I know you’re out there, beauty fanatics!

And I come to you with a challenge!

It’s finally time for me to graduate to a tinted moisturizer this summer. After a full year of treatment with Accutane, Minocin and a bajillion special face creams, my skin is finally getting clear. I’m going barefaced on weekends and at home, but I’m not brave enough to do it all the time at work.

I have rosacea, which means I have some redness in my skin, and it flares up when I get hot, excited, have a drink, blah blah blah so I still want to keep a little bit of coverage to even my tone out.

I am looking for a tinted moisturizer or other product that will address most or all of my needs. But does it exist? I don’t know! I’ve never bought something like this before so I don’t know where to start.

Can you make me some product recommendations?

Needs:

• lightweight, but with ok blending/coverage/something to even out the skin tone
• MUST have an SPF
• Not greasy or difficult to absorb (my skin is still a little oily)
• Preferably with mattifying ingredients so I don’t get greasy half way through the day
• Not overly expensive. I don’t know what the average price range is, but I don’t want anything too cheap (like Covergirl) but nothing over $20 if possible
• Won’t rub off or run easily. I’m a sweaty Betty.
• Needs to be a good colour for me – I am around an NC20 in MAC shades

I would say that SPF, staying power and price are my top 3 “must-have’s”. I want to feel as though I am wearing nothing. My mineral makeup is great, but it’s still a little heavier than I would like.

So can you tell me about your favourite product, or what you would recommend for me? Even if you’re not a beauty blogger, what is the product you just rave about to your friends?

I want to know!

Aside from the tea party, searching for a new job has been on my mind the most.

Ever since I got a new boss and realized that I hate my job and it’s going nowhere things just seem to keep on being craptastic.

There’s nothing quite like dealing with the stress of a job that you hate (one that sucks your soul and you don’t get appreciated for) while trying to be positive and find something new.

I’ve been on a couple of interviews in my industry, but no bites yet. I really want to either get into social media (which is at least interesting and related to my skills!) or finally start a business of my own.

Lately I’ve been reading the Four Hour Workweek which is inspiring me a little, and I’ve also been doing some research on starting a small business. There’s so much to learn and consider!

I know I can do it… but I didn’t think I would really start working on it in earnest so soon. But I guess there will never be a convenient time, right?

Right now I’m trying to figure out exactly what I want to do, and then how I can start to make it happen. My idea isn’t really new or too unique, so I don’t mind sharing it with you all.

Ideally, I would like to open up a small shop and sell beautiful handmade or funky things. I get lots of compliments on my taste and style–I always seem to find the cool things before anyone else does. Why not capitalize on that? I’ve got the marketing background which is so critical to running a business, it’s just figuring out how I translate all my big-company thinking to a smaller scale! But I think it will be a lot of fun.

So now that you know the general idea behind my shop, what do you think? If you were my customer, what kinds of things would you like to see there, or what could I do to stand out? As I mentioned, I won’t be the only shop to offer handmade one of a kind things.

I’d like to make it accessible though. I find a lot of those stores cater to the more affluent people, and shut out the folks who can’t afford a $300 beaded necklace. I want to make sure that everything I sell is reasonably priced; style should not be reserved for only the rich!

I would carry just about anything, from jewelery and accessories to home decor, books and maybe even clothing. Just cool stuff in general. I want the store to be an experience when people walk in! I will have a strong focus on customer service and would be involved with the community by supporting local artists, events and charities.

Now I just need to figure out how to make this happen! And also think up a name :s Oy!

Hmm. I started this post with the intent to complain about my job and lousy luck in the job hunt. Oh well. I’d rather think about my dream business, anyway

My "spice rack"!

Lately I’ve been trying to learn how to cook more at home. What I’ve come to discover is that proper application of herbs and spices can make all the difference in a good meal!

As my cooking skill grows, my spice drawer has also grown exponentially. It’s so full that when I went to buy some oregano, I didn’t have anywhere to put it!

