2014 Recap //

Hello all! 
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 
2014, was a big year for me. The year turned I 21, the year I traveled out west for the first time, getting my first *real job on my own at The Body Shop, deciding to change schools and the year I started getting much more serious about blogging. There were parts of this year that were difficult and parts that were absolutely amazing. I thought I would briefly review them here as a good reflection. For this post I am not going in chronological order I am starting with a monumental moment and going on from there. 

California// 

 Going to California along with my best friend was one of the most monumental parts of this year. It was a grand adventure that will never be forgotten. I still keep having flashbacks to San Diego and how wonderful and beautiful it was. How unbelievable and surreal it felt when Brittney (best friend) and I first walked into Disneyland, seeing LA with my cousin. So many adventures spent in a magical seven days. Brittney and I both yearn to go back. Hopefully someday soon it was amazing. 

21 // 

May 1st I turned 21 this year. But, still sticking to character I threw a garden party instead of the customary "drinking fun" that normally occurs when someone turns 21 here in the US. 
I love organizing and decorating for parties and gatherings, making things look pretty. This was quite an unforgettable birthday. 

Summertime //
I feel quite strongly that this summer was one of the best. Besides going to California in June, there was lots of beach and lake visiting/swimming, pizza eating (yum) swirled cones of ice cream  after dusk, drive in movies and lots of time spent with friends it was amazing! 
Quite a summer to remember.

School + The Bodyshop //

My third year of Community College was not filled with particularly happy memories. I was going though a lot of personal hardship. I didn't feel like myself most days. After summer was over there was suddenly a lot on my plate. Although, one of those things was a great moment which was earning my job at The Bodyshop. I had tried tirelessly to get a job throughout the summer with no luck. 
I finally got a lucky break at the store with "Beauty and heart" its been pretty fun working there. I have a strength for communicating with people and listening to what their desires are. However, the juggle between work and school + life was stressful on me and did not feel like myself. And throughout the fall I had to make lots of decisions so I could change my future. 

Autumn //

We had a beautiful fall this year. I didn't get to fully embrace it all because of my packed schedule. But there were little small moments like taking a trip to the apple orchards that helped me slow down and appreciate this autumn. Normally, I celebrate Halloween in a big way by throwing a party annually but due to my schedule I simply wasn't able to accomplish that this year. I was pretty bitter about it at the time. I tried to just keep focusing on school work. I enjoyed my photography class a good deal, getting a better grasp of my DSLR and photoshop. I got to use that as a creative plugin when I wasn't able to blog. 

Photoshoots //

One of my favorite pieces of work I put together for my photography class was this series I did with my best friend. I loved the way these came out. I did her styling and makeup in  this shoot we tried a couple of different looks but when I took this scarf that I had lying around and gave it to her as a garment she changed into a different character. I darkened up her makeup and roughed up her hair and all of a sudden she was something fierce. Brittney, also happens to be a theatre major so getting emotion and personality was a pretty easy task. By the end of the photoshoot she let down her hair and smeared her makeup, she began to sing and I captured this last shot which I think really captures Brittney's genuine and passionate nature. 

The Holidays and Now //

The holidays this year were a little crazy. My life kinda revolved around working. Retail during Christmas time is certainly not an easy ordeal but aside from lacking some holiday spirit at the beginning. Christmas was still fun. It felt even sweeter to see my family and spend time with them. It was also a green Christmas this year! To some might be sad but I personally dislike the snow so it was a big plus for me! ( hehe) 
And now here we are 2014 is all over now and we are living in the year 2015. I am going to work hard in 2015 just like I did this year towards my goals. I am going to a new school, continue to improve my blog, continue to work on living a healthy and happy lifestyle and reach higher each day.

Thank you all so much for joining me this year. Improving and authoring this blog gives me a lot of pride. I love all of you so much. I hope 2014 treated you well and I hope 2015 treats you even better.
 Never give up on your dreams and goals, even small steps towards your goals and dreams is meaningful.


