Beauty Tips for Those Who Want to Save a Dollar

For those of us who want to look gorgeous but don't want to blow a ton of money on expensive skin care and beauty products, here are ten little corner cutters to still look fabulous but keep your wallet full and happy~

1) Get a good night's sleep

One of the main reasons we wear makeup is to look less tired (well...if you're working or in post secondary school anyway!) I've come to the conclusion that we really can't fake awake. Sure we can look awake with a little makeup but we just might fall asleep at the desk without enough shut eye at night. So instead of getting that concealer for those dark circles just try to get to bed early. It's better for your health and good for your bank account too.

2) Buy products that are versatile

Eyeshadows don't have to JUST be eyeshadows...lipsticks don't have to JUST be lipsticks! When you buy a product you don't have to use it only as one thing. Try using a bronzer as eyeshadow sometime to get a natural and shimmery look on your eyes or use a little bit of lipstick to dab on your cheeks and even out into a nice blush.

3) DIY eye treatments are cheap and effective

There are so many products on the market these these that promise to reduce eye bags but you don't need to spend a lot to look awake! Some homemade remedies include using two wet teabags and placing them on your eyes for ten minutes, using cold spoons, or even potato slices! Works like a dream and costs next to nothing!

4) Use Vaseline for EVERYTHING!

I'm serious, Vaseline is like the most amazing beauty product ever created! This multipurpose cream can be used to moisturize hair, perk up eyelashes, get rid of tired eyes etc. As a warning though don't put too much Vaseline in your hair, it'll weight it down and be difficult to wash out!

5) Use gift wrappings for oil control

If you have oily skin like me I like to take the tissue paper from gift and cut them into little squares! They work amazingly as blotting paper so you'll never need to spend your money on brand name ones!

6)Baby oil or shampoo will remove your makeup

No need to spend tons of money on makeup wipes every couple months, just get a big old bottle of baby oil/ shampoo and it works well to take off your makeup! It's gentle enough for baby scalp and skin and will definitely be kind to your face.

7) Sugar scrubs for cellulite removal and baby soft skin

You really don't need to invest in expensive skin exfoliating treatments. Use coarse sugars and add a little tiny bit of olive oil to the mix (the sugar will not dissolve in it) then use it to scrub yourself smooth! You'll feel like a velvet rose~

8)Natural nail cure...olive oil!

I used to have an obscene obsession with nail polish (and...I still kind of do >w>...). After painting them so often that they started to yellow and crack I needed to give them some TLC. I soaked my nails in olive oil for a couple minutes every day then washed it off with warm water and soap. Hand cream as then applied afterwards...after a couple days my nails were already starting to feel less brittle! Nail polish and nail polish remover really dries out your nails and the olive oil made them hydrated and glossy once more!

9) Toothbrushes aren't just for teeth...your lips will love them too~

Seriously, you can use them to make your lips super soft and smooth! Sometimes we get those little lip goobies or skin coming off of them that makes your pout not look perfect. Take a toothbrush and gently brush them in small circles to get rid of any dead skin. Rinse your mouth and lips then apply a light coat of lip balm. Apart from getting rid of the dead skin you also stir up the blood in your lips and make them a little more red than usual, yay for natural lip color!

10)Exercise, drink lots of water and eat well!

The number one and most important (and also cheapest) method to stay beautiful (and not to mention healthy!) is to exercise enough and to eat properly and drink lots of water! Natural beauty is the greatest kind of beauty, take care of your body and it will take care of you. With an hour exercise everyday, lots of fruits and veggies in your diet and about 2 liters or so of water to drink per day, you'll look and feel fabulous in no time!

Thanks for reading and ciao for now~! <3

Designing a Logo!

I am a lucky girl because I was commissioned by a friend to do a logo for the SVABC! That stands for Specialty Vehicles Association of British Columbia! I was pretty surprised when I was asked to do this but I was happy to do the design for the club! The education from my old design program would not go to waste!

It took a lot longer to do than I imagined, there's so much editing, tweaking and brainstorming involved, especially for clever logos. When you look at a logo like the Starbucks siren or the silver apple from Apple, you must think wow that must have been easy to do! Not so, there's always a lot of work put into a good logo that makes it memorable, to point and versatile for printing on many different surfaces.

