REVIEW-Burt's Bees® Intense Hydration

Hi guys,


I'm doing a review for BzzAgent today. I received the Intense Hydration Cream Cleanser and the Intense Hydration Night Cream for review from BzzAgent.

Here is what they say about this line.

"Clary Sage, a remarkable botanical that thrives in its harsh environment because of its ability to retain moisture, is the inspiration behind Burt’s Bees Intense Hydration, our natural ode to soft, supple, revitalized skin and our best natural anti-aging solution. Our cream cleanser leaves your skin incredibly soft while our day lotion, eye cream and night cream help reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles. Add the treatment mask for an immediate dose of hydration to give your skin a revitalized look."


So..Let's see I have combo skin type, but I also have psoriasis that has now chosen to creep onto my face from my scalp. Something like this, I figure can't hurt anything. Maybe it is like Moo Cream, a very heavy moisturizer I use on occasion. The first night I only tried the cleanser, just to see what would happen. The smell, is absolutely delicious. So I washed my face as usual, and didn't put any other products on afterwards. I went to bed and woke up the next day. It was clearly not TO MUCH for my face as I had no new breakouts. I didn't find that any of my "parched" spots on my face were cleared up, but I definitely don't expect that after just one use. So the next night I washed my face with the cleanser and I put the night cream on. The night cream was WAY to heavy for my skin. I didn't feel like it sunk in well enough before bed, and I was right. The next morning I woke up with VERY greasy skin, to the point where I had to wash my face twice and switch out my pillow  case.

Two days later though and I am still using the cleanser. It doesn't get off my makeup very well, but I use my makeup remover (which dries out my skin in the winter)and then this cleanser, and it works well for me. I'm starting to notice the spots around my mouth and nose are starting to get better slowly which is an area I tend to focus my cleanser on normally. I will keep you updated and let you know how it is going.



Side part: I did not get paid for this post or for trying this line. I get the product for free to give my opinion on through BzzAgent   

Back to the Kitchen with a Bread Pudding Recipe

I haven't been back her in quite some time. Now with the wedding done, I'm coming back with a new twist. I LOVE TO COOK AND BAKE. So I want to show you what I'm cooking.


Starting with my current addiction. Bread pudding was rediscover when we went to celebrate my husbands birthday at the Mandarin. I have been wanting to make some ever since.


                                        <3 BREAD PUDDING <3

Ingredients


 6 slices of day old bread
2 tbsp melted butter (margarine works for me)
1/2 cups of whatever you choose to put in ( I have made it plain, with choc/mint chips, and apple pieces)
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk ( I also used carnation canned evaporated milk the last time. It works but I would suggest 2 1/2 cups if using that)
3/4 cup white sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract



Directions

<3 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
<3 Break bread into small pieces, and place in a 8 inch baking pan. Pour  melted butter/margarine over and mix well. Sprinkle you optional topping choice on.
<3 In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, milk (or substitute) white sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract together. Pour it all over the bread, and push the bread down so it will soak up all the deliciousness.
<3 Bake in the preheated oven for up to 45 mins ( I only need it in for about 30 to 35 mins).


<3 It's done when you press it and it springs back<3

Mmmmmm mmmmmm GOOOD :D

It's The Crazy Life Week

This week absolutely exhausted me. We spent the majority of it at friends and away from home. While I love our friends, I don't do well with being away from home for very long.

It was so hot out I had to place ice cubes in my cats bowl, to keep the water cold.

 Our first little harvest of strawberries. They were so super yummy too :D

 After having my coupon binder stolen. My couponing community and friends got together and helped with this. I am so thankful to them all.

 It just keeps growing and growing. I love it :D I hope it never stops. The second year is supposed to be way better too.

 These are the green onion tests I was doing. The bottom plants have now died however.

 The beds downstairs. A bunny ate one of our pepper plants, but it's growing back beautifully. Everything else is doing really well also.

 I wish you could see all the flowers on the left hand tomatoe plants. I'm so happy they should produce well this year :D

 I made a strawberry sorbet/ice treat for us one day, and it was absolutely delicious.

 Three out of 4 of my new nail polishes from Julep Maven (if you wanna check out this mani pedi monthly subscription, click HERE) It's a mani pedi subscription that lets you choose different nail polishes and mani pedi product pkgs every month for only 19.99.

Lastly, This is what I have currently been working on for the wedding. The corsage straps for my mother and Aunty. A smokey coloured swarovski crystal centre and pearled white bead border.

Well That was my week. I will see you back here next weekend :D

The Ups and Downs of a Week

This week was quite a whirl wind. We were barely home :(

I worked in my studio reorganizing it, which lead to new product packaging half way through cleaning, Then we were in my home town making my bust form for my wedding dress, so I don't have to be home ALL the time while it's being made. Here's what we did LOL

I never got a picture of the finished piece LOL. But that was our Saturday. We also went into a neighboring town to do a bit of shopping as well.

This is Kiki, my folks new pup. She's absolutely precious, I love hanging out with her, and so does Matt. She sure loves him too. Lays on her back right beside him on the couch while he pets her belly.

I was in the city for the better part of the week so I didn't get any pictures of my plants and there progress, but I will update on Thursday with some pictures. Everything is growing so amazingly. We've already harvest a few of our strawberries and green onions. I now have a yogurt container completely full of green onion. I now need to find some good recipe's to use them up LOL. Our beefsteak plat now has flowers starting which look amazing :D.

So I'll see you again Thursday and show you how the rest of this week has went. Hopefully it will be a  lot more exciting LOL.

Review- Vinyl Nails From FolkChina on Ebay and Maybelline Color Show Nail Polish

While this is not my first attempt at playing with "vinyl nails" or foil wraps as there also known. This is the first time they have actually lasted all day long!