  
Happy New Year! 

- A 


Let me know what your resolutions for this year are? What are your plans to achieve them? Tell me in the comments below! 

C A L I F O R N I A // My Life in Photos#2

Hello again!, I just arrived back from an incredible, life changing journey to California. It was only a short trip, but the days were chalk full of excitement new experience that I thought I would share with you all.

This was my first time traveling without an adult handy. Which was a pretty big milestone to cross. However, I wasn't all alone. I went on this big grand adventure with my best friend,Brittney. What sounds better than that? 

This all happened so spontaneously. One night Brittney and I were lamenting at home about a concert we both wanted to go to. Sadly, the venues were only set in California. I posted something about it on Facebook and suddenly my cousin commented on the post  offering a place to stay if we were to come over there. Suddenly the opportunity arose and instead of crushing it with plane cost realities, etc. We had both made it up in our minds that we were going on a grand adventure. 

Get ready for a long rundown folks! Here we go!

 

June 

The first day we arrived in California we woke up super early! The time difference between Maine and California is three hours so if we wake up at 6 AM its already 9AM back home. Meaning we became natural early birds in sunny California. We ate a good breakfast and hopped into our swim gear. We were headed to the beach to get our sea legs! 

As I said before, we stayed with my two cousins. Who live in San Diego in the magical area called Sunset Cliffs. It was so beautiful there we both starting scheming plans to move there immediately. On that first day we walked along the cliffs and glanced out. We kept looking at each other in disbelief at 1,the beauty and 2, the fact that we had actually made it here. 
 



The water was warm instantly after the initial dip. We walked the long pier and watched the surfers glide along frothy tops of the waves. When we were satisfied with our beach time we walked the four miles back to the house and sat down for lunch. 
Later on that afternoon we decided to take on a place called Lestats, a quirky cafe in Normal Heights. For this excursion I drove. 
( Which is crazy! Something I never would have done before!)
The highways are a little intimidating but lets just say thank god for smart phones and their built in GPS systems. Once we had arrived and I enjoyed a mint mocha and a vegan chocolate cupcake. Well deserved I think.  


Day 2 
 

Day two was a big day. We hopped on a train early on towards Anaheim. 
What was in Anaheim of notable interest to us?

... Why Disneyland of course!



This, happened at Downtown Disney.#noregrets

We entered the magical park of Disneyland and we were fully immersed in the Disney spirit; the mouse ears, screaming children, long lines  and lots of sun and blisters. That being said it was worth it. The Haunted Mansion still to this day since visiting Disney as a child is my favorite ride. We left the park rather late at night causing a very long and somewhat uncomfortable journey back home to San Diego. 

Day Three

The next day was mostly spent resting, until the evening when we celebrated Brittney's birthday at a restaurant called "Stacked" which used I-pads as a interactive menu. If you chose to make a burger or a shake, sundae you had many options of toppings to customize yourself. It was super cool. We walked out with food coma's by the end. 

Day Four 

The next day was Warped Tour day! The event that inspired the entire trip. Brittney and I were headed off to see a long time favorite musical favorite artist, Emilie Autumn. The best way to explain her genre of music is darkly theatrical rock opera. We have been fans for a very long time so this was very exciting for us both. 

'
Emilie Autumn's whole aesthetic is based upon a fantasy Victorian Asylum that she wrote a book about called: The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls. The performance was an totally immersive experience called appropriately : The Asylum Experience. 
 




It was an amazing experience albeit very, very hot outside. We danced with Emilie Autumn's cohorts: Captain Maggots and Veronica Varlow which was truly a dream come true, I love them both so much. It was like meeting your favorite celebrities. 
 And we also had the pleasure of meeting Marc Senter! who is the character, Scorpion in the somewhat underground and great film called The Devils Carnival and also really close with miss Autumn herself. He was so incredibly sweet and that also was a dream come true to meet him. 