At the start I was thinking of putting a silhouette of an old fashioned looking car on top of the capital letters in the abbreviated version of the association name. The old logo had blue and yellow as its main color scheme so I kept the blue. This first design was turned down though because it didn't represent the SVABC that well. Most people there had cars that weren't from the era where they looked like top hats so I had to go back to the drawing board (or Adobe Illustrator ahem)

The next thing I came up with was this little gem here

I wanted to play around with the idea of a speed gauge, The "v" wasn't quite centered enough to look like it was part of the gauge arrows though and it was still a little too modern. The SVABC was enthusiastic about older automobiles so I had to somehow "vintagefy" it...what I Came up with next was a little more "vintage"

okay maybe that was an understatement...it looks like a hotel logo but it really takes its form inspired from the old logo. There wasn't anything car related in it so I took up the speed gauge idea again and came up with this

Still a little too modern so I tweaked it with some numbers and a different gauge design

                 

This design was chose to be the final and official logo for the SVABC!

It was a long process with many revisions. It was fun though and I got some experience in design! Good resume addition too hehehe~

Thanks for reading and ciao for now~! <3

Thanksgiving Weekend! Plans, Aspirations and Life Update!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! For those of you in the States you might think I'm crazy but I am from Canada and we do have our Thanksgiving in October instead of November...so...yeah!

I'm not sure my family will have a turkey dinner (we almost never have turkey for Thanksgiving) and instead we may just make a traditional Chinese food for dinner instead. A big feast but minus all the tryptophan! Turkey is pretty yummy I think, but I don't like Turkey stuffing. I'm not crazy! It just doesn't appeal to my palate is all.

So apart from stuffing my mouth with delicious Thanksgiving dinner I've gone to my friend's house to have a guitar 101 lesson! As you may well know I'm in university pursuing a degree in Biology right not but it is not going well. I got my first math midterm back and only received a C+ on it. I was absolutely gutted and today was the Physics midterm too... although I probably passed, I definitely did not do a stellar job on it...nooo goodbye high GPA! I'm also starting to realize I don't like science as much as I thought. The worth of a biology undergraduate degree is not very high and I can't really find work with it when I graduate. All the  calculations that the sciences demand is very strenuous on me and I am once again thrown into uncertainty about careers and what I want to do for the rest of my life. Maybe next semester I'll take off to do some soul searching. I know one thing for sure. My dream job involves music, I want to sing for people, I could play an instrument all day and love it! It's hard conforming to such a structured program like science when I am more of a creative person. It's just my parents except greatness from me in sciences, they wanted me to be a doctor when I was young and they still want to push me towards medical work now. I've made it blatantly clear I have no intention of doing anything medical but maybe I'll have to one day. Survive before you can thrive. Don't mix hobbies with work. That's what they always tell me.

One thing I really want to do is learn some guitar and compose some good songs then sing at a coffee house or something like that. I don't really expect to get famous but I think just doing that, making music for everyone for the rest of my days would be amazing. Of course this decision can't be a rash one and I hate dabbling around so much, wasting my parents money on schooling or tools that won't help me prepare for my career but the alternative is I take something I dislike, stick to it and work at a job I hate for 40 or more years of my life. I want to be happy, I want to make other people happy. Music is the way I want to do it!

Speaking of music, I have started learning a lot of new songs on piano including How Deep is your Love by the Beegees, Arrietty's Theme from the Movie The Secret World of Arrietty, and Erik Satie's Gymnopedie 1. I am absolutely in love with Erik Satie's work! It's very simple but sounds gorgeous! Like dream music! A  singer from Wales called Charlotte Church sung a version of it named "From my First Moment" and I've been raping the replay button on my phone 

Also here's some art I've done in the last little while!

Just had hot pot and it was delicious~! <3 

Food is the way to my heart~~~~...but I'm getting fat so a goal is to hit the gym at least thrice this week! Let's see how that goes! 

Thanks for reading and ciao for now~! <3

Once again...HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!