My Diamond Candles plus a coupon!

So I finally got myself two Diamond Candles, Cupcake (naturally) and Pomegrante Lemonade which just makes my mouth water at the thought :) I can't wait to get them in and I'll review them as soon as I have them. I was tempted to scoop up a bunch more, but I figured I'd start with two and work from there.

I'm hoping I get some nice rings inside :)

Here's a link that will give you $5 off your purchase: http://my.cndl.es/x/eQXt8

Have you tried Diamond Candles before? What did you get inside?

Lush Store Grand Opening Party: South Shore Plaza

Every time Lush has some kind of party or event I always have to work at the same time, it never fails. Finally I had a day off recently that coincided with the grand opening party for the new Lush at South Shore Plaza! South Shore is a great mall with tons of great stores and I think Lush is a great new addition. As part of the grand opening there were some great promos and freebies going on and of course I had to get some! If you've seen my haul video you know that I have more than enough Lush for myself right now (is there even such a thing?), but I was shopping for a friend's birthday gift, so I was able to justify my purchases.

Just for RSVPing for the event I received a free Karma Komba shampoo bar, which is awesome because I've never tried that one before and nothing is better than free.

So here's the promotions they ran, directly from the event page:
"-Spend $50 during our opening party day to Spin the Wheel and win an additional prize, such as
Blooming Beautiful Gift, Bubblegum Lip Scrub, Dirty 3.3 fl oz Shower Gel and Sugar Scrub
or
-Spend $80 during our opening party day to receive a VIP gift bag valued at over $25, containing 4 bestselling products:
Bestselling Dream Cream Body Lotion 1.5oz
Comforter Bubble Bar 3.5 oz
Sexy Peel Soap 3.5 oz
Ocean Salt Face & Body Scrub 2.5 oz"


So you know I spent the $80 right... yeah... 

But I managed to get a nice gift of some I Love Juicy shampoo, a Big Blue Bath Bomb, and a nice sized bar of Sea Vegetable soap for my friend's birthday. Plus I bought myself a new Buffy because I ran out as well as a large pot of Volcano mask (which is amazing for my piggies.) 


I'm going to post a review on some of my new Lush soon :) 


I have to say the event was well worth it. I just wish I hadn't worn makeup that day so I could have gotten a free face treatment. Nonetheless, I got great freebies and gifts with purchase and cupcakes so it was pretty great. If you can make it to one of their events I would highly recommend it! Follow your local Lush on their Facebook page to know when events are coming up.


What's your favorite Lush product?

Blizzards and Bubble Baths

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, I just finished getting everything into my new place at 2 this morning and I've only just started unpacking. I'm hoping to start getting the OOTD posts up starting sometime in the next two weeks and hopefully get the recipes up around the same time. Tonight I've decided to quit unpacking a little bit early. I'm super sore from all the moving and I fell down the stairs at my old house on the second to last day of the move. It's a very narrow wooden staircase and the stairs were wet and I slipped, so now I have a blue and purple buttcheek... lovely. I've decided to relax a little tonight with a glass of wine and a nice bubble bath.

(Fluffy bubbles and pink bathwater! It makes for a great night in.)

Here's my recipe for a relaxing night in:

Glass(es) of Barefoot Moscato (my favorite cheap wine)
Lush Cupcake Fresh Face Mask
Lush Comforter Bubble Bar
Lush Snow Fairy Shower Gel
Lush Pink Bath Bomb

(Never been so happy to have mud on my face)

Wine, cupcakes (kind of), and bubble bath, I'm there. Plus, diet aside for the night, I'm going to have a nice hearty bowl of pasta. I live in the NorthEast and we're hunkering down for this blizzard tomorrow so I figured I may as well treat myself to a nice cozy night before it hits.

If you're in the NorthEast please stay safe throughout the storm. Here are some helpful links to help you track how much we're getting and some tips to get you through. If you can, stay inside, cuddle up to someone, and make yourself some hot cocoa. Some friends and I are neighbors and have already made power outage plans, so try to think of those too.

