What I got for Christmas!

If you are not particularly partial to seeing what other people got for the holidays, then look away now!  However, if you are as nosy as I am about what other people have gotten, then this is the perfect post for you! Here is what I got for Christmas.

My sister got me a fantastic selection of products from one of my favorite stores, LUSH!  At college, I don't have a bath tub, so while I'm home, I'm practically taking a bath every night, and the selection she bought me is amazing!

The "Golden Wonder" bath bomb- sweet orange, lime and cognac oils.  The best part is, there is a surprise in the center!

This bath bomb is named "Christmas Eve," and is scented with jasmine and ylang ylang... perfect for an evening soak!

This ADORABLE "Chrismas Hedghog" is almost too cute to use!  However, smells of lavender, rose and ylang ylang were too enticing to resist!

 My family friends gifted me this BEAUTIFUL vintage 60s silk scarf.  I feel like Jackie O. when I wear it!  They also gave me an adorable scrabble piece pendant that reads, "Keep Calm and Drink Tea."

Just add over-sized sunglasses!

Appropriate for any avid tea drinker!

 My best friend knows me so well.  She managed to score a tub of my favorite candy, salted black licorice, a lip scrub, lavender oil, and anise mints!  She knows my love of socks knows no bounds, so she got me a pair that are seriously more comfortable than anything I've worn in a long while!  To top it off, she gave me a lacrosse ball, which is perfect for rolling out sore muscles, and some great nail polish! Boy, do I love her.

YUM

Is it bad I don't want to take them off?

A dancer's best friend

The colors from left to right are; "My Dogsled is a Hybrid," "Do You Have this Color in Stock-holm?," "My Voice is a Little Norse," and finally, "How Great is Your Dane."

My parents have been traveling quite a bit this past year, so most of my presents from them are from around the world!  First, my mother got me a set of ornaments from Finland with the adorable Moomintroll!  She knows how much I love moomin.  In Australia, they got me a Zebra rock pendant, that is about 500 MILLION years old! How cool is that? Anytime my mother travels abroad, she always makes sure to buy me duty-free Burberry Brit, which is my all time favorite fragrance!

 

My main present from my parents, however, was my brand new Oxygen Pillow.  I know, a pillow? For Christmas?  But seriously, this pillow is an absolute dream!  I have had the best nights sleep of my life on this pillow!  It is designed to increase airflow to support deep breathing, and while I won't describe exactly how they do it, let me just say this; IT WORKS!

My aunt got me this lovely bracelet.  The best part about it is that 25% of the proceeds go towards funding breast cancer research, and since the same aunt just recently entered remission for breast cancer, this means a lot!

 Finally, for my stocking stuffers, I received a new book by the ever-brilliant Patrick Rothfuss!  I also got another LUSH item; the wonderful Cupcake face mask!

Every year I am blown away by the thoughtfulness and care that my friends and family put into the gifts they give me each year.  I can only hope that they love the presents I get them as much as I love mine!

What did you get for the holidays?

-Fly high, little birds!

Behind the Camera: Blogmas Day 22

As a photographer, I am very rarely in photos.  However, I thought I would put together a little collection of pictures of me with my camera that were taken by my various friends :)

Are you usually the photographer or the photographed?

-Fly high, little birds!

Skipping Ahead: Blogmas Day 19

Whelp, looks like Blogmas was a fail! I have had finals, so my time has mostly been consumed by studying and sleep.  However, TODAY WAS MY LAST FINAL!! Sooooooo you can expect to see me back here for the remainder of Blogmas!

To say, "I'm sorry," here's a piece of fanart from the wonderful viria, depicting my OTP, James Potter and Lily Evans.  Yes, I'm a geek. So sue me ;)  I will link viria's page in the caption, I highly suggest checking it out!  The art is beyond amazing!

James gives Lily a lily while under the invisibility cloak viria13.deviantart.com

 

Who is your OTP?

-Fly high, little birds!

Nutcracker Flashback- Blogmas Day 8

'Tis that time of the year! With everyone about to open their run of The Nutcracker, I thought I would go back and look at all of the different characters I've played since my first nutcracker in 1998.

