DIY Sparkly Reindeer Crunch!

This post is PERFECT for those of you with kids in your life, whether your a mommy, dad, babysitter, nanny, sibling, anything!

I remember doing this when I was a kid and it being so much fun! But this year, my mom had the great idea (gotta give credit where credit is due) to make a special "reindeer crunch" for the kids I work with.

Basically all this Reindeer Crunch is is smashed up cereal with glitter and a Jingle Bell. And let me tell you, yesterday I gave the kids a handful of small gifts including cookies and ornaments, but nothing compared to their special Reindeer Crunch!

So lets get started! The best part? You'll be done in 5 minutes!

Things You'll Need:

A few handfuls of Frosted Mini Wheat Cereal (or honestly, whatever you have on hand)

Some Red and Green Glitter

A Jingle Bell

A Plastic Bag

A Ribbon

Step 1: Take your plastic bag and crumble up some of the Cereal into the bag. You can crumble as much or as little as you want.

Step 2: Add in some glitter! We used red and green but feel free to use any colors you think your kids will enjoy!

Step 3: In the bag, add in the Jingle Bell. Mainly for Decoration, but of course there is a reason in the story (you'll see in a little bit!)

Step 4: Tie the bag tightly with a ribbon and tell your little "holiday helpers" this...

"To help Santa find his way to your house, sprinkle this special Sparkly Reindeer Crunch" on your front lawn on Christmas Eve Night, just before you go to bed. The glitter will sparkle so brightly that it will catch Santa's Reindeer's eyes while they're flying high in the sky. While Santa is giving you all your presents, they can crunch on their special Reindeer Crunch! The Jingle Bell is very important, it's to help you remember to put it on the lawn on Christmas eve. Santa is going to be so pleased that you were thoughtful enough to give his reindeer such a yummy snack that maybe he'll give you some extra special gifts!"

This could be fun to do with your kids, or just to give to them. We are keeping ours tucked into the Christmas tree so that we won't forget and so that we can tell everyone that looks at our tree what it is. Room moms: this is a super simple class gift to give each of the students! And if you're clever enough, you can even write a cute story on a little tag and tie it to the ribbons.

This is just a jumping off point, get creative with it! The kids in your life will love it and maybe it will even become a family tradition!

Hoping your Holiday Season has been bright thus far! 

De-potting Mac Eyeshadows [Video Demo Included!]

A few months ago I wrote a blog post on how I depot my Mac eyeshadows (catch that here!). I wanted to make a video to show the procedure so that you would be able to get a visual. I hope you find it helpful! Please Enjoy =]

"But I Can't Afford To Replace My iPhone Over One Broken Button"

These are the words I'm sure several of you iPhone owners have said before, and if not, maybe one day you will. iPhones are notorious for buttons breaking and things going wrong, but for some reason, we keep going back and getting the latest and greatest Apple product. Maybe it's just me? I'm not sure.
Well yesterday the top lock button on my iPhone stopped working and I really did not think too much of it...until later on that day when I couldn't turn off the screen on my phone. Keep in mind, this button jam was completely out of the blue, in fact, it isn't even jammed down into the phone, it looks perfectly normal.
Any way, today I was about two steps away from throwing my phone out the window of my moving car and never turning back. I was sick of walking about holding my phone screen up waiting for the screen to automatically shut off, praying that no one would text me and make the time start over. Also, I was at school so I was listening to the music on the phone therefore the screen timer must be longer or something because it was the absolute longest minute of my life. Most days of my life I don't feel like two hands is enough, let alone having one of those hands dedicated to babying a cell phone who's screen will not shut off. Ugh, just THINKING about it is upsetting me.
Desperate, I was searching the web for quick fixes; I was using force, I was prying at the button with tweezers, I was seconds away from removing the backside of the phone. Nothing was going to unjam this button. I was so frustrated. I reached out to all my Facebook friends when somebody commented and told me how her iPhone is broken in the same way and how you can get a "circle thing" to make it better. What does that even mean?
I looked further into it and this is what she told me to do:
Go to Settings
Go To General
Go To Accessibility
Under the "Physical & Motor" option click AssistiveTouch
Turn the "off" to "on"
A little circle will now appear on your iPhone.
In my case, I have to go to Device and click Lock Screen, but there are several options. You can use Siri, the Home Button, Screen rotate, screen shot, volume, pretty much anything. So even though it is annoying, it is a temporary fix that I'm extremely happy about. I never thought I would appreciate putting my phone in my pocket so much.