( Brittney, posing with Marc <3 font="" nbsp="">

We met new friends during the concert and had loads of fun. We waited around after to see if we would get the chance to meet Emilie, Maggots and Veronica but since it was such a long performance and so hot Emilie was too tired to meet anyone. Feeling dehydrated ourselves we left the venue and waited to be picked up my my other cousin who we would be staying with while visiting L.A. 

Day Five 

This was our fantastic day in L.A with my cousin, Zoe who is the other artistic type in my family. I hadn't seen her in years so I was incredibly grateful I got to spend time with her and my aunt again. 








We visited a chic cafe in Melrose called Romancing the Bean which was an aesthetically stunning cafe. I was in love with the interior and also the food and coffee. Then we stopped at a variety of curiosity antique oddity shops in the LA area. Collecting bones/oddities is a hobby that both my cousin Zoe and I share in common. We traveled to see the Hollywood sign and lastly Brittney and I explored Little Tokyo and partook in Ramen for dinner and a sweet wrapped crepe for dessert. 

Day 6 



This was our last full day in California. The first half was spent traveling back to San Diego from L.A. When we arrived back at the house we started to pack up all of our stuff. 
As a reward later that night my cousin drove us out to his secret location for Sea world's nightly fireworks display. It felt like the perfect ending to a wonderful trip. I felt like my eyes were opened to a whole new positive perspective on life. 

Day Seven 
Traveling back home! Whole day was spent either on a plane or playing " airport hustle" in order to make our connecting flight. 


Now I am back in good ol Maine. Looking at life a little bit sweeter. It's strawberry season. I am a happy girl. I hope you enjoyed my California trip pics. I am hopeful that this trip will inspire other adventures around the world. I am discovering more and more how much I cherish travel. Its amazing. 

Well, I hope you all are doing well!
If you would like please give me a follow under any of my social media by hitting any of those buttons in the sidebar. Thank you so much. I love seeing this blog grow and your support makes it grow all the sweeter I can't thank enough. 

See you all next time! 

 -  

T H U R S : T R A V E L // What Is Going In My Travel Beauty Bag

 

Hey, guess what? I am back baby! back to the ol' grind as they say. For those of you who don't know I took my first trip out west to California last week! 

Fun fact!, It as actually born in California but other than visiting a Target store as a newborn. I had never experienced the glorious California sun or anything the state had to offer until now and it was glorious. My next blog post will showcase the snapshots I took from the trip and video montage is in the works as well. All things to look forward to on The Bats and Rabbits blog! 

Alrighty, now onto the beauty essentials! 

F A C E 

I had not traveled in a really long time. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would take. One of the most important things was a pair of sunglasses. Which, in the past I have the tendency to overlook, only to be punished by the suns unkindly bright glare in my eye sockets. If you are taking a trip soon into a sunny climate I would highly advise a pair of cute shades for your trip, though that may be obvious. (Make sure your cool shades also protect those ultra cute eyeballs of yours too! That means UVA ray protection baby!) I got these super adorable polka dot sunglasses at Target.(This girl can't get enough of her polka-dots) 

L I N K 

The other important essential was a light feeling base that also provided some coverage. (Nobody wants their makeup feeling heavy and slippery in the heat!) so I brought my trusty Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua Foundation. Which I have mentioned a numerous amount of times already but, it does provide the look and feel I want in a "summer" foundation. Light and non heavy, looks luminous on the skin but also does a good job at covering any skin problems I am dealing with at the time. This product blends beautifully when used with a Real Techniques Expert Face Brush. 

L I N K  + L I N K 

I also brought my holy grail concealer which is the NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer. (review here) I won't bore you with another explanation of how great this stuff is but take my word for it. Its amazing and does double duty for covering spots and concealing dark under eye circles. ( I had to buy a second tube during my trip, I feel lost without it in my makeup stash!