A crafty and creative storage solution was needed!

I have been lusting after those adorable spice containers with magnets on the bottoms that stick to your fridge. This weekend I grabbed a few on clearance and went nuts stocking up on essential spices from the bulk food store.

But what about the spices I already had?

I had several of those little orange tins of spice from Club House. Seeing the magnetic tins from the store got me thinking…why couldn’t I get the orange tins to stick to the fridge, as well?

How to make your existing spices magnetic:

If you’ve got a bunch of the little spice tins like I do, or something similar you can give this a shot!

You will need the following items:

• spice tin
• scissors
• magnetic tape with sticky backing

Cut two strips of magnetic tape to the width of your spice tin.

Adhere to the tin, like so:

Plonk it on the fridge and PRESTO CHANGE-O you have a cute new way to display your spices!

This method worked out great for me because the side of my fridge is part of my kitchen workspace. The spices are now easily within reach when I’m prepping and I can quickly see how much is left of my commonly-used spices.

Plus, making my existing tins magnetic cost loads less than buying those little tins from the store! This cost me about $6 for the magnetic tape, and 10 minutes of time to assemble. I’m rather proud of myself! LOL

Do you have any other crafty kitchen hacks to share?

What?

There are different kinds of tea parties?

It wasn’t until I started researching for my tea party that I learned that there are more than 2 kinds of “tea” to have. In fact, depending where you are in the world and what traditions you follow, you have loads of options!

Since most of us here are North American and operate on somewhat more relaxed standards than some of our European friends, I’ll talk about the kinds of tea parties most people host around here.

First up, is High Tea. You may have heard about this one. In a nutshell, it’s basically what we would call dinner. There would be full on entrees, tea, sweets, cakes and more. A big meal that is often served in a formal setting with lots of rules and lots of work!

A lot of places like to say they serve High Tea, but if there isn’t some kind of fancy chicken/beef/fish dish being served, it ain’t High Tea!

What most people are familiar with is the afternoon tea. It is sometimes called Light Tea, Victorian Tea, Low Tea, Cream Tea, etc. It’s all pretty similar, but there are three main types of afternoon tea:

Cream Tea

This is one where tea and scones with cream and jam are served. Hence the “cream” part of the title. Now when they say cream, they don’t mean the type you put in your coffee, they are referring to clotted or Devon style cream. It’s made from cow’s milk and is cooked down to a thick, wonderful creamy consistency, and is used as a spread on the scones. Sooooo goood.

Light Tea

This is the most simple tea, in which a pot of tea, some little cakes or cookies and maybe some sweet breads are served. It’s light and casual and is sort of an afternoon break rather than anything fancy.

Low or Full Tea

This is sort of a combination of the above, plus sandwiches! Low or Full Tea is the next step down from High Tea. Tea sandwiches and savoury fingerfoods are served along with the traditional scones and cream, petit fours, sweet breads, etc. with the tea. It is much more substantial than a snack, but not the full-on meal that High Tea would provide.

This one is best held in the late afternoon (around 3-4pm maybe) so that your guests can go home and still have a late light dinner if they chose to.

So what kind of tea did I have for my party?

Well, if you saw the photos you would know that I offered a Low or Full Tea, since I had sandwiches, sweets, petit fours, scones AND cream.

Now, if you’re planning to host a tea party, you can do it any way that you want. Mix up the menu items, create your own theme and rules! I didn’t have matching china, so I went ahead with a more whimsical theme with brightly coloured tea cups, cute mini spoons and creamers/sugar dishes. As long as you can create some sort of cohesive theme (mine was whimsical/eclectic) to pull everything together, you’ll have a great atmosphere.

For more information on hosting a tea party, menu ideas and proper etiquette, here are a couple of sites I used:

Tea Party Guide

About.com: Hosting an afternoon tea party

You may recall that I  issued a challenge to my friends:

You must dress up. Using your existing wardrobe, create an outfit that expresses YOUR interpretation of “tea party”.

