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I’m excited to tell you about the glam makeup party from this past weekend! My friend Ashley, who you might remember from our yoga party, now sells makeup and asked me to host a makeup party to show us the products and try them out. It was a fun afternoon! We sipped mimosas, ate breakfast tacos, and played with makeup.

Makeup and skin care are things I’ve figured out on my own since high school. Little by little, I’ve learned about products and techniques through friends, articles, and YouTube videos and added to my routine. With makeup, I think it’s less about covering up imperfections and more about enhancing your positive features, like making your eyes sparkle. It’s all about showing your inner confidence outward. With all the products available, it’s also a lot of fun to experiment!

Ashley! And some of the colorful and fun makeup and skin care products she sells.

One of the first products from the Royalty skin care line we tried is one of my favorites of the bunch. The detoxifying mask has charcoal in it and putting it on for five minutes had immediate revitalizing effects on all of us.

Charcoal Masks are revitalizing our faces!

The rest of the Royalty line is magic too. The Instant Lifting Serum gives you immediate wrinkle restoration while the Uplift Beauty Serum gives you more long-term effects. There are products for every step of your skin care routineFor my eyeshadow I decided to try something a little crazy and bold since I usually use neutral colors. Ashley did a halo effect on my right eye and a three-tone mermaid effect on my left eye. (Check out the mermaid eyeshadow tutorial here.) There are many beautiful eyeshadow colors, in shimmer and matte, cream or loose. The eyeshadow palettes are fun too. Either of these two eye looks would be a fun for a night out! (I also tried the liquid foundation and the peachy lipliner.)

Ready for some tips? I like things simple when it comes to makeup and skincare. I’ll all for a 10-minute makeup application in the morning and quick skin care before bed. Here are my five go-to tips to put on my best face!

1. Always remove your makeup before you go to bed.
Throughout the day, dirt and bacteria build up on your face, in addition to the makeup you put on. Cleansing helps clear your pores to keep your skin healthy, wrinkle-free, and blemish-free. I wash my face with face wash and then use a makeup remover wipe if there’s leftover eye makeup. Every once in a while, I use an electric two-speed cleansing tool (similar to a Clarisonic Mia) to get a deeper clean. (While you’re at it – be sure to clean your pillowcases regularly too!)

2. Use night cream and eye cream.
After you wash your face, revitalize with a night cream, aptly named for its application before you go to bed. Night creams are meant to hydrate, fight wrinkles, firm, and restore. Don’t forget to apply it on your neck too! Similar to night cream, eye cream focuses on the areas around your eyes to smooth out fine lines and wrinkles, relax puffiness, and fix dark circles. This is usually applied as part of a morning routine before makeup.

3. Always apply SPF in the morning.
Our faces are exposed to sunlight, directly and indirectly, every day. To prevent sunspots and wrinkles, I use a BB cream with SPF daily. If I know I’ll be outside for a long period of time, I make sure to use sunscreen because a sunburnt and peeling face is not fun!

4. Wash your makeup brushes.
Just as your face builds up particles every day, so do your makeup brushes. Washing them every other week or at least monthly would be ideal. This will give your face the best look and help maintain the quality of your makeup.

5. Pamper and Experiment!
This party was a good reminder to take better care of my skin and not be afraid to experiment with products and looks. We all need a little pampering sometimes. Applying masks, like the charcoal mask, twice a week can make you feel good inside and out. Taking care of my skin will have long-term positive effects and trying new makeup is all about learning how to enhance your look and having fun. This is an investment that’s worth it!

If you’re interested in learning more about makeup, Ashley posts tutorials and tips every week on Facebook. Here’s an example below. Check out the private VIP Facebook group here.

If you want to check out the makeup and skincare products, check out my virtual makeup party here until September 28. After September 28, check out Ashley’s website.

What are your go-to skin care and beauty tips? Any products you LOVE?