Also think on your families and the elderly and see if they need help as well.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/StormTotalSnow/index.php

Red Cross Winter Safety Checklist

Black Friday: A Survivor's Tale

Hey everyone! If you're reading this, congratulations! You survived Black Friday too. Black Friday is a day of the good, the bad, and the ugly. I happen to love Black Friday, although less than I used to. I started shopping it when I was about 11. My aunt would pick me up in the middle of the night and we would camp out to get great deals and start our holiday shopping. I won't lie to you, I find it thrilling. To me it's like a shopaholic's olympics. You train and develop a strategy for success, you compete against others, and there are certainly spoils for the victor. I know what you're thinking, it sounds so melodramatic and you can find deals all year long if you know where to look. For some of us though, it's a lot of fun. However, there is a dark side to Black Friday, people who ruin it for us. They kick and punch and scream and trample anyone in their way, this is not fun for anyone and those of us who love Black Friday, despise these people.
In my opinion, Black Friday is kind of a sport for professionals and companies are making things worse by increasing the number of amateurs who are out and about. When stores opened at 4 or 6 in the morning, there were only the few (hundred) of us that were dedicated to the sales, but now that many stores open at midnight or earlier, thousands show up, making things unpleasant for everyone.

The last three Black Fridays I have worked at Victoria's Secret and I have opened, meaning I didn't really get to shop. The first two years we opened at 4 am and it was crazy, but exciting. This year we opened at midnight and it was horrible. Due to Massachusetts law, we technically could not be at work until midnight, which meant at the very best our registers wouldn't be open until 12:01. Shoppers were let into the mall at midnight and you could hear the stampede. They came running and screaming in and started pounding on our gate and trying to lift it open. I took a moment to put on some lipstick and perfume since I knew that I wouldn't get another millisecond to do it later, when I heard "Are you kidding me bitch? Who do you have to smell good for? Open this gate it's 12:01!" ... yeah, people were crazy. A few of us tried to explain that the registers weren't open, but they didn't care. It got to the point that my store manager had to come out and tell them to settle down and we would open as soon as possible. When she finally came out with the key to open the gate they came diving under and running in, I hid behind a sales fixture, there was no way I was getting trampled. They filled the store so quickly that some of us were starting to get pushed out of the store. They started tearing down shelves of merchandise and some of us had bruises by the end of the day. We had the head of mall security and police officers from two towns at our door and there were almost a few arrests made, I wasn't able to see if anyone was taken away. We had to have some people removed from the store and we had at least a two hour wait to get in. It became so crowded that we had two customers faint and EMS had to come in. If you want to get a visual of how bad it was, here's some footage of another Victoria's Secret store at opening. I'll be honest, there's was bad, but ours was worse, we had a much larger crowd. Edit: Original video got taken down, but here's another one to give you an idea. This was the insanity.

After working for twelve hours in this madness I stayed awake by going to a different mall to just casually see what promotions were out there. I got a great pair of shoes on clearance, some bath bombs at Lush (not on sale, but I needed the soak. I got a horrible cold and lost my voice that day, when I had been fine the day before and all morning.) and Greg bought me a beautiful cupcake ornament. Honestly, that one little gesture made my day. While I was too tired that night to decorate the tree, we will be doing it tonight, and I'm sure I will find the perfect spot for my cupcake.

I'd love to know, how do you start your holiday season?

Cupcake Martini Attempt #1

So remember that part where I mentioned I love cupcakes? For those who know me that's pretty much a daily basis. Anyway, once upon a birthday someone ordered me a birthday cake martini and it was scrumptious. The waitress told me that they blended vanilla ice cream and vodka and voila it was delicious. Well there was definitely some kind of witchcraft behind it that I can't seem to get right. I have found tons of recipes online for different cake martinis. Cupcake, birthday cake, pineapple upside down cake, but none of them call for ice cream. So I did what any crazy person would do. I went out and bought Pinnacle Cake Vodka, Breyer's Extra Creamy Vanilla ice cream, Duncan Hines frosting, and some colorful nonpareils... oh yes my friends, it's a party. I managed to figure out how to rim a martini glass in frosting and coat it with nonpareils. I thought it would be no big deal, but I won't lie, it took about 10 minutes and I ate more frosting than I got on the glass. I thought the next part would be easy. I measured out a shot of vodka and got myself a scoop of ice cream and threw them both in the blender. This is the part where I would like to say I enjoyed a deliciously creamy martini. The ice cream just keep getting spun around the blender and the vodka just kind of mixed with the melted ice cream. They just would not come together and be friends. I tried adding a little more softened ice cream and only made a bigger mess. When enough of this frankentini had melted I managed to somewhat blend and pour the whole atrocity into my beautifully rimmed glass. I tried to drink it, the rim was delicious, but that was not a martini. It did not taste like cake or vodka or ice cream. I managed to ruin 3 different delicious things. I'm still trying to figure out how on earth to make this silly thing, but it is just not happening.

Any bartenders out there who can suggest any tips or tricks or who want to come whip me up one? Anyone?

I'll probably give this another go soon.

Have you ever royally messed up a recipe you thought was foolproof? Tell me below.