of her vintage amber glass bowls filled with a selection of gold balls.
On this other hanger, I have an ornament from believe is from Cracker Barrel that looks like a victorian postcard. I collect these types of ornaments. Surrounding it are a couple more vintage porcelain pieces.
In this hammered metal gold bowl, I got as a wedding gift from Target, I have more vintage glass ball ornaments.
I also filled this amber mosaic hurricane candle holder with mini gold balls and a hand painted glass ornament with a cat on it on the hanger. And more little glass trees.
The glittery cross is also special, Ross’s mother gave me for Xmas one year, I believe the second year we were dating. Now for the tree. This year we used my roommates pencil tree which I love! It fits perfectly in the nook by the entertainment center on top of our trunk.


On the dining table, I kept it simple with a burgundy runner and a hurricane glass container filled with more ball ornaments.
Finally, we have a bulletin board which belongs to my roommate, we decided to use it to display our holiday cards. 

That’s it for the decor, now onto other fun things!

First up we have my Pumpkin being a silly girl sitting on the dining table. She seems to think this is normal for a dog…

But how could you be mad at this face?
I take a lot of sky pictures, I’m trying to build my own library of stock images rather than raiding Deviant Art or other graphic resource sites. The moon looked really cool on this night with the clouds.

I also finally got my hair color corrected back to my natural shade after the Artic Fox red hair color debacle from Halloween. If you want a fashion color that lasts, check out Artic Fox. it’s hardcore. I was expecting it to fade like Manic Panic but noooo. I got most to lift using Dawn but I ended up having to go to my sister-in-law’s salon to get it corrected. She had to use a direct dye lifter with a volume 20 for 30 mins to get it to a pink shade that she could cover with color. She ended up using a violet red based Pravana Chromatic in golden violet brown I believe at the roots and melted it down into an ashy blonde to tone it because it was brassy as hell because I had colored it with a Feria blonde shade that turned bright gold. She then melted down into a blonde ombre using the Feria shade I had put in myself and she toned it by running some of the Pravana through it.I’m in love with the root color. I also had a few inches trimmed off.

I took this pic the day after I had it colored because we were heading to New Orleans to pick up my brother and his wife who flew in from Medellin, Columbia for 2 weeks to spend Christmas here! The first time he has been home in 3 years.

We spent a great evening in The French Quarter and had dinner at The Napoleon House before heading back to Alexandria.

So, of course, I made him take a selfie with me! BTW you can check out his music and art here: Norot Art

And a selfie with my beautiful sister-in- law Alejandra, a fellow beauty blogger among many other things. Check out her Instagram and blog here:

Mirrors in the Attic on Instagram

Mirrors in the Attic on WordPress

Over on her blog, she had curated bundles of makeup from around the world for us porcelain gals for sale, with tons more bundles coming soon so if you live in Columbia and have trouble finding makeup for pale skin, check her out!

We had a blast playing in makeup every day and discovering all the cool stuff she brought back from Japan! She even brought me some lippies from a brand called Glips based out if Medellin. I will have a review and swatches up soon.
I had to get a pic with the hubby too since we were having photoshoot time in my backyard. Yeah, he’s THAT much taller than me.

And Miss Pumpkin had to get in on the action!

Speaking of Japanese goodies! How cute is this?! I’m kinda obsessed with Gudetama, just a silly little lazy egg.

Look at that butt! I can’t even! I love all things Sanrio.

For Christmas, that evening I cooked a big dinner for all our friends and family but didn’t take a single pic… But I had a house full of friends and family until New Years.

We had the most beautiful sunrise on the 30th. My photos couldn’t do it justice. My brother and I were, of course, awake, sitting outside talking after staying up all night. We did that every night, just gossiping and talking until daylight.

This is just a shot of Lake Pontchartrain heading out of New Orleans after dropping my brother and his wife off at the airport.  We stayed the night in a room with them on the 30th driving down that evening, procrastinating the drive because it meant they were leaving. Driving to New Orleans at night while listening to Agents of Oblivion is something everyone should experience.  Seeing nothing but pitch black out the passenger’s side window, knowing there is nothing there but swamp and darkness.

Endsmouth by Agents of Oblivion

We headed back home on the 31st. We got home about noon, took a disco nap and headed out to The Brewhouse for the New Years Eve party.

Much fun was had in our fancy dress clothes!

My husband was even invited up by the band, Mojo Killjoy to sing Black by Pearl Jam and nailed it!

This was one of the best Christmas’s ever. I wish my Aunt could have made it from Dallas but she was too sick, we missed her.

Thank you all for a great year and here’s to 2017 being bad ass!

Thanks for stopping by! Don’t forget to check out my Instagram for the day-to-day life of a Beauty Blogger and Makeup Challenges, Facebook, for blog updates and makeup LOLs  Pinterest for inspo and current obsessions, Bloglovin and Twitter for updates!

Bee Beautiful. Bee You.