Keep up with my daily adventures. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’, or Snapchat (@wanderlustanita). You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #8 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

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This colorful patterned tablecloth from Target has been waiting for a party and it’s my favorite! Simple flowers brightened up the place.

It’s no party without snacks! I made sure to include cupcakes since I hadn’t made any in a while. These Brown Butter Peach Cupcakes were perfect for a summer celebration. Also, these confetti brownies were chocolate gooey goodness. Those sugar cookies were what we used to DIY.

Plenty of La Croix to cleanse the palate! Thank you to Amy for bringing a yummy bottle of rose that we happily finished.

We made two crafts at the party: flooded sugar cookies and a macramé wall hanging. Here are some shots from the cookie action.

I’ve been wanting to try macramé for a long time! I found the jersey yarn macramé wall hanging kit from Wool and the Gang. They had lots of fun colors for our project. (FYI: the yarn is made from recycled factory cut-offs so the color options change frequently. If you see a color you like, grab it quickly!)

The macramé wall hanging was quite the craft. It was definitely a lot harder and more time-consuming than I thought it would be. Now we understand the time and effort behind all those beautiful macramé hangings on Instagram and Pinterest!

We all spaced out on the floor since the yarn needed to be long. If I had gotten photos of us at work, you would see us intensely concentrating on our craft. None of us finished but hopefully we’ll have finished products in the future!

Jack supervising/”helping” our macrame making.

Here’s macramé progress! I definitely put a lot of “character” in at the beginning.

Have you ever tried macramé? What did you make?

Want more patterns? Check out my Pattern board on Pinterest.

Keep up with my daily adventures. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin’, or Snapchat (@wanderlustanita). You can also subscribe to the exclusive email list.

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #7 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

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This past weekend, I had the joy of helping with my friend Sarah’s baby shower! (You might remember Sarah from her wedding reception I helped with two years ago.) Sarah’s sister Rachel was the organizer of the whole event and she did a stellar job. The baby shower featured an amazing bagel bar, girly florals, DIY, and lots of fun!

First, the food! A fellow foodie, Sarah made it very clear that she wanted great food at the shower. Rachel, their family members, and some friends prepared all the delicious food. The amazing bagel bar spread had options for all tastes – from lox and capers to Nutella and banana. There was also chicken salad, pea pesto salad, herb and goat cheese frittata, sausage and potato and mushroom frittata, almond lemon cake, and mimosas.

For the décor, I kept it simple with these girly floral hoops. If you’re looking for something different than flowers in a vase, this project is doable in about an hour.

Here’s some info on how to make the floral hoops.

• Those white hoops are small hula hoops from the Dollar Store with two coats of white spray paint. Yes, only $2 plus the white spray paint that I already had. I went this route for the hoop thickness and color. The only problem I had was if I weren’t careful, the paint would scratch off when it touched hard surfaces. You can also get metal hoops in varying sizes (ones I saw at Hobby Lobby were thinner, silver and ranged from $1-5 each) or wood embroidery hoops from a craft store.
• Buy floral wire (thin green wire), wire cutters, greenery, and a mix of coordinating flowers. For the greenery and flowers, I got eight stems of greenery for $2 each at Central Market and two prepared bouquets from Whole Foods for $9 each. I got the bouquets because Central Market didn’t have the flowers I wanted, but the bouquets were good because I didn’t need to think about what flowers would go together and they were cheaper than piecing bouquets together myself.
• Sketch out your loop design or lay out your flowers to get a feel for the desired finished look. For my hoops, I knew I wanted the greenery to open out on the ends and for the big Gerbera daisies to be the focal point. The roses and berries were complementary.
• Start with the greenery and wire each piece strategically onto the hoop, layering on top of each other. I started wiring the outer pieces and moved in to the center with the flowers. You may need to use glue dots to help hold pieces in place. I used it in two spots to cover up the white hoop with leaves.
• Stick the hoops to the wall with plastic hooks with adhesive on the back and glue dots or hang them with clear fishing line.
• Altogether, this project cost $38 plus the white spray paint, floral wire and wire cutters that I already had. Your big cost will be the flowers and depends on the kind of flower. A $4 carnation bunch from HEB could look just as nice. My flowers were from Central Market and Whole Foods. I also hear Trader Joe’s has a good flower selection. You could also make this with fake flowers, which cost an average $3-5 per stem at a craft store.

