Miracles DO happen!

I had the opportunity to do not one unexpected makeover, but TWO!! The one I had planned for the day had something come up and was unable to come so I was kinda bummed and the day just sort of went downhill. These two lovely ladies showed up out of the blue with pizza and breadsticks. AND THATS NOT ALL! But first the makeovers. 



Here we are in the front yard, but this direction was creating shadows.



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so we turned around. Isn't she cute?



It was such wonderful weather outside, which is why wanted to do it in the front yard, so it decided to rain before we even finished prepping the skin.  We went inside. As I was finishing up with Malia, Mikelle took it upon herself to start cleaning the kitchen, which was no small task. But lets take a look at Malia's after photo.

even though she doesn't need the makeup, a little sparkle is always fun.

Her skin tone is the darkest I've done yet. She's been visiting family and vacationing back in California so she has this nice tan. brat. I tried adding a little bit of color to her super light eyebrows but am not sure it really made much difference. Actually, I think it did. Enough anyway. I hate the 'drawn on' eyebrow look, but that's just me.

This sexy little pose was to see the eyeshadow a little better. I used a bronze crayon thing from nyx underneath the shadows. Trying something a little different.

early thirties, great with children, hard worker, loves to travel, and oh- did I mention single?

Next we have the beautimus Mikelle. Here are her before pictures:

"k. I'm here. let's go."

"Fine. I'm HAPPY to be here. See?" I love that her eyebrows can do that.

"You no stop taking picachures I karate chop you in da EYE!"

Her skin was so smooth and easy to apply makeup to. Maybe she will comment below her skin care regimen. Before I actually started on her face, she and Malia kicked me out of my own house and forced my husband to take me out while they stayed to work on the kitchen and make sure my kids stayed alive and stuff. After a nice stroll through Target and a delicious shake from Culvers, I came back to a clean kitchen and she STILL let me play with her face.

She's so pretty. Her eyelashes look fake (in a good way) the way they are separated perfectly and they are the perfect thickness. Also- look at her eyes. They draw you in with how white the whites are against the pretty iris.

Mikelle is also in her early thirties, works at the courthouse. Very high position might I add. All but the judge. You can still refer to her as "your honor". Hard worker, gets things done, freaking hilarious,  oh- did I mention? She too is single. 

Again the super cool eyebrows. She the tube thing behind her? She brought them for my kids. Glow sticks. My kids were ecstatic. They slept with two each every night until they ran out. It was a BIG deal.

a better view of the eyeshadows. I used the bronze color stick on her a bit more and had fun with the gold eyeshadow.

I was worried at first that the lips would be a little too bright but I actually love it. I tried it on myself the next day and was remind how weird that kind of lipstick smells. Sorry Mikelle.

These girls drove all the way to my house, which was far, just to surprise me and bring me dinner and clean my house and babysit for nothing in return. In fact, they paid me for my services, which is completely ridiculous considering everything they had just done for me. They are some of the kindest and most service oriented people I know.

Look how much better the counters look? Oh you didn't see a before? There's a reason for that. Also- She has cute glasses huh?

Beautiful ladies inside and out

  You guys are flipping awesome.

The end.

oh- the Miracles DO happen bit? I don't remember where I was going with that as it has taken me probably 4 different days to actually finish this blog. I think the miracle was the fact that the girls knew how badly I needed company. I get a little stir crazy being alone with the kids so much some days. Maybe it would have been easier to just change the title than to try to figure out why I wrote it in the first place. Well now I just took all this time explaining the dang thing. I'm leaving it.

Hooded eyes (first attempt)

Alright. I watched many you tube videos on how to apply eyeshadow to "hooded eyes" and "mature skin". I thought I was all set. I packed up my gear and headed to my mom's. She is so kind to let me experiment on her. Turns out watching something be done and DOING something you watched are totally different. heh. well- Let's just take a look.

Here is my wonderful mother 'before' the madness began.

My mom and my two sisters have red hair. I was blonde most of my life. What happened there?  Anyway, I selected a color that was WAY too dark for my moms complexion to begin with, then I put WAY too much of it on. Then the eyeliner was entirely too harsh. After trying to fix it too much, I finally wiped off the shadow and tried again.

I have seriously got to work on my eye-lining skills.

We got some mascara on and tried to even out the liner. Here she is with her vivaciously red hair down.

looks like I need to work on my photography skills too. Does this look blurry to you?

I think she's saying "ok, we done now?" without actually moving her mouth.

My mom is beautiful, despite my less than stellar makeup job. I'm just glad I didn't try this BEFORE church like she had suggested. So is she.

So what have I learned from this?
1. Thick black eyeliner can actually be aging if not applied right.
2.Navy blue eye shadow does not work well for this sort of skin tone.
3.She told me cream shadows work better for older skin as they require less "pulling". She prefers this kind by MAC and she also loves Bare Minerals.
4.My mom can pull off any look and is one of the most amazing people I know. Thanks for being my guinea pig mom! Love you!

