• Now I know that I don't ever talk about beauty products, nor do I even MENTION them. Lately I've been on such a Lush kick that I wanted to do a post about my favorites.

    For the benefit of those that have no idea what I'm talking about, I will explain a little bit about Lush. *disclaimer: this post is purely out of my love for Lush and not sponsored in any way*

    Lush strives to be a leader in effective beauty products, while only using fresh ingredients, not testing on animals and with little impact on the environment. That's the jist of it. If you like to read more about their story: go here.

    While I love the above qualities, I am not an organic junky. I don't go out and buy anything that's organic, I like products that WORK and smell delicious in the process. That said, let's get into it!

    Lush is all about the experience of the store and the products. I have only met amazing, knowledgable sales staff, who are passionate about the products they sell. They demo EVERYTHING. If you have no idea what a bath bomb does, just ask! They love to demo the products.

    The products in the above photo are a combination of hair, face and lip products.  I'm going to just talk about the products that I use for my hair and face.


    Hair stuffs
    The products are what I love to use for my hair. I only recently broke down and purchased my first set of shampoo and conditioner and I could not be happier with it. Rehab is meant for "damaged and abused" hair. Which, I'd say mine is quite sad from blow drying and straightening everyday. This, in combination with the Happy Happy Joy Joy Conditioner leaves my hair happy and shiny. I have to say, if you are used to normal conditioner products, the Lush counterpart does feel a little less substantial. It feels a bit more watery than other conditioners. I don't see a negative effect of that in regards to how my hair looks after washing, however. If anyone uses any other of the hair conditioners, let me know how those ones feel! I'm curious to see if that's just the result of using all fresh, natural ingredients or if it's this particular conditioner.

    My absolute favorite hair product that I've used from Lush thus far has to be R & B. It is a leave-in moisturizer and I use it daily. I have red hair, which tends to be a combination of weirdness, not limited to weird waviness, frizziness and static. I blow dry/straighten my hair to solve the odd waviness that my hair has, but this product solves the issues I have with fly aways and static(which infinitely multiples in the winter).

    R & B
    The consistency is like a very thick, creamy conditioner. I can only use a tiny, tiny amount or my hair looks crazy greasy. I have been using this product everyday for at least 4 months and I've barely made a dent in that tin. I highly recommend this product.

    On to face...

    Face stuffs
    Don't tell anyone, but I'm super, super bad about washing my face at night. I know... bad. But I'm getting better with my new set of Lush products. I need something quick and easy so I went with 9 to 5 as a cleanser. It is a creamy lotion cleanser that you just put on a cotton pad and rub into your skin. Out comes the dirty onto the cotton pad. I don't recommend that you rely on this to remove eye makeup. Use a separate product that is meant to remove eye makeup without stressing your sensitive skin around your eyes.

    I have a small gripe about the cleanser. For some reason, I don't FEEL like my skin is as clean as other products I have used. I have no evidence to support that, it just doesn't as fresh because you don't rinse the lotion cleaner off. I break the rules though, and do. Shhh.

    Ok so, the Toner, Breath of Fresh Air. I seriously still do not understand the point of toner, but it feels amazing on my face when I spray it on. It literally feels like a breath of fresh air. Appropriately named products, for the win! It was recommended by the sales lady to use 9 to 5, then spray on Breath of Fresh Air and THEN use the Imperialis moisturizer. This, she demonstrated in-store on the back of my hand and it felt amazingly soft, so I had to get it all for my face. It does the same. By the time I'm done my face feels amazing. So, it must be working right?

    Here's the moisturizer:

    Imperialis Moisturizer
    It's super lightweight and like R & B, I'm pretty sure this tin will last me forever.

    Hmm, I think that is enough for now! Check out Lush's website to see info on the above products.

    If you use Lush, please let me know what products you love, as I'm always on the look out for new things to try!

    Thanks all for enduring my non-sewing post :D

    -Lindz
  • Burp cloths and baby blankets!

    A new project is afoot. This is a step towards my 2013 goal to open an Etsy store. This idea is to bundle some baby items together. Likely burp cloths/baby blankets and the like. Of course, the ideas are not refined as I have not made prototypes for all the ideas I have yet. It's fun to get started though!


    Burp cloths and baby blankets!
    The girly colors-  Tula Pink, Salt Water and Valori Wells, Wrenly

    Burp cloths and baby blankets!
    The boyish colors-  Tula Pink, Salt Water and Valori Wells, Wrenly


  • Finally! It's finished :)


    It's finished!