Our DIY craft was decorating onesies and bibs for the future babe. Everyone did a great job with these! The drying racks came in very handy.

We also had guests fill out two different cards – one of baby predictions (things like height, weight) and another of wishes for the baby (things like “I hope you learn ___”). Sarah’s friend Cristina put these cute cards together and created this impressive diaper cake.

Cristina also created this pretty birthdate calendar that we all put our birthdate predictions on. I’ve guessed Baby Girl will be an early bird! It’ll be fun to see if anyone guessed correctly.

We played Pictionary using words associated with babies, like spit up and breast pump, but with a room full of moms, this game was a piece of cake!

There was gift opening that resulted in a lot of agreeing nods when another box of baby bottles appeared and oos and ahhs when adorable watermelon outfits and hand-knitted blankets were unwrapped.

Guests didn’t leave empty-handed. These bags of popcorn (choice of Dill Pickle, Cheddar, or Caramel) from Austin company Cornucopia were the perfect size. I added the printed labels to the bag for a personalized touch.

It was a wonderful afternoon celebrating Sarah and her babe. We can’t wait to meet the sweet little girl!

Have you ever been to a baby shower? What was your favorite part?

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #6 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

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Charleston
As you’ve seen from my previous post about the Best Restaurants in Charleston, we had many, many great eats during our four days in Charleston.

La Pepita Salad and Kale Nachos at Vinaigrette
Vinaigrette is a health-focused restaurant with a new location in south Austin. This salad was SO GOOD. Chopped green kale with shredded chicken, black beans, crumbled cojita, diced avocado with spicy crispy pepitas and a lemon-cumin vinaigrette. It was a big dish but one that make you feel healthier and healthier as you ate it. I loved the mix of flavors, subtle spice and crunch of the pepitas. I also loved the Kale Nachos appetizer.

Gelato at Dolce Neve
Dolce Neve is always a treat when I’m in south Austin and looking for a sweet treat. It might be a strange combination but I got scoops of salted chocolate and lemon.

Crawfish Boil
You may remember we hosted our first seafood boils last fall. We had borrowed a boiler but since my boyfriend got a boiler for Christmas and LOVES crawfish, we wanted to host a crawfish boil. It was a BIG success – 63 lbs of crawfish boiled and eaten. The crawfish were big and spicy. Sadly, this is the only photo I took during the party; I was too busy peeling crawfish!

The Domain’s New Rock Rose District
Some friends and I checked out the new Rock Rose district one night. While only a handful of places are now open, the late-night favorites seem to be Kung Fu Saloon and Lavaca Street Bar. I recommend the chicken nachos at Turf N’ Surf Kitchen at Lavaca Street Bar. Since I live up north, I’ve been looking forward to more food and drink options in my area, and it looks like the majority of places in Rock Rose will be open up by the fall. Can’t wait to try them all!

RA Sushi
For our Austin Food Blogger Alliance happy hour, we enjoyed dishes at RA Sushi downtown. The dishes were plated beautifully and the lighting was perfect on their patio. I tried a few of the many dishes that night, and my favorite was the chili ponzu yellowtail (on the appetizer menu). We also enjoyed a variety of rolls, RA chips and salsa, potstickers, edamame, shishito peppers, mochi balls and dessert rolls.

Any noteworthy eats in your life last month?