Here we have my very first nutcracker! I was a caroler in the prologue (with my dad in the middle as the priest!), and I was a mouse.  While at Ballet San Jose, I was always a mouse, because that was the only student role.

I'm the one on the bottom right

My twin sister Victoria (left) and myself being goofy.

In 2004, I moved to the San Francisco Ballet School, where I was a rich girl in the prologue, and a butterfly in the opening of Act II.  I was so excited because this was an entirely new production of The Nutcracker, and I was the first student out on stage! That kind of thing is a big deal when you're 11 years old! (Rich girl costume not pictured)

.

I'm the butterfly who is 3rd from the left

The next season I was a party girl! I got to be Clara's best friend, which I thought was really cool!  My name was Carolina Pessego.

I'm in the pink dress on the far right.

 In the next couple of years I was a soldier in the fight scene and a dragonfly in the opening of Act II.

I'm in the back with the black and gold hat.

 When I was 15, I started learning company roles! This was incredibly exciting for me, and was my first real experience with dancing with a professional company.  I was a flower vendor in the prologue, I was Mrs. Greene in the party scene, and I got to dance snowflake and flower!

Me in my flower vendor costume with my dad, who was the Policeman in the prologue.

Snowflakes with my friend Caitlin.

Flowers with my friends Lauren and Caitlin.

During my trainee year at SFB, I got to learn and perform the Dancing Doll with the San Francisco Symphony!

Don't mind the photo-bomb...

 While dancing with the Cincinnati Ballet, I danced as a party parent, a snowflake, a flower, and a mirlipoo.  Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of these costumes!

I hope you enjoyed this stroll down memory lane with me!

Does your family ever get to see The Nutcracker?

-Fly high, little birds!

Makeup Look Of The Day: Blogmas Day 7

Just as I said in my post from yesterday, I created a makeup look from my Sephora purchases!  I'm really happy with how it turned out, however I couldn't seem to get a good picture of the eyeshadow.  We'll just have to make do with the full face!

I am wearing NARS Sheer Glow Foundation in the color Deuville.  This foundation is beautiful! I have particularly oily skin, so I've always been a bit cautions about trying anything with the word "glow" in it.  However, with some setting powder, I had absolutely no trouble!  My face looked raidiant without looking like an oil slick.

For my countour/bronzer, I am wearing The Body Shop's bronzing powder in the shade fair matte.  For my blush I am wearing Mac's Poweder Blush in the shade Well Dressed. This is a very pale pink satin blush that I really love wearing when I'm very pale.  The satin finish gives a subtle glow that makes wearing a highlighter completely unneccessary!

For my eyebrows I have used Laura Mercier's Matte Eye Colour in the shade Cafe Au Lait.  This is a great multi-purpose product that I will often use on my lids as well as my eyebrows.

On my eyes I am using the Too-Faced eye primer in the shade Champagne.  This wakes up the eyes wonderfully, and is a great lazy girl cosmetic item! I will often use this on its own when I am rushing out of the house.  However, today I am also using my eyeshadow purchase from yesterday, Sephora's Mirror eyeshadow in the color Lunar Eclipse.  To line my eyes I again took a little bit of the Cafe Au Lait on a thin liner brush.  To finish, I used Dior's Diorshow Iconic Overcurl Mascara (what a mouthful!).

On my lips I used the Sephora lip liner from my purchase yesterday, Real Red, and for my lipstick I used Mac's retro matte lipstick in the shade Ruby Woo.

I hope you have enjoyed this post! Let me know what you think of this look in the comments below.

-Fly high, little birds!

Holiday Shopping: Blogmas Day 6

Today was a bit rainy in the city of Manhattan, which means that everyone was clamoring for the shops (including myself!).  In an attempt to get some of my shopping done without becoming too overwhelmed, I decided to go to only one place.  Any guesses?

If you guessed Sephora, then you would be right!  While I can't show you everything I got quite yet (some of them are presents, don't ya know), I will show you the few things that I have been lusting after for ages!

