On November 26th Elle Magazine VIP held an event in the distillery district at the ARTA Gallery. Sponsored by Persona World, the event Passport to the World had exhibits for Sahara, Asia and India.
The three exhibits presented Persona World collections that had charms representing these geographic areas. Beautiful charms like the taj mahal, lanterns, a geisha lady and vibrant colours were just some of the charms that stood out to me. Appetizers were served during the event, Sahara exhibit had a Smashbox station, the Asia table had different saki’s and the India exhibit had a henna artist and chai tea.
Greeted by a massive cover of their magazine, coat check and a VIP guest list, I entered the gallery to the end of a presentation on fashion from these three geographic areas. Having travelled to two out of the three places I was excited to see the exhibits and felt a bit nostalgic. We all received a passport card with stamps and visited each exhibit to see the collections. Guests received a persona bracelet and had a chance to chose one charm from any of the three exhibits, tweeting about our chosen charm would get you a bonus Canadian passport charm! So cute.
To represent the recent Asia trip I went on, I chose the geisha charm from the Asia collection. I love the hand-painted details and it reminds me of our trip to the Geisha district in Kyoto, Japan.
I had the pleasure of meeting Francine from Smashbox. She showed me the new double exposure palette, which is wet & dry! I absolutely LOVE wet & dry palettes. In one of my YouTube videos I mentioned trying to use one of my shadows from my Smashbox full exposure palette, wet. I just wanted to experiment and see if it’ll make the colour pop. Big mistake. That shadow got ruined because I dipped a damp brush on it. In my 10 years of beauty experience and work, I’ve never done that before, don’t know why I tried it now.
My girls & I at the event
We ended off the eventful Elle Canada VIP evening by celebrating my friends, Reema and Alicia’s birthdays at El Catrin. I love their fish tacos and the guacamole is a must. They make it fresh right in front of you! I’ve been here so many times, they should just give me an assigned table called Hum.
It was Digital Day at Google head quarters down town, Toronto and I was invited. A great event to learn about Consumer Surveys and everything needed to know to optimize company online activities with the help of Google.
I loved all the android green guys painted on random walls, a london telephone booth and a stairwell full of Google Map locations.
A googler gave us a tour of the office, which felt like a mini version of what we’ve seen in the movie The Internship. Each floor was equipped with game areas. gaming consoles, arcade driving games and old school foosball.
They have their own little in house farm of fresh herbs and a kitchen on each floor for easy access.
This Android piece of art is made up of hundreds of pieces of rubik cubes.
This was pretty awesome! A lot of the meeting rooms have hidden rooms behind bookcases.
Kyoto, a beautiful historic city in Japan. Kyoto is beautiful all year long. There are various beauties to see in each season. Winter with snowflakes kissing everything to turn to a serene white, Spring brings out the famous cherry blossom trees, Summer, when everything is a lush green and then Fall bringing in every fall colour imaginable. The rustic orange, bright yellow, hints of lush green and brilliant red. Colours like these call for a FEATURE OF WHAT I WORE in Kyoto.
Considering we were in Kyoto for the Fall season, my wardrobe consisted of lots of sweaters, cardigans, blazers, one coat and a leather jacket.
Here I wore a chunky knit I purchased from Korea in Hongdae, distressed ripped jeans, purchased on my trip to Egypt from the store ONLY at the City Stars Mall, really comfortable flats and lots of accessories.
It was the perfect outfit for climbing hundreds of stairs at the Fushimi Inari Shrine (Fushimi Inari Taisha) red gates. I honestly felt as if I did the CN Tower stair climb! What a great workout though. I didn’t make the entire climb, although my intentions were to.
After climbing what felt like forever, I thought I had made it to the top. Of course, there were more stairs! My legs were jelly at the end of this adventure but definitely worth it.
This was the most perfect sweater weather! I was so happy I brought my sunnies (sunglasses) with me.
On November 13th, Toronto bloggers were invited to the Miracle 10 Skincare Boutique in Yorkville for an evening of networking, learning about beauty trends for 2015, drinks, sushi and other yummy appetizers.
So let’s talk about fashion; most of the bloggers that evening played it safe and wore black. Either I didn’t get the memo or everyone hit a creativity block and went with black. When I go to blogger events that’s one of the things I really look forward too. Checking out what everyone’s wearing and how they wore it. Why not? It’s like a live magazine spread. Outfits you’ve seen in stores on the racks come to life. I usually have more pictures to share but this was an event where I took less pictures and did more absorbing of the event.The guest speaker for the evening was Michelle Villett from BeautyEditor.ca, who spoke about beauty trends for the season and had lots of blogger tips to share.
Bloggers had the option to get mini facials, mini makeovers by Dior or mini manicures. I was a bit late to the event, so 15 mins to arrival, Michelle was ready to speak on beauty trends.
So what are some beauty trends we’re seeing this season? Heavy, bushy but not bushy, dark eyebrows. Like Cara Delevingne’s. If you know me very well, you know my eyes lit up when Michelle mentioned her. I love her and her signature eyebrows. You might remember my blog post about brows and my mention of her wonderful brows.
Some other beauty trends that were mentioned by Michelle were:
Graphic eye-liner/eye-shadow
Playing with your eye liner lines, doubling them up or create angles you’ve never created before are all trending for 2015. Geometric shapes in eye shadow application is also big. Creating squares, triangle applications and getting really funky around the eyes is the it thing.
Bare nails
I love this trend because I’m not big on wearing nail polish. I have a huge collection of colours but rarely get an opportunity where I can sit down and give myself a manicure. Bare nails, filed down to a neat, clean cut size with a either top coat or a bare colour is in for Spring 2015. I love nudes, beige and light brown nail colours. If you want to skip the colours and shine then go for a matte top coat.