L I N K 

For highlighter I brought my Mary Lou MAN-izer from The Balm.(another review here) which also served as a wonderful compact mirror for music festival makeup checkups. 

L I N K 

For blush I brought along my recently acquired Ambient Lighting Blush from Hourglass in the shade Diffused Heat. I don't have a lot of blush in my makeup stash yet so this blush is the star of the show. It is a beautiful poppy shade that is marbleized with Hourglass's famous Ambient lighting powder.  

It looks marvelous on the cheeks especially for the hot summer weather. 

L I N K 

  E Y E S 

Only brought along three eye shadows for the trip. I considered bringing just my Naked 3 palette. Maybe that would have made more sense but I have been gravitating towards wearing gold eye shadow again. That is where MAC's Amber Lights comes into action. A quick swipe of this on the outer corners of the eye with a MAC 217 blending brush and really you are good to go, I mean if you are on the go that is!  That is a very minimal and effortless look! For a little more highlight I put Stila's single eye shadow in the shade Kitten in my bag. It is a ultra shimmery nude//pinky shade that really brightens up the eyes and lastly I brought along MAC's Antiqued a reddish bronze color that looks great in the crease. Sometimes, it can be just as good to bring a couple of great singles instead of an entire shadow palette for a trip. It's limiting yes, but also effortless.

L I N K + L I N K + L I N K  

For the brows I brought my Anastasia Brow Wiz pencil but it was on its last leg so I ended up not  getting as much use out of it except for using the brush end to at least groom my brows.(#sadbrowgame)

L I N K 

Lastly, for eyes is mascara! I brought along two. One is a mini of Make Up Forever's Smoky Extravagant Lash and the other which is not pictured above was L'Oreal's Miss Manga mascara. The one I preferred was actually Miss Manga. It was still in it's testing stage but I have really grown to love it. For most bloggers out there this mascara is either a full love or a full out hate. For me the weird bendy wand is great for getting into the root of the lash and pull forward to fully coat the lashes. This mascara is excellent at separation, length and a little volumef The Smoky Extravagant is great too, don't get me wrong. Either would be a great choice to bring along on a trip somewhere.  

L I N K + L I N K 

L I P S 

On the lips,(not pictured above)I brought two reds (of course) One being the Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm in the shade Standout which is a cooler and darker red and feels minty upon application. The other is NARS's velvet matte lip pencil in the shade Red Sq. Which is the warmest red I own but I am so smitten with this shade for the summertime. 

L I N K + L I N K 

S K I N - C A R E 

Besides the obligatory 50+ spf sunscreen I brought very minimal skincare with me. My skin still had a major meltdown during the trip but at least I can say I cleansed and moisturized every morning and night! 

For my cleanser I brought my Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser. This product is still in my testing stage. So far I really like it! I wish I could say it changed my skin dramatically but so far I still suffer from really bad breakouts. However, this stuff does breakdown all my makeup and feels amazing and even cooling effect on the skin when you first rub it in. Plus you can buy it in different sizes so you can actually get a nice travel size to test out before going for a bigger bottle

L I N K

My beauty bag moisturizer is the First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Cream. Which is amazingly cool on the skin and does not irritate or plug up the skin. This product is PERFECTION for the sensitive skin types out there like yours truly. The smaller tube is super affordable at $12! I would highly recommend it. 

L I N K  

For my acne prone/problematic skin I like to treat the nastier spots with a spot treatment. Traditional treatments use Salicylic acid or Benzoyl Peroxide but those ingredients do not always bode well on my skin. I chose to bring my Acne Spot Fast Fix by Murad. Which uses other ingredients to treat nasty spots quick. I find that it does a decent enough job. I have bad luck with skincare trying to clear up my face. Nothing seems to work miracles. Though, I do find that this guy works well on nasty and painful spots. 

L I N K 

The last thing,which might already be obvious to everyone to bring for summer travel is a good deodorant. I grabbed the Dove Clinical Protection Cool Cucumber Deodorant. Lets just say it kept me feeling fresh under the arms for a very full day at Disneyland! 