This is the set I chose. I bought them way back in the fall, just waiting for the right time.

While they are quite a "treat" to put on (to say the least) Once there, they're not that bad! I was able to go about my day as normal, and they pretty much did what my nail polish ALWAYS does... CHIP.. Only on the top edges and it's not really noticeable to anyone but my well trained (paranoid) eye, but that's a good thing. They lasted one whole day of wear including a cpl loads of hand washing dishes ( so basically submerged in water) as well as a shower and a long soak in the tub. THAT my friends is where things went bad. After soaking in the tub both my nail polish AND my vinyl nails literally just peeled right off. I had hard as nails top coat on them as well and it didn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED them (sorry I didn't get a picture) but really in general nail polish itself doesn't last to long on me with how much I do. Considering this fact I highly recommend Maybeline's new color show nail polish. I love the colours and the texture of the nail polish. As for the nail vinyls from Folk China on ebay. For 1 or 2 dollars you really can't go wrong. There fun designs that can give you a funky and cool accent nail like what I had, or a whole set of wicked awesomeness to hang out with for a while! Either way, even though neither lasted that long I highly recommend  both. Below I will have a link to Folk China AND Maybeline's new Color Show nail polish line.

Folk China

Maybelline Color Show Nail Polish Colours  (You can find them at your local Walmart, there I believe 2.97 here in Ontario, Canada)

Sneeky me to boot here is a coupon for the Maybelline Color Show nail polish. HERE

P.s. The nail polish I used was Shocking Seas, as a nice complimentary to the purple in my nail foils. I also already own Chiffon Chic as well.

Garden Update #1

A weekly post it is I guess. There really hasn't been a whole heck of a lot going on here. Just the same work, play, garden that I have been doing since the beginning of the summer (so a few weeks at best now). Here's our week in review for you.....picture style!

Let's start off with the gardening. Except for the strawberries. Everything else is doing well but growing VERY slowly.

 These were the extra onion bulbs that I decided to test in a planter box. The above photo was the day after planting them (mind you, they already had good roots on them)

 Look at that gorgeous strawberry. I absolutely LOVE this picture.

 Out of 6 green onions these 2 sprouted and continue to grow.

 This is the aerial view of our little square foot garden. The 4 middle dark green plants are ruby reds tomatoes, bright green stems are pepper plants, the empty looking portion in the front is all onions and the 2 on the left side are beefsteaks.

 These are the ruby reds before there transplant. They had almost doubled in size. They don't look this big in the garden now because I buried the bottom leaves hoping they will sprout and grow out to produce more foliage and fruit.

 You can see all of the new growth happening on the plants.

I love being able to track the progress of my garden. It's so much fun for me to wake up and see whats new and whats maturing.

 While rearranging the lining room I took one of our wicker baskets and put all our extra blankets in it, so of course my Bello thinks it's a new bed for her to chill out on LOL.

 This is what I got in the mail today LOL. It's a P&G Sampler package. LOVE IT :D

Meet my birthday present from Matt :D I saw it when we were out one day at the beginning of the month and he remembered it :D 

I LOVE owl's so this guy was awesome :D

A New Birthday Start

I want to start off by saying HI, and welcome to a new blog I have been wanting to start for quite some time now. You will see a little bit of everything from my life here starting Today.....well technically the pictures go back a couple of days LOL. So without further ado, let me introduce myself.

My name is Elizabeth Duquette and I am currently 4 months away from getting married to the man of my dreams. Meet Matt, you will probably hear about him every once in a while. This was taken on a trip up our small towns nature trail. He LOVES to take pictures. Lately that's started to rub off on me too. Which is probably where I got the stunning idea to start this blog. I think it is also more for me personally to remember....kinda like an online diary that everyone can see.

Anyways our wedding is going to be small 40-50 guests and it will be in this small town LOL. Matt was born and raised here, and at the time that was all he cared about LOL. Since then we've realized he's more opinionated then most men about weddings. The wedding itself is all DIY, right down to making yes MAKING our own flowers AND my dress. I chose not to have living flowers anywhere in my wedding (saves us a ton of cash) so we are currently in the process of making roses out of coffee filters. They look pretty fantastic too. My Dad is amazing at pretty much everything he tries.  My mother is a seamstress and I used to design clothes in college so this was inevitable. We couldn't find what we liked in the stores so we devised our own plan and I LOVE IT :D lol.


More about me!? Well I currently design and create jewelry to supplement my current income. My "studio" is not that great but it works for me :D

 My workstation (above)

 some of my finished pieces (sold here)

So now that you have my work and upcoming life event in your mind. Here's where we get to my home life :D. This is just a little bit of what has happened picture wise in the last few days :D

Last summer we went to the final night at this drive in and were given a free car admission to the first screening of the year, which just happened to be Avengers OPENING NIGHT (OHH YEAH!! LOL) It was AMAZING (so amazing we went to theater with a couple of friends about a week later and saw it AGAIN in 3D). They always do double features so we decided to stay and we saw John Carpenter. It could have been quite a bit better, but all in all not a terribly bad movie.

These are just SOME of the new bracelets and jewelry I have designed for the shop recently. I'm really into stackable bracelets and faux leather lately.

This is the first morning after putting these in water to sprout, I was so excited :D

 Strawberries

Ruby Red grape tomatoes

That same morning after transplant. This is what my ruby tomatoes and strawberries looked like.

 Tomatoe plant in cage

 cooking onions I planted cause they were sprouted at my mother in laws quite a bit.

These are previously sprouted and growing green onions. I know there a bit hard to see :(

This was today's progress. See how beautiful everything is growing :D

and this little corner of our living room is what I accomplished while sick the last couple of days. I absolutely LOVE IT :D

Now I'm off to go test out some new magnetic nail polish I've bought. So see everyone tomorrow :D