I was stoked to see what all my friends came up with! A lot of them were panicking about what to wear but I wasn’t concerned. I told them “no denim” and left the concept for them to explore…

Most proper tea parties have some kind of dress code, from smart-casual all the way up to formal dress. I decided that for mine I wanted everyone to make an effort to dress up since this was a special occasion. Of course I didn’t want anything too crazy, which is why I told the girls to use their existing wardrobe and not to feel as though they had to buy something new for this event. We’re not made of money!

Here are the results!

Yours truly - doing the "Marilyn" pose in front of the fan!

Aren’t their outfits totally FAB???

A lot of white, but it was nice! I mean, how often do you really get to break out the white dresses, anyway? I love that two of my friends wore hats for the event, and the last one was even channeling the India Tea Company of old!

I was really pleased to see the effort put into these outfits, and I thought my friends looked so lovely! And I think they really enjoyed dressing up, too! There just aren’t that many reasons to dress up anymore, know what I mean? I think it’s great to take some time out to pick some nice clothes and slap on some girly lipstick!

I will definitely be doing more dress-up or themed parties in the future. As long as they’re relatively easy for people to pull together, they can be a lot of fun!!!

Do you and your friends ever dress up for events or get-togethers? Is it a regular thing, or do you stay casual most of the time?

Well! I’d say the tea party was a resounding success, despite a few minor setbacks!

Friday night I went all over the place to pick up the final ingredients and such for the main event. I visited a number of bakeries, cheese mongers, florists and grocers to get everything I needed. By that point I was so exhausted I got myself a pad thai and a taxi home :S

I spent Friday night setting up the table, the flowers & decor and prepping some of the foods for the next day. I got the chicken salad successfully curried and… well… now that I look back I think that may have been the only food-related thing I got done, aside from washing the fruit. Next time around I will definitely prepare more ahead of time!

I totally could have done the minted cream cheese for the cucumber sandwiches, and pre-rolled all the asparagus spears in smoked prosciutto. Thank goodness for helpful friends!

My new pal “Hattie” came over early to help me set up, and boy am I glad she came! Despite waking up early to get things done, I was still scrambling at the last minute. I put her to work slicing bread and applying delicious, delicious cream cheese while I got the asparagus and cucumber ready.

We went along at a clipped pace until I realized that we had already passed my “3pm SHARP!” arrival time for guests. Ruh-roh! This is one of the few times I was glad my friends were tardy! Hattie offered to finish the sandwiches for me while I went to get dressed.

It was then that I realized that I had completely forgotten about the focal point of my tea party: THE SCONES!!!! Chaos ensued while I got up to my elbows in butter and flour to whip a batch out before everyone came. Good thing I did the practice run last weekend!

After a hasty mixing session I was shooed out of the kitchen in order to dress myself. When I popped out Hattie and another gal pal were finishing everything up in the kitchen. I love my friends! Pulling me out of the fire at my own party and all that…

Finally, everything was pretty much done, and we got down to the business of socializing like the wonderful, civilized ladies we are! The scones turned out beautifully, by the way

Now, everything in a tea party is about the details and little touches, so I offer you:

The Details

My menu consisted of the following:

• Fresh-from-the-oven sugared scones
• An assortment of homemade jams (plum, apple butter & raspberry…except the raspberry wasn’t homemade. Oh well) plus double Devon cream which was a total bitch to find, but absolutely necessary in my cream or low tea
• An assortment of petit fours I picked up from the local boulangerie
• Cucumber mint sandwiches
• Smoked prosciutto and asparagus with honey mustard sandwiches
• Curried chicken salad sandwiches with apple & cranberry for a kick+colour!
• About 20 different types of teas, from traditional to rooibos to the exotic!
• Fresh fruit
• Candy!
• A special liqueur plus champagne drink recipe I brought back with me from Europe

Tea party buffet

The set-up:

• The main table set with delicate china, flowers, ornaments, bowls of jams & creams and my very special handmade Italian tablecloth I picked up at a traditional lace-making school in Venice
• A buffet for the food
• Flowers and decorations throughout the room
• My cat. Decorated. With a pink bow. She’s awesome.