And that's all I brought along in my beauty bag! I hope it helps any of you who are traveling soon! Safe travels!~ 

What beauty essentials do you bring with you on a trips? Let me know in the comments below! 

Connect with me on Twitter & Instagram!

Twitter: @AllegraShortill

Instagram: @morbidcupcakes 

See ya all soon! 

   -A

J U N E// My Life In Photos #1

I thought I would mix it up today by sharing with you all a sequence of "moments" that happened in recent weeks. I thought it would be a nice change from beauty posts since I aim for this blog to be about beauty & lifestyle. 

May

 30th :

To start off I am sharing this snapshot of 

peony blossoms I had just picked up at Trader Joe's. They are just so pretty! Even when they are all closed up. 

31st:

After a long afternoon I curled up in bed for some good bonding time with Netflix. I decided that I would start watching Portlandia. Which is really a hilarious show that parodies the real life, Portland Oregon. If you were considering watching this show I would highly recommend giving it a go.

June 

2nd:

I had a bad craving for pizza. More specifically pizza from a local joint called Roma's located at Old Orchard Beach, ME. The owner is a very sweet and humble Italian man  (accent and all) serving authentic Italian pizza. Purely my opinion, but his pizza is probably the best I have ever eaten. I am still having daydreams about it even now.
 

Later on that night, I celebrated the first ice cream of the summer with my bestie. A soft serve twist cone which I happily devoured in the cool summer night.

4th: 


Just a " chilling out"a kind of afternoon. I was reading through my first Frankie Magazine ( May & April's issue) and found out you are given this adorable print! Now I just have to find a frame for it. Keep it peachy! 


6th:




I been very secretive to you all about my side passion for the Japanese fashion style, Lolita. It has been an interest of mine since I was in middle school  and now I am finally apart of a group of lovely girls who love it as well. 
It feels odd to talk about it here. Sometimes, I really do feel my interests and passions make me feel like two separate people entirely. Its hard to explain why I have so many reservations about sharing this side of me on the blog. I feel as though I have made myself an invisible barrier that only allows things that I think fit my blogger aesthetic onto here and filters out anything that does not fit. However, I am trying to get past that and show the true and honest me here. Because my biggest rule I try to uphold to myself is to always be yourself. Part of me is a lolita and I am not afraid to embrace that. Our lolita community went to a local tea house, and had a really nice time. I do love my tea..( I may have drank the whole entire pot.) 

9th: 
 



Summer provides the perfect time to go adventuring. With my two trusty companions alongside me we decided to "get lost" purposefully and go down lots of detour roads. We discovered beautiful mountainsides and little shacks that looked as if magical witches inhabited them. In the neighboring town I spotted an abandoned building that had this gorgeous wall covered in ivy leaves. I demanded a photo shoot. I am so excited about these portraits. I love the texture of the ivy leaves. It really screams "summer" to me because its so lush and green!  
I would encourage all of you to "get lost" take some detours over your traditional routes once in a while. Relish in adventure and take time to absorb it all in.Even if you deal with anxiety like I do a little adventure can be really beneficial. Don't let yourself miss out too many opportunities because, hey life is wonderful! specifically, if you are LIVING it to your fullest. 


That will wrap up this post for today~ I have at least two more posts coming up before I leave for my trip to California! ( yay!) I am a smidgen nervous about flying since I have not flown in so long! Plus it will be my first big trip I will be making without one of my parents or my older sister. (One of the scariest but liberating first experiences a twenty-something could have.) I have yet to pack and I leave the upcoming Monday. EEK! Better get crackin' on that shouldn't I? 

I hope you all enjoyed this little scope into my life and that you are all having a happy week. 

See you all next time! 
Twitter: @AllegraShortill 
Instagram: @morbidcupcakes
                         
                             - A