Serendipity Inspired- 'Hucklebug'

Alright, it has been WAY too long since i've done another look for my makeup series, 'Serendipity Inspired'.

(for background info on the basis of this series, go here).

I've been itching to do another one, but Christmas & Valentine's just had too much associated with it. Now that things have slowed down, I'm ready.

Today's look is based off of 'Hucklebug'.

(and this picture particularly)

The moral of this story is to learn from your mistakes, so they become lessons :)

A fine moral, indeed.

Based on the vivid colors in this picture (which came out duller than they really are),

here's the look!

Swatches:

MUG's 'Razzleberry'- waterline

unnamed blue from Sephora palette- crease

UD's 'Peace'- brow bone

UD's 'Graffiti' & unnamed green from Sephora palette- outer lid

UD's 'Penny Lane' & unnamed orange from Sephora palette- inner corner

Since the picture has mostly green & orange, I wanted to make those my predominant colors.

I'm not sure what I think about the red on my lower lash line, though.

I think it might have looked better somewhere else...

All in all, I like the look okay. Definitely a new color combo for me!

What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading!

MAKE SURE to check the end of yesterday's post for a little 'thank you' to my followers!!

;)

Serendipity Inspired- 'Cap'n Smudge'

Hey everyone!

Hope your week has gone well.

I realized I have two more weeks instead of two days off before fall semester starts,

so i'm pretty stoked at the moment :)

ALSO, it's been awhile since I did a look in my series 'Serendipity Inspired',

so I took the opportunity today to create another one.

(In case you have no idea what i'm talking about, this is a makeup series based off a series of amazingly illustrated and creatively written children's books).

You can see here, here, and here for other looks in the series so far.

Today's look is based off the creature Serendipity (for whom the series is named) in the book 'Cap'n Smudge':

She basically patrols the seas and makes sure no one pollutes them,

as Cap'n Smudge is wont to do :x

So she teaches him a lesson.

Anyway,

the colors in her are so bright that I figured they'd be great for a look.

Here's what I came up with!

So as I was posting this,

I realized it looks similar to a look i've already done several months ago :X oh well.

I used:

Too Faced's Shadow Insurance

'Tako' by Sugarpill in inner corners

'Dollipop' by SP on lid

'Junkshow' by UD on lid

'Misdemeanor' by UD in outer corners and crease

'Homegrown' & 'Graffiti' by UD on crease, brow bone, and lower lash line

Covergirl's Lashblast mascara

Covergirl's liquid eyeliner

I never could quite get a pic does the look justice, because it looks way better in person, in my opinion. but oh well. Despite using my new blending brush, I didn't blend the white and pink as well as I would have liked, but it's better than last time I did something like this. Practice makes perfect. Or so they say... Overall, I liked this look. It's definitely not something I'd feel comfortable wearing out in public because it's a little too much for me. 

Well, what do you guys think?

Which look is your favorite from the series so far?

ALSO,

check out my latest look from the Penguin Makeup Challenge!

Thanks for reading!

Serendipity inspired: 'In Search of the Saveopotomus'

Hey everyone!

I have another look from my 'Serendipity inspired' series for you today. I've only managed to do two so far (seen here and here) because everything has been so crazy with finals, moving, and summer classes... but I finally found some time for it today!

So for all you new followers out there, this makeup series is based off a series of children's books that have been in my family for years, and i'm now reading to my daughter. They all have totally cute little morals and are known for their super vivid illustrations. This is what inspires me most about then :)

For tonight's post, I used 'In Search of the Saveopotomas' from the Serendipity series as my inspiration. This lovely little story is about not putting all your stock in material things, and how often, giving is better than receiving! 

On to the look!

Here's the page from the book that served as inspiration:

^ the Hoardasaurus 

And I came up with...

(prior to eyeliner)

So I've never used these colors together and had really no idea what I wanted to do when I started playing around with them (that seems to be the case most of the time... a wing & a prayer, i guess)... BUT, i'm okay with how it turned out. I debated using a UD eyeliner in the blue on my waterline instead under the lashes, but I didn't know if it would be as noticeable, so I went with the shadow instead.