Messy/Natural hairstyles
As much as you’ll want to just roll out of bed and call it your “messy look” it isn’t that simple. For instance a messy braid still requires you to braid your hair and then strategically choose pieces to gently pull apart for a looser less crisp look. Or how about the messy bun. For this I literally just pull my hair together, tie it into a bun and loosen it up. Everyone has a different variation of what a “messy look” looks like, so play around with different styles till you get to one that suits your face shape and style.
Matte lips
Huffington Post mentioned a matte red-orange lip at Ann Yee’s Spring 2015 show here:
Ann Yee Spring 2015
Milani cosmetics also posted on Instagram that they’ll be coming out with a matte lipstick collection in 2015:
Image source: Milani Cosmetics Instagram
Natural make-up
Natural make-up look Marc Jacob Spring 2015 runway
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Miracle 10 has a 10 day challenge. They challenge you to try their skincare routine and see the results in 10 days. Took a look at their products and I’m intrigued. I’m taking the challenge and will share the results in a post coming soon.
Have you tried Miracle 10 products before? What are your thoughts on the brand?
There is so much to do in South Korea and shopping is so much fun that you get lost in the hustle and bustle of the markets rather than site seeing. However, Naksan Park has been on my travel list of to do’s for a year now, so we worked it into our Korea itinerary.
There’s something magical and beautiful about Koi Fish and yes, I’m obsessed with them. I’ve painted them on canvas, own a few Koi Fish items and always get excited and smile when I see them absolutely anywhere. With this being said, you can already guess, this was literally the #bestoftheday for me when I found the Koi Fish mural.
According to many reviews about the Park, due to the park being pretty big, some people never find it. Just in case, I set my expectations low and to my surprise we found the actual map of where all the Naksan Park murals were located! The map isn’t in English but you can show it to anyone and they would be more then happy to help you.
This was my second favourite mural at the park:
There’s more than murals to see at Naksan Park.The views of Seoul are breath-taking!
Don’t forget to take the short cut up, via the sort of hidden stairs. A lot nicer than taking the cement hill route.
This song has been on repeat ever since I heard it during a drive home one day. It doesn’t have the best lyrics and is pretty random but the beat is just… awesome. But really, what the heck is an Albatraoz?
Fave Food:
I’ve been in love with Avocados! Anything with avocado in it, I want it! My go to snack during my recent trip to South Korea and Japan was, you guessed it… avocado sandwiches!
and then today I saw this master piece of home made guacamole by @HungryHiba on Instagram. Just in time for National Guacamole day!:
Fave Fall look:
This weeks favourite fall look is knee high boots! I just love how you can easily dress up or down with these boots. It’s a 60-70’s style that has made a comeback for AW14.
Fave Make up look:
A dark autumn lip and a subtle cat eye.
Fave Purchase:
I’m obsessed with perfume and have an amazing collection of different scents for day and night, depending on my mood and sometimes just because the bottle was too cute! One of my recent purchases in Tokyo was an eau du parfum by a Japanese brand, Aux Paradis. The scent of strawberry, I’m in love.
Every year before or on the day of Halloween, we look to our creative juices to come up with the next awesome idea to carve into a pumpkin. But what if you don’t want to carve a pumpkin and have an itch to do something more artsy?
Then here are some great ideas of what you can do with your pumpkin:
Set up your work area with magazine tear outs, newspaper and all the tools you’ll need to create your masterpiece.
Sequin flowers all around!
What you’ll need:
White acrylic paint
Sequins
Glue gun
Directions:
Paint your pumpkin white and then let dry. Once it’s dry, go over the pumpkin with one more coat of white paint. You’ll need six/seven sequins for each flower, glue on with your glue gun. Be careful: Sequins are small, glue from a glue gun is hot and it can get tricky placing sequins on areas where you’ve set glue. Press the sequin down gently first and pressing with your gun is your safest bet.
Tiffany blue glitter
What you’ll need:
Tiffany blue acrylic paint
Glitter glue
Directions:
This is really easy. Paint your pumpkin,dry and do a second coat. Once the paint is dry, paint the pumpkin with the glitter glue.
Fuzzy Wuzzy Pumpkin
I got mixed reviews with this one. Some people said it looks like this pumpkin just burst into “pretty” coloured warts and some love the fuzzy texture and 3D effect. Halloween decor is meant to be weird, funky and even ugly at some times.
What you’ll need:
Pink acrylic paint
Mini pompoms (Make your own: here)
Glue gun
Directions:
After you’ve painted your pumpkin with a double coat. Place glue gun glue in place where you’d like to place the pom pom. Press firmly and then let dry.
When the weather outside… changes, and the temperature starts to fall, the only thing left to doooo, is
dress warm, dress warm, dress warm.
I absolutely love this sweater. It’s long, warm, different and Alexander McQueen.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may remember me mentioning how much I adore this hairstyle. The top knot! It’s my go-to hairstyle for this fall. I have a tutorial post coming up for you. It’s so simple!
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Fall Wish List
Leaves have started changing colour, pumpkins have been set outside and the smell of burning fire wood is in the air. Meanwhile in the digital world, online stores have rolled out their fall collections to match in-store. This is my Fall wish list and some of these items are my staple go-to’s for the season.
When I think of Fall, I think of chunky knits and distressed jeans. Everything has to be cozy, chic and warm. My favourite colours for this season are always neutrals, burgundy, mustard, camel, bright yellow and grey. All these colours make for a beautiful palette of Fall outfits.