Me and my mom. She really is the best.

Free stuff

Who DOESN'T like to win free stuff? I think it is time for a give away. Keep in mind that most give aways from my blog with be fairly small, but free is free, right?  The very first prize ever to be given away from makeup artistry by Tara is......... Rejuvenating Shower Gel secret romance AND smoothing Body Lotion secret romance. OOoOOOOooo... Any product with the word "secret" in it sounds sexy, right?  Ok maybe not.

A winner will be selected tomorrow. Please note: To claim your prize you must pick it up yourself. Unless you are in my neighborhood, then I can drop it off. I will not be mailing anything.


Alright, the widget thing I tried to add didn't work. So just leave a comment below about your all time favorite beauty product and you will be entered. I will pick someone tonight. Probably around 11:00PM. Assuming anyone enters.

Hooded Eyes

Diane was kind enough to come to my house and let me attempt a makeover with her. I told her about my experience with my mother, who also has hooded eyes and how it didn't go so well.  I will post about my mom's makeover once I go back to her house and get the pictures off their camera. I had been watching youtube videos about it and my mom was the first hooded eye I tried and, well, let's just say it didn't go as planned. I DID however learn from her and feel as though Diane's makeover turned out much better because of it. So here is her before:

She is my 3 yr old daughters nursery teacher and my daughter ADORES her. She calls her grandma all the time, which is a compliment if you knew how much my daughter loves her grandmas. 

I don't think she ever wears anything and honestly, she doesn't need to. She has naturally rosy cheeks and a nice colored lip. We slathered some makeup on anyway.

Personally I like the 'wind blown' effect from my swamp cooler blowing her hair back. True model material right here.

We evened out her skin a bit with some foundation but by doing so, hid her natural cheek color, so we added cheek color.  We lined her eyes with a wet, angled eyeliner brush using an eyeshadow to keep it from turning out too harsh. On the lower lid we only went 3/4 of the way across so as not to make the eyes look smaller but still make them stand out. She has the smallest features! I never realized this until I had to choose which brushes to use for her eyes and cheeks. We did use a purple shade on her lid which you can barely see on the outer corners. I didn't want to get carried away like I did with my mother and give her two black eyes. Or at least the appearance of them. She has a great eyebrow shape for her eyes. I wish I would have had a correct color to match her eyebrows so we could pencil them in just a touch, but she has the darkest complexion and features of all the ladies I've made over thus far. I went out and bought some brow powder just a bit ago so I will be prepared for next time. The mascara brought out her lashes and seemed to add a nice finishing touch.

She is on my "favorite people" list and always ready to help and support me with whatever endeavor I come up with. Thanks again Diane!

Sisters- I mean- Mother Daughter

Here is her clean fresh face. Hardly needs a thing.

Alright, lets jump right into this. Above you see Emily's before picture with a very contagious smile. I wanted to try something new and she was willing to let me. However, I did NOT mention that I wanted to attempt to line her water line on her lower lid. She already has some problems with the pores around there and I irritated the CRAP out of them. I felt really bad. Lesson learned: Always go over how you plan your application BEFORE actually applying it. Sorry Emily!

Since this gel liner was new, I wanted it to be bold, but I made it a little too thick. I will have to work on that a bit. I should have had her close her eyes or look down. I used a golden yellow type color from MAC that I really like but tried using it in a different way than I'm used to. I was happy with the results of her over all outcome. Minus the irritated eyes.

Here is ms beautiful Emily after. I had a bit of a heavy hand on the liner.

 Next we had her beautiful mother who is constantly mistaken for Emily's sister. I just realized I do not know this mothers name.... We'll call her Sue..... Sue was lovely to work with and both had some great tips which I LOVE hearing. One of which is the moisturizer they use here which they tell me is recommended by Dr Oz himself.  Sue pointed out some issues she has with her skin which were loss of pigmentation under her eyes and on the tops of her cheeks and a blue vein she didn't appreciate making an appearance to the side of her eye (but is covered with her hair). If you were to lose pigment ANYwhere, I think she lost it in the best place possible. It naturally makes her face look brighter, which is precisely what the brightening pens are for.  

Here is Sue's before picture.

After! I love how similar their smiles are.

I used the same gel liner on Sue but tried to ease up a bit so it wouldn't be so thick on the top. Her eye shape naturally creates shadow on the top which calls for very little crease shadow. Does this make sense?

Lesson learned from this session;
1- go over application with models BEFORE applying
2- St Ives Facial moisturizer works great and is even a great price
3- sometimes with BLACK gel liner, less is more
4- curl your lashes before applying mascara, and squeeze down first at the base, come up a little, squeeze again, come up a little, squeeze again. This prevents the "checkmark" looking lashes and creates a more natural looking curl.
4- I need to learn how to speed up the process as this took entirely too long
5- Emily and Sue are both very kind and patient and kept all children happy while I experimented away on Emily.

Thank you ladies for your time! I know you had other things you could have been doing. I had fun and will soon find out Sue's real name.