I used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance

Sugarpill's 'Buttercupcke' as base

SP's 'Tako' on inner corners

Urban Decay's 'Graffiti' in crease

UD's 'Peace' on lower lash line

Too Faced's Lashgasm mascara

I'm still trying to master the liquid eyeliner and wings. I can't do the eyeliner line thick above my lashes because then you can't see any of the eye shadow if i'm looking straight on, like in the last picture. Though I see that's how all the pros do it, so I don't know if it's just something I can't do because of how my lids are OR if it's just a technique I need to learn...

any suggestions?

What do you guys think about it & the color combo?

Also,

DON'T FORGET to enter my giveaway!!

We have a ton of great prizes up for grabs! :)

Thanks for reading, gals!

Serendipity inspired: 'The Dream Tree'

Helloooo.

Glad to have some me time to blog for a bit. I've been packing and doing laundry like a crazy woman all day.

Tonight is a slightly bipolar post. I wanted to do a look inspired by The Dream Tree, but couldn't decide on which look to go with- so I did one each eye :p

heh.

First off,

here's the sweet little book that served as my inspiration.

^this pic is a bit washed out but it was literally one of the ONLY images I could find showing the caterpillar on the cover. Apparently this was a limited version for the cover or something, because they mostly have the butterfly he turned into as the cover. wtf.

Anyway, though it's hard to tell in the photo, the caterpillar is a vivid, bright red and black striped little fella.

So here are the two ideas I had for this:

Black lid, faintly outlined in red.

Stark, red lid.

All together now...

** straight on **

** angle 1**

** angle 2**

YAY, Bipolar disorder!

Ok, let's get to the nitty gritty.

I LOVED making these looks. Both are something I would never wear in public, and I was surprised how much I loved both of these.

The first I created using Urban Decay's 'Blackout' on a primed lid. Afterwards I faintly outlined Sugarpill's 'Love+' with a shadow brush on the brow bone and under my eye, sweeping it out on the corners.

The second look was a perfect excuse to put one of my new shades in the spotlight. I used 'Love+' on a primed lid and lightly brushed UD's 'Vanilla' on the brow bone after.

Both of these looks surprised me because both the red & black are matte shadows. I usually ALWAYS use shimmery shadows, but I reallyyyyyy like how this turned out. Although I DID kind of cheat on the second look, because 'Vanilla' gave me a little shimmer :x

So there you have it!

What do you guys think?

Does it look totally crazy and like i've lost my mind ?!

:)

Serendipity inspired: 'Trafalgar True'

Good evening, everyone!

I've had a busy day of packing (both the apt since we're moving in 2 weeks, and packing for the beach next week) so it feels good to finally be able to sit down for some 'me' time :)

So my older cousin, myself, and now my daughter were all read the 'Serendipity' series when we were little. It's a series of fantastic books about life lessons that take place on the island of Serendipity, and it stands out because of it's vivid pictures- even now (& it was written in the 70's!!).

I'm in the process of reading all of them to my daughter now, and the great illustrations got me thinking about doing some looks to match them :)

Tonight's look is technically the second look (you can see the other here) but it's from the same book as the first- Trafalgar True!

For tonight I chose the vivid Trafalgar as my inspiration.

*inside, with flash

*fluorescent light, no flash

*full view

Does it looked like I used 3 different kinds of blues here?

......?

Yeah, i didn't think so.

One of them was much too close to another to show much difference, and i should have just left it out completely for a better effect. Trafalgar has so many shades of blue in him that I really wanted to capture that, but I didn't do a very good job :/

Swatches! (all Urban Decay)

All in all, I was semi-happy with the look. It blended almost a bit TOO much on the lid, and I didn't finish the brow bone and crease like I wanted, but i'm still learning. Practice makes perfect, or so they say.

This is obviously not the most wearable look,

but the colors in the book were too beautiful to pass up.

'Peace' & 'Ransom' are two of my favorite UD shades ever. They are two of the very first shadows I ever tried from UD, and i'm pissed that both (i think) are being discontinued. The blue that's supposed to be a good substitute for 'Peace' ('Haight') is nowhere NEAR the as bright :(

Boo, Urban Decay. Boo.

ANYWAY,

that's that.

What do you guys think?

Thanks for reading! :DD