Tea table set-up

Flowers that match the decals in my kitchen

More flowers!

The only details left to mention are the fashion and the meaning behind the tea party. Stay tuned!

No tea party is complete without proper scones, jam & cream.

While I am not ambitious enough to try making my own jam & cream for this tea party (though that would be nice, wouldn’t it?) I did feel that proper home made scones would be the right touch for the occasion.

Commence scone-recipe-searching!

Haha, this time around I did it the smart way, and Googled “easy scone recipe” and clicked the first result.

Oh Google, I love your algorithm! I got an awesome recipe from Allrecipes.com that resulted in delicious, light & fluffy scones that will be perfect!

Fresh out of the oven!

I’m glad I did a test run with these babies, as I don’t work with a lot of delicate or finicky recipes generally speaking. With scones you have to be very careful not to overwork the dough as you make them. I don’t know what happens when you overwork the dough as mine turned out great, but I’m sure it wouldn’t come out as nice.

Next time I think I’m going to add a little more sugar for sweetness, and probably make them a bit smaller, too. These ones were absolutely mammoth. Of course there is the option to flavour them or add things like dried fruits, nuts and chocolate chips!

For the tea party I am going to stick with the plain jane kind; the better to slather with butter, cream and jam! Even on their own these were pretty tasty fresh out of the oven. Definitely a worthwhile recipe.

To save you browser space, I’m not going to bother listing the full recipe here. Instead, you can check it out on Allrecipes.com –  and make sure you read all the comments, they have some great advice in them!

I will also be serving a selection of tea sandwiches that I will be making, and petit fours that I will not be making (a gal’s got to draw the line somewhere!) and other little treats.

All this week I’ve been planning, making lists and playing with the table set up. Everything seems to be going fine, but I’m a little disappointed; I just discovered that a good friend of mine wasn’t able to get time off work and essentially can’t make it to the main event. This is a big bummer since I only invited a select few to begin with pooh-pooh.

Aside from doing the general Google search on tea party themes, decor, etc. there are a few major things that have inspired me as I plan my party.

This was the original, if you can believe it! I came across this TV commercial on YouTube years ago and the fun little song and idea got stuck in my head. I knew one day I would have my own “tea paaaaarrrrtay!”

As I was searching YouTube to find this video again to share, I actually stumbled across the following awesome music video by Kerli! How surprised was I to find this!?!? Kerli is actually one of my favourite artists, and the fact that she has this awesome vid and song just reinforces why I love her! (Check her out here!)

And the lyrics for your aural pleasure:

Welcome to the Tea Party
Want to be my VIP?
You didn’t RSVP
That’s ok, that’s ok

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
When I all steamed up,
Hear me shout
Tip me over and pour me out

Your appetite is flex
I got the table set
Don’t get your dribble on my T-t-table yet

I got the goodies baked
Got more than you can take
Just try and nibble on my biscuits and my rainbow cake

Let’s be traditional
And non commissional
Got my elbows down, pinkies up
That’s the way you sip my cup

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
(oh oh, oh oh)
You didn’t RSVP
(oh oh, oh oh)
That’s ok, that’s ok
(oh oh, oh oh)

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
When I all steamed up, hear me shout
Tip me over and pour me out

Try not to move so fast
You know the sir comes last
I’m the lady fatha mucka try to show some class

Don’t drink the last cup
We keep it boiling hot
We keep the party moving till we drink the last drop

Let’s be traditional
And non commissional
Got my elbows down, pinkies up
That’s the way you sip my cup

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
(oh oh, oh oh)
You didn’t RSVP
(oh oh, oh oh)
That’s ok, that’s ok
(oh oh, oh oh)

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?