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Eating sweets from @briberybakery, @traderjoestexas, and @uppercrust_atx before taking a @britandco watercolor class at @atasteofkoko’s cozy home. #crafty #diy #watercolor #brunch #austinbloggers #britco #painting #paint #lindaeatsworld #macarons #thatsdarling

A photo posted by Linda Nguyen (@curiousnotions) on Feb 28, 2016 at 8:51am PST

Watercolor & brunch with these lovely ladies! @daniaustin @sushigirl_atx @wanderlustanita @curiousnotions @kathyphantastic

A photo posted by JANE KO, Food & Travel Blogger (@atasteofkoko) on Feb 28, 2016 at 9:45am PST

What a fun morning of brunching and water coloring with @atasteofkoko, @kathyphantastic, @curiousnotions, @wanderlustanita & @daniaustin! #diy #britandco #wearecrafty #craft

A photo posted by Amy drohen (@sushigirl_atx) on Feb 28, 2016 at 11:24am PST

 

Fun and relaxing watercoloring morning! We took the @britandco online illustration class and it resulted in these cute foxes.

A photo posted by Anita Cheung (@wanderlustanita) on Feb 28, 2016 at 10:26am PST

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My friend Sarah and I hosted a sweet, little Valentine’s Day Party with some of our favorite gal pals this past weekend. We threw together this fun party in a little more than a week! Sarah and I had been emailing back and forth about DIY projects we wanted to do, and the look and feel of our ideas seemed perfectly made for a Valentine’s get-together. Take a look!

Valentine’s is a very versatile party theme. You can do up the room with hearts or use a classic black and white base with splashes of girly pink or red. Sarah’s open, minimalistic kitchen was the perfect setting for the latter. A few pops of color here and there with flowers, a heart garland and a table runner tied in the Valentine’s theme.

Sarah made this excellent strawberry shrub with red wine vinegar for our drinks. One or two tablespoons of the mixture was topped off with Topo Chico or cava.

Getting some fun #diy #valentinesday ideas with @wanderlustanita, @kathyphantastic, @mjsoko & @pbchipses. Pop tarts, chocolate dipped Rice Krispie hearts, Herb infused syrup cocktails/mocktails, flower pepper shakers and more!

A photo posted by Amy drohen (@sushigirl_atx) on Feb 13, 2016 at 1:04pm PST

For our DIY snacks, we decorated rice krispies and made pastry tarts. For the pastry tarts, we used pre-made puff pastry and a selection of jams, including a homemade jam by Amy’s mother-in-law! With a little mix of lemon juice, powdered sugar and food coloring; Sarah made a icing and we topped the treats with sprinkles.

For the rice krispies, I pre-made the rice krispies with my favorite Smitten Kitchen recipe. We used a heart cookie cutter to get our shapes, and then we drizzled chocolate and finished them off with sprinkles.

For our other DIY, we made colorful pepper mills with dried flowers and peppercorn. Sarah first saw this DIY in the Near and Far cookbook. You can find a similar recipe here. We layered peppercorn with dried calendula, roses, hibiscus and lavender. It’s a pretty result that can be cracked onto yogurt or ice cream.

Finally, we also decorated cards for our valentines!

It was a fun time celebrating Valentine’s Day with some of my favorite gals!

#GalentinesDay crafting and baking with @WanderlustAnita and @SushiGirl_ATX pic.twitter.com/kW9EdGSaUP

— Kathy Phan (@kathyphan) February 14, 2016

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #3 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

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Hello, my little dumplings! Happy Lunar New Year and the Year of the Monkey! Take a look at how I celebrated with a dumpling party.

My mom consistently made dumplings in my childhood. They were packed for lunch, eaten as an after-school snack, and even eaten as a meal. Nostalgia aside, dumplings are very versatile and easy to make, and I’ve been craving them for months! Haha. Also, dumplings are eaten during Chinese New Year for good luck because they are shaped like ancient gold, symbolizing wealth. All of these reasons made a dumpling party timely and fun.

Most of my guests hadn’t made dumplings before so it was fun showing them the very easy process. My mom didn’t follow a recipe when making dumplings but the filling usually included pork and garlic chives. I used this Tasting Table recipe as a very loose guideline for our dumplings. I pre-made the filling about 10 minutes before guests arrived and together we stuffed and folded almost 40 dumplings!

