High Five For Friday + Giveaway Winner!

1. Betty Crocker cookies come out perfect every time.  Not sure how she does it! :)

2. The Christmas Tour of homes when great for the client whose house I helped to decorate. See the house here.

3. I am trying to cook like The Pioneer Woman.  So far so good on the pot roast and cobbler I made this week!

4. Tomorrow I am participating in a vendor fair in our community. Here is a quick look at some of the greeting cards I am bringing.

5. 'Bam' has been hanging out with me in my office lately.  He loves it and I think it is hilarious when he starts having puppy dreams. 

What are your high 5?!  Stop over at Lauren's Blog, From My Grey Desk to read more high 5's!

Mary Kay Ultimate Mascara Giveaway Winner! Congratulations to Katie O.!  I'll be in touch with you about getting your mascara to you!!

Glittery Reindeer Canvas

I found this Glittery Reindeer Canvas on Pinterest about a week ago and had to make one for myself because it was so darn cute and festive!  Since I made it and posted it on my Facebook page, I've had requests to post the instructions on my blog so here you go!

This project is so incredibly simple!  The only warning I have for you is that you may spot specks of glitter around your house.

You only need a few things to make this project happen...

The first thing you will need to do is find a Reindeer Silhoutte, I used this one, and blew it up to 125% to fit my canvas. I used a 12 x 12 canvas.

Using a pencil, lightly trace your reindeer pattern onto the canvas.

Next, I squirted school glue inside the pattern and used a paint brush to bring it to the edge and evenly cover the inside of the pattern.  I actually covered the line I drew too so that I wouldn't see pencil marks in my end project.

Then I put a newspaper down and poured glitter all over the canvas.

Once I had glitter everywhere it needed to be (and where it didn't need to be) I sprayed the canvas with hairspray - the stickiest stuff you have - to hold the glitter in place.

That's it!  Your done and now have this awesome piece of Christmas art in your home!! :)

Client Home: Celebrating Christmas

Over the last week I had the opportunity to help a client decorate her home for a local Christmas tour of homes.  Here is a virtual tour of her home all gussied up for Christmas!

Their home is a beautiful Victorian home. They have completely remodeled the second and third floor of their home as well as the kitchen so it didn't take much to beautify this home for "tourists" since they were most interested in the remodeling that has taken place. Regardless, we did make sure to bring the feel of Christmas into each room of their home.  Here are some of the highlights!

Entryway

Family Room

This room is the first room you step into when you enter their home.  She had a vision for the tree to be decorated in gold so we did just that and added in some silver so the tree would shimmer and shine.  Plus, you can see the tree from the outside window.  To add a fun element to the tree, I found these snowflakes and believe it or not, they are gift tags!  While we decorated the house, her two daughters made these DIY coasters.

Dining Room Table

We kept the table simple with a festive flare.  I found the red metallic burlap fabric at JoAnn fabrics and ordered enough to make two table runners.  The centerpiece was easy - all we did was spray paint paint wine bottles.  For place markers, we filled clear ornaments with faux snow, wrote names on them and attached tied them to the back of the chairs.

Buffet Table

The buffet in the dining room is a beautiful antique piece of furniture.  Our favorite element on this buffet is the reindeer silhouette. (I'll share the tutorial!) Simple things like holiday serving platters make all the difference when decorating your home for the holidays - they are so festive and fun!

Christmas Card Display

This idea for displaying Christmas cards was so easy and so unique!  It adds a ton of holiday flare to the kitchen without getting in the way of functionality.  All you need is Christmas ribbon, clothes pins, and painters tape!

Family Tree

Family trees are my favorite!  I love all of the memories that they hold! :)

I hope you enjoyed this holiday home tour and found some ideas to use in your home!  If you have questions about any of the decorations like how-to's or where we found something, leave a comment below!

Easy Eye Makeup, An After Photo & A Giveaway!

I love to experiment with eye color! I usually stay in my comfort zone of neutrals but at the Mary Kay color session I attended, I learned I could experiment with neutrals and make them just a little more daring!

Based on what I learned, I am going to share three steps to easy eye makeup!

First things first though.  In order to have great eye makeup, I highly recommend eye primer!

Can you tell a difference?!  Eye primer does two things; first, it makes your color more vibrant.  Second, it makes your color last all day.  (And in my case, my eye makeup was prefect the next day too since I didn't wash my face before I went to bed.... ooops!)

Here are the neutrals I experimented with. I used a combination of shimmer shadows with a matte shadow to give a balanced look.

Step 1 |  Apply lightest color, moonstone, all over your eyelid - eyebrow to lash line.

Step 2|  Apply the medium shade of color, chocolate kiss.  This is where you can start to get more daring.  When you apply your darker shades, think about applying them in "shapes." With chocolate kiss, I applied it by making the shape of a square from the center to the outside of my eye and from my brow bone to my lash line.

Step 2 | I applied the third and darkest eye shadow, Espresso, last.  I applied this color in the "shape" of a 7.  Kind of like drawing a triangle without filling it in...

Here is what it looked like when it was done!

A couple of keys to consider to applying eye shadow.  First, brushes are essential in being able to have great eye makeup, plus they make application a lot easier!  Second, if you start out light, you can always add more and go darker.  Finally, if you start out dark, you can always blend it out or add your base color to lighten the color.

The final steps are eye liner and mascara.

When applying eye liner you have a lot of choices - pencil, mineral eye shadow, liquid liner or gel.  I used gel eyeliner for the first time during this session and it is my new love!

Eyeliner should extend across your top lash line. (Nice face, huh?!)

And if you are wearing dark makeup like I am, it should only extend 1/3 to 1/2 of your bottom lash line.

Don't you just love how perfect this gel eyeliner looks?  Perfectly straight and smooth!

I didn't get a picture of applying mascara but that is pretty self explanatory! :)  I will mention my favorite mascara to you and that is the Mary Kay Ultimate Mascara!  It makes your lashes look perfectly thick and long!

After all of these steps, here is my "after" picture.  I know, it's a little random but I was messing around because I couldn't get good light, Adam wasn't around, and I don't have a remote for my camera yet.  But, this is the best "after" picture that I have! :)

I loved my makeup and felt very confident wearing it!  Thanks to Kenzie, my Mary Kay consultant, for hosting this great color session! :)  I hope you've enjoyed these posts!

Here is a list of products I used in this post:

Eye Primer

Mineral Eye Colors: Moonstone, Chocolate Kiss, Espresso

Gel Eyeliner (limited edition)

Ultimate Mascara

Mary Kay Brush Collection

Giveaway!!

As a special conclusion to this series on makeup tips we are giving away a Mary Kay Ultimate Mascara to one of you lucky readers!! :)  It's at the top of my Mary Kay favorite list!

Here's how to enter:

1. Leave a comment to tell us what your greatest makeup challenge or splurge is! (+1 entry)

2. Become a follower via GFC. (+1 entry, leave a comment)

3. "Like" Design Your Dwelling on Facebook (+1 entry, leave a comment)

4. "Like" Kenzie's Mary Kay Facebook page (+1 entry, leave a comment)

Giveaway closes Thursday and the winner will be announced on Friday, December 7!

Specials ONLY for Design Your Dwelling readers - that's you! :)

DYD READER SPECIAL:  10% off your total purchase, use the DYD as your promo code. www.marykay.com/kenz.kral

FREE SHIPPING:  Automatic free shipping on orders of $20 or more!

*You wont see the discount when it's it your basket, Kenzie will apply it for you,make sure to use the promo codes.
**Orders need to be placed via the website and paid with debit or credit