A Glimpse of Glam

Hey everyone!

You read that title right! I recently made a YouTube video with one of my best friends. We had some (more like a lot) of time on our hands, and a perfectly working DSLR. We figured, why not do a video? As we are both fairly new to this YouTube thing, filming a video where we answered some questions as sort of an introduction was the best way to go. And, thus the TMI tag was chosen.



For the longest time ever, I’ve contemplated starting a YouTube channel. Not to join the mass of new YouTubers who recently started because of the supposed promise of fame and wealth. No. Rather it’s because it’s another platform, another medium in which I can express myself and utilize as a creative outlet. I’ve wanted to create some videos as a way to showcase another side of me, one that cannot be shown simply through visuals and writing.

Us being us

A couple weeks ago, I stayed up for over 36 hours because of a photography assignment where we documented changes in light over a 24 hour period. Luckily, I wasn’t stuck alone. I had one of my best friends with me. What started as something that seemed really tiring and annoying ended up being really fun. A new adventure.




I met my friend Jake early in January, as we were both taking a printmaking class. That’s where I also met Justin, who I’ve featured before in my post with JORD wood watches. The three of us hit it off quickly, and we soon became really close. There are times when you meet someone, and you just know right away things click. Jake is pretty much like my other half, the brother I never had, as we both are so incredibly similar it can be shocking at times.

I swear he brings out the crazy in me. When the two of us are together we CANNOT stop laughing! Our craziness and high energy is literally insane. He is incredibly funny and sassy, as am I. Those who say best friends take time is wrong because the two of us became close so fast.

Laughing like crazy exhibit A

Laughing like crazy exhibit B

You know you’ve got a friend for life when you spend the time not with them glued to your phone talking to them. The reason why my phone battery drains so easily is because we are literally ALWAYS on Snapchat. We definitely utilize those ridiculous filters to the max!

As Jake has a YouTube channel (called Thatsrightitsjj), we decided to fill the time between the photos during the 24 hour period by filming a video for his channel. We’ve been wanting to do a video together for awhile now, and we decided when would be better than then?

Cuz we from da hood. Hahaha kidding

Oh look us laughing yet again. We can't ever hold it in for normal photos

Through Jake's YouTube channel you will definitely get what I mean about his humor and sass. He creates comedic content, whether it be rants, reaction videos, or other random bits.

Thus we decided to do the TMI tag. Even though no one actually tagged him. But, that’s the fun of it. Answering a bunch of random questions as a way to awkwardly (or perhaps slightly not awkwardly) introduce yourself.

After watching, you might like me more, or you just might hate me. We literally filmed it at 5 am, after being half done with the project. It's a different side to me you've never seen before. Filming is surprisingly not awkward to me. I didn't feel weird being