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  • Quilting is almost finished on this bad boy. I'm getting really excited to finish this!

    This is my first experience with free motion quilting. I decided to a random geometric pattern through all the white negative space. I love the way it is turning out so far!


    Untitled

    I am definitely not fully in control with the free motion quilting yet. If you look close you can see some stitching is longer/shorter from me not being able to give it consistent motion. I will get better with practice! .... I think.


    Untitled
    AHH imperfections!

    The effect is still great though over. I can't wait to finish this! Next time I post I will finally have a finished project! WOOOO

    Thanks all for stopping by!


  • Another view of the completed top
    Yay! It has borders! I dont know why this was the most annoying part for me, but I really had to MAKE myself get the border on this thing.
    Quilt top is done! Too big for our tiny apartment Ready for a back and basting!

    I have no idea what I'm going to do for the backing. I completely ran out of Kona white and was hoping to not have to buy more fabric. I'm really hoping I have enough of the other fabrics to piece together a back!

    Tis all for today!

    Thanks all for stopping by :)

  •  Working away on this quilt for my Mommy in-law. I have all the blocks together with sashing now. This did not happen without a massive amount of frustration. 2 of the rows had to be completely ripped apart after realizing the sashing did not line up AT ALL.

    It still needs borders, but I decided maybe I needed a small break from sewing yesterday. Just needs borders!

    I don't have a lot of room in my teensy apartment for laying things out, so I apologize for the shadows and terrible cropping.

    I wanted to talk about a little bit about some resolutions for this year that I have for this year. Nothing really intense, but I always like to try to be bettering (is that a word?) myself

    new-years-resolutions
    Pretty much.

    Sewing:

    • Finish all unfinished projects
    • Finish at least 1 quilt per month through 2013
    • Start/establish an Etsy store
    Not a ton, but enough to keep me busy. My real goal is to be able to buy a new sewing machine using money only from selling sewing projects.

    Thanks all!
  • So this is a project that I thought up mmm last May. I decided I was going to make a quilt for my mother-in-law. They had just bought a new house and she was clearly going to need a fresh new quilt for her living room!

    Well here we are 8 months later and I finally sat down and made some real progress on this. I knew that I wanted to do a similar layout to what Camille did in this blog post with Summersville. I love the clean lines because I wanted to use bold fabrics to give some nice color for my in-laws new living room.  I decided that the color scheme of Maya by Anthology Fabrics was perfect, as my MIL loves red and yellow.



    I added some coordinating reds, yellows and teals fill in the gaps and give it more depth.

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    The blocks are about 10" x 10" after using 2.5" strips of fabric.

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    I kinda thought I'd cut enough fabric to make a big enough quilt, but I ended up with only enough for 14 blocks. I tried to lay it out with 12 and do some cool border with remaining strips, but I think I will have to bite the bullet and press on with more block making.


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    Since this is a long overdue project, I'm hoping to get the top done ASAP, so be on the look out for more updates to come!



  • I know... it's been ages.

    So to begin, a quilt I finished and posted on flickr and twitter but never blogged about. I used Innocent Crush by AMH. Here are les photos, beginning to end:


    love this line. need to cut it up
    It began as this

    Window shot
    Top is pieced!

    Must take a test photo on the pallet bed :)
    Test bed shot
    Not so straight line quilting :)
    After quilting

    It's done!
    All done!

    The back
    Ze back!

    I love this quilt. It's perfect for snuggling on the couch :)


    Next up...
    Chevron QAL

    All the chevrons!

    WHICH is still not done. This photo was taken, mmmm about a year ago. Maybe I need to start finishing this up eh? This is a terrible photo, but it's the only one I have.

    I made this cute little quilt for my adorable new niece. Miss Elysia Joyce

    Baby quilt top done :)

    That's all for now!

    I will be posting more now. I finally am settled in our new apartment and have things to finish!

    -Lindz
  • Finished quilting on my Christmas quilt
    So I made some progress on my Christmas quilt finally. Finished the simple quilting and now I just have to finish up the binding. It's weird that this is only my 2nd quilt that will be finished. It's not however the second quilt I started... That one is on the back burner for a bit. I'm excited to have this quilt to cuddle with in the next couple days :)
    Next... I tried to start my Oh My Stars! QAL. But here's the thing, I walked in the room, started cutting the bigger squares for the first set when I realized I had cut it just a tad too small. It's supposed to be 7 and 1/2... whoops. Therefore I am done for the night. More to come tomorrow, hopefully!
    Cutting failure :(
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