So I hope if anyone is having issues with this or any of the buttons this can help them out. I know I certainly don't have the money to go buy a whole new phone just because one button broke so I'm thrilled about this feature that I previously had no idea even existed!!
Also, I realize this doesn't have anything to do with beauty and the usual topics that I talk about...but the stress of a broken phone can cause break outs, so this feature of the iPhone can prevent that! ;-)

DIY: How To Depot Mac Eyeshadows!

This is the simplest way EVER to depot Mac eyeshadows. This would work for their blushes as well and once you have the technique down it is easy to find ways to depot eyeshadows from the drugstore and from brands other than Mac that you could put into a Z-Palette if you own one.
It may look and seem complicated, but do not be intimidated because it is nearly impossible to mess it up, it's basically just a lot of picking and maneuvering to get the shadow loose in the pot.
So without further ado, this is how I depot my Mac eyeshadows!

Things That You Will Need:
-Mac Palette (or Z-Palette. Whatever you are putting the depotted eyeshadow pan into)
-Eyeshadow in a pot
-Aluminum Foil
-Dull Butter knife (optional)
-Tweezers
-Magnetic strip (best if one side is pre-adhesived)
-Hair Flat Iron

Step 1: Preheat your hair flat iron. I use a really old one that I used to use when I was in middle school, but you can use any flat iron that you have.

Place foil over the bottom plate as it heats up so that the foil begins to get hot too

Step 2: Find the small crack in the Mac Eyeshadow pot where the pan is inserted into the pot. It is near where the pot opens up 

I then use a dull butter knife and wedge it into that crack and just wiggle it around until the top pops out of the pot. If you prefer to use tweezers, they would work too. Be sure to apply pressure towards the top of the pan because you wouldn't want it to fly out and crack your eyeshadow!

Step 3: Once the pan pops out, it should look something like this image below; it will still have a black plastic pan around the color. Stick that on top of the foil that is on your hair flat iron, but no longer than 30 seconds! It does not take very long long. This step is important to melt the glue that holds the eyeshadow pan into the black plastic. 

Save this! For the "Back To Mac" recycle program

Step 4: 

Begin to apply pressure to the underside of the pan with tweezers to push the colored eyeshadow pan through the black plastic. I like to use tweezers because they are sharp and can help pull the eyeshadow pan from the other side. 

You should now have 3 parts!

An optional step that I chose to skip is using rubbing alcohol to get some of the sticky glue off of the eyeshadow pan. I skip this step because the goo doesn't bother me as I feel like it helps keep the eyeshadow pan in the palette. 

Step 5: Another optional step, but this is one that I do, is create a label. I use my moms label machine on the smallest font size to type out the name of the eyeshadow. This particular one is called "Free To Be", it is a gorgeous matte peach color. 

After I print it out, I trim it down to as small as possible and stick it onto the back of the pan. Like I said, this is completely optional!

Step 6: I then add a small magnet to the bottom of the pan so it can stay in my magnetic Mac Palette.

And Voila! Now you have a convenient way to keep your Mac eyeshadows as well as an empty black eyeshadow pot that you can take back to Mac! After accumulating 6 of their recyclable items you can return them to a Mac counter you can get a free lipstick! Or if you return to an actual Mac Store, you can get a lipstick, lipglass, or eyeshadow! Additional rules may apply, check the link I supplied up above for further details!

My new Mac palette is off to a beautiful start!

(Vex, Saddle, Free To Be)