All you need is a little dollop of filling in the middle of the dumpling wrapper, and a little water to seal the dumplings. Dumplings can be wrapped in a number of ways. As long as it is sealed so that the stuffing doesn’t spill out, you’re good. They can have a completely smooth edge, a pleated edge or a pleated edge with a re-shaping to make it look more like an ancient gold piece. You can see all three of these ways below.

We also enjoyed store-bought, pre-cooked dumplings, which can be found in the frozen aisle of an Asian supermarket or the international section of HEB. We devoured (and some guests took the rest to-go) about 90 dumplings!

Our homemade dumplings at the beginning of cooking.

The cooking process is fairly simple. Pan fry the dumplings with oil. When the bottom of the dumplings are browned, pour water in your pan to cover a fourth (height) of the dumplings. Cover and let them steam. They’ll be ready when all of the water is gone, but I always like to tear one open to double-check that the meat is cooked.

If you want, you can also cook them by boiling. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add your dumplings. When the water boils again, add a cup of cold water to the pot and wait for it to come back to a boil. Do this two more times and your dumplings should be ready to eat.

Dipped or topped with a mixture of soy sauce, chili oil and chives; dumplings are an easy, filling and tasty snack or meal.

I always enjoy trying foods from other cultures, so I made sure to gather some Asian snacks I loved as a child. Pocky of three flavors (chocolate, strawberry and matcha), baked shrimp-flavored chips, mandarin oranges, and coconut pastry rolls.

For dessert, we had mochi ice cream, a Japanese dessert. We tried vanilla, strawberry, mango and green tea flavors. If you’ve never had them, the outside is sticky rice dusted with cornstarch and inside is ice cream.

If you’re out and about and would like to try some other Asian dumplings, I recommend my favorites: xiao long bao (steamed soup dumplings), har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings found at dim sum), and wontons (pork and shrimp dumplings that usually come with noodles and soup). At the party we also talked about the dumpling equivalent in other cultures. If you’re curious, check out this Serious Eats article.

I hope you get your fill of dumplings and have a prosperous and lucky New Year! Comment below with your favorite kind of dumpling!

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #2 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

P.S. I threw a fun Lunar New Year potluck two years ago, and you can see it here.

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At the very beginning of 2016, I hosted a yoga and brunch party to help my friends start off on the right foot. My friend Ashley, who recently became a certified yoga instructor, led us through a fun, hour-long class in my living room. I had never had a boy band playlist take me through my practice but I can now say it is really fun! I wish I had gotten a photo of the girls doing their strong warrior poses! Believe me, they were fierce! After yoga, we enjoyed a little brunch I prepared. I made sure to include as many healthy snacks as possible.

Our menu included: carrots and hummus, a yogurt parfait bar and one of my favorite recipes – the monk bowl, which is a type of quinoa salad. (Recipe coming later.) Of course, we had mimosas to wash it all down.

You might have seen in my 2016 goals post that one of my goals this year is to throw 12 celebrations. I really enjoyed this goal last year. Instead of upping the number, I decided I would up the ante by putting more thought into this year’s celebrations and try to throw different kinds of celebrations. I’m continually working on being a better hostess and making entertaining as seamless as possible. I think you’ll like what’s coming because I hope to share ideas to make your celebrations easier to plan and easier on the budget. From what I learned last year, entertaining is fun and pretty but not always great for your bank account!

For this little gathering, the focus was on the yoga and the food. The quick banner you see in the first picture was the simple décor. Ashley and I gathered our favorite thought-provoking quotes and questions and I printed them out for each guest to take home.

Money-Saving Tip for Your Celebrations: Try not to make a large excess of food and don’t let leftover food go to waste. The few cents or dollars you paid for ingredients will add up.

I’m on a mission to throw 12 celebrations in 2016. This is #1 of 12. See all of #Celebrations2016 here!

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