I finally ran out of my Superbalanced Foundation from Clinique, so I decided to replace it with the cult favorite, NARS Sheer Glow Foundation in the color Deuville.  Can I just say, there's is definitely a reason that this is a go-to for so many!  I can't wait to give you guys an update on it once I have a chance to try it out for a couple weeks!

Like many people, I am a huge fan of the statement lip, and I especially love a good red around the holidays!  However, I sometimes have trouble with the staying power of the color.  This is why I decided to dive into the realm of lip liners!  I didn't want to go too fancy yet, because I'm first starting out, so I got the Sephora brand Nano Lip Liner in the color Real Red.  Its a gorgeous color, and I'm very excited to try it out!

Last but not least, I bought a new eyeshadow for the holidays.  Unlike some people, I do not have an averse reaction to wearing glitter on my eyes, so I decided to take advantage of that fact!  I bought the Sephora brand Colorful Mirror Eyeshadow in the color Lunar Eclipse.  It is a gorgeous pewter that can either be really bold, or blended out for a lovely sparkle that brightens the eyes!

I was thinking of posting a makeup look with these new items.  Would you like that? Let me know!

-Fly high, little birds!

Holiday Earrings: Blogmas Day 5

I have a fondness for incredibly tacky holiday earrings!  Every year, I buy a cheap new pair to add to my ever growing collection.  So far, I have bows, snowflakes, candy canes, snowmen, Christmas trees, and ornaments.

Any ideas for what I should buy this year?
-Fly high, little birds!

Being Grateful: Blogmas Day 4

This is a bit of a personal post.  If you're not into that, then move along, nothing to see here!

I came to New York in an effort to reclaim a crumbling dance career.  Who would have thought that at the age of 21 that would be my reality, eh?  But it is.  While going from a professional contract back to a school has been incredibly difficult, there are days when I feel like it is all worth it.  Dancing, after all, is like breathing to me, and I will take it in whatever shape or form it is offered to me.

Today I had the most amazing opportunity to improvise with my fellow members of the BFA program at Alvin Ailey.  What I saw blew me away.  Our teacher gave us to prompt to choreograph/improv a piece that was a minute long, that was a story of our lives, from birth to now.  The amount of creativity was astounding, but that's not what really got me.

Dancers have an incredible ability to be able to call forth the most raw emotions; its what creates such a powerful performance.  What the audience doesn't know is sometimes the hardship that the dancer suffers to bring such real emotions to the stage.  In our little improvisation exercise today, there wasn't a single person who didn't make me cry.  It is something I will never forget.

Around the holidays, I end up thinking a lot about how grateful I am to be able to dance the way I do, and to touch so many people.  Today it hit me very hard.  While I may not be where I want to be yet, I am truly grateful to the dancers who I am sharing this crazy road with.

-Fly high, little birds!

Holiday Decor: Blogmas Day 3

In a place like New York City, there is no lack of religious denominations.  In fact, in my apartment alone we have three different denominations among four people!  This is why I like to keep my decorations simple and enjoyable for everyone.

Depicted here are the few decorations that I have put up in my room; a red sequined pillowcase and an ornament from H&M, a Twisted Peppermint candle from Bath & Body Works, a festive looking masquerade mask from my local market, and string lights.  My room now looks sufficiently festive!

How do you decorate for the holidays?

-Fly high, little birds!

Winter Plumage: Blogmas Day 2

I often get the urge to dye my hair.  In fact, when I was about 16, I permanently dyed my hair dark brown... then black...then red...then light brown with a streak of purple.  I ended up getting incredibly sick of the maintenance it took to keep my hair looking good.  Several years later, I am back to my natural dirty blonde... and I had the urge to dye my hair again!

This time, however, I used Clairol's Natural Instinct's hair dye because it washes out after 28 shampoos.  By that time, the whim of having darker hair will probably have passed, and I can go back to having blonde moments on a regular basis!

Here are my before and after pictures:

Blonde

Brunette

 

Now I get to enjoy my darker winter plumage! And who knows, maybe not being blonde will raise my IQ just in time for finals ;)

-Fly high, little birds!