When I all steamed up, hear me shout
Tip me over and pour me out

I know this night is like no other
You’re not just another
I know it’s only getting better
As long as we’re together
I know this night is like no other
You’re not just another

Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
(oh oh, oh oh)
You didn’t RSVP
(oh oh, oh oh)
That’s ok, that’s ok
(oh oh, oh oh)
Welcome to the Tea Party
(oh oh, oh oh)
Want to be my VIP?
When I all steamed up, hear me shout
Tip me over and pour me out

And finally, a fellow blogger and creatrix extraordinaire Doe Deere of LimeCrime held her own candyfuturistic tea party not long ago and it looked fabulous! While my party may not be quite so extravagant, I really like that she was able to meld traditional and non-traditional elements into her party:

This coming weekend I am hosting my very first tea party for my closest friends.

I’ve been mulling over the idea for quite some time now, and with the popularity of Alice in Wonderland bringing the focus back on this tradition, I thought the time was ripe for my own!

While I myself am not the biggest tea drinker (although my collection would beg to differ!) I have always loved the classic idea, rituals and etiquette of a traditional tea party.

The usual elements of a tea party include:

• formal table settings
• petit fours (little sweet cakes and pastries)
• tea sandwiches
• scones with jam and cream
• TEA!

When most people think of tea parties, they think of stuffy old ladies with hats and gloves sitting around with pinkies up and “hemm-hemming” over the latest faux pas someone in the community has committed. But this isn’t always the case!

I think tea parties offer a great way to get your friends together to appreciate the civilized side of life that we so often neglect in society these days.

Tea parties can be in any theme that you like, from classic traditional to wacky, zaney or even morbid! The key to setting the mood is the decor, menu and etiquette that you choose to observe during the event.

For my party, I’m going with a “funky & elegant” theme, and have asked my guests to dress up with their interpretation of the term “tea party”. I have some diverse friends each with their own unique style so I am really looking forward to seeing their outfits! With their permission I will be posting them on the blog afterwards Of course I’ll be dressing up, too!

I don’t have a ton of money to spend on this event, so the decor will be a bit on the eclectic side as I pull together all the cool serving dishes, decorations and linens that I have to make one cohesive theme. Good thing I’m an old hand at the eclectic look!

So far hot pink seems to be the dominant accent colour, but we’ll see what shows up in the end!

This week I will be pulling everything together, including the decor, table set-up, menu and trial runs of some of the tricker treats that I am preparing and posting about it on the blog.

I would love to hear of your own tea party experiences, and if you have any tips or tricks to share with me as I prepare for my own.

Thanks, and cheerio, darling!

…party season, that is!

Even though I am looking for a new job (and potentially not even in my current field if that’s what it takes) I am once again making the rounds! Yay!

Since working at *current employer* I have been cut off from all the great industry events and vendor parties that go on every year. Last year I didn’t get out to anything!

I’m still not technically getting invited personally to these things, but I have a cool new coworker with connections and he’s flipping me all the invites. Once you have the email you just have to RSVP and you’re on the list.

SO EASY to crash those parties

So I went to the first one tonight but as you can tell by my timestamp, I left early. Parties are really only good if you have people to hang out with. I met some random dude from Sony Music and we had a nice chit chat, and then I actually ran into a guy I went to college with. I hadn’t seen him in 5 years! He’s doing pretty well for himself so I’m happy for him.

My coworkers were supposed to meet me there tonight, but apparently they got tied up drinking somewhere else before. I didn’t really feel like sticking around (despite the open bar and free snacks!) so I came home. I did manage to score a DVD of Sunshine Cleaning though–me and the roomie are going to check it out tonight.

So, a pretty tame start to the season, but I think it will get better! I’m going to my friend’s BBQ this weekend, and next weekend is my very own tea party. After that I’m sure there will be something else!

I will have to share some of my plans and ideas for the tea party. I’m totally stoked. I just haven’t had a moment to sit down and really hammer things out, so I’m hoping to do it this weekend.