Martha & The Minerals

First let me say, yesterday was my birthday. Oh, thank you. :)

My lovely fella got me something I had been wanting for quite some time...

Bare Minerals makeup!

I've wanted this for about a year but it's a bit pricey so I never took the plunge. But this is what having a fella on your birthday is for, right? ;) Because I'll be doing my own makeup at my wedding I wanted to get something that would give me a really fantastic complexion. So when I asked the girls at WeddingBee.com if it would be a good wedding day makeup, and they said to go for it, I decided to drop some birthday hints. ;)

I'm a very fair skinned girl and finding a foundation that matches my complexion can be hard, but the lightest starter kit matches my skin beautifully. The texture of the makeup is really smooth and not dry at all. I was afraid that because it was a powder it would dry out my skin (which is combination) but once it's on it feels like a liquid foundation. Only smoother, it nearly looks airbrushed. My favorite thing about it is how natural it looks. There is no makeup line what-so-ever. You really do look like you just have great skin.

And yesterday, while Tanner & I were having a bit of a tiff (just a little one ;) ) he told me that my skin had a really nice glow to it. Haha, so either it makes a really noticeable difference, or he was just trying to get out of trouble. But regardless, this is definitely what I'm using for my wedding day.

On to Martha.

Now really, I'm not a crazy huge Martha Stewart fan, I like her enough and she's always good for a few ideas and pretty pictures, but sometimes I think her designs are a little simple for me.

Which is why I don't know why this happened.

The ol' girl has a line of crafting supplies at Michaels. I purchased an 'all purpose' marker of hers in green as a stamp marker. To ink one of her leaf stamps for the backs of my envelopes.

First the marker:

I got it at Michael's for about $2. Which is expensive for a thin little marker, but it said Martha Stewart on it and my sense went out the window. The green is nice enough, and at the time I thought to myself "The green is nice enough' but that's not exactly a rave review is it? No, it is not. And I bought the thing anyway.

The real trouble was finally evident to me when I got it home, took it out to play with it and realized that *I do not want to draw the ink onto my leaf stamp for every single envelope I have to stamp.* Holy Moses, where was my brain? So, a little embarassed, I put it away. Then I took it out again and doodled, because it cost me $2 so I might as well see how it could be useful. It's not a bad marker, it's just not an especially good one either. They don't offer these markers in an array of colors, just a few very specific shades of very Martha-y colors (subdued, trendy hues to coordinat with her line of crafty stuff). And the ink is just regular marker ink, not extra anythingy. So... why did I buy it?

I see now that I was ambushed. Somebody with a very keen eye knew just how to play me & my DIYing brethren and had all of these beautiful papers and ribbons and markers and gizmos and widgets and put them in a very beautiful layout and clearly I was tricked into buying that marker.

See what I mean? Even knowing what I know now I still want to dig around in there!

So my advice is, know what you want when you pass by that Martha Stewart section. Or you'll end up with pretty little things you don't need :)

Now, the stamp set on the other hand was a fantastic buy. Two nice sized leaves (no frills, just a clean line drawing) for $10 total! That is such a great deal, and they're really nice quality. They come in a package of two, and it was a toss up between those or the lovely little birdies. I am using birds in the wedding, but because the leaf stamps were almost sold out I went for those. The birds I may go back and get later, and hopefully they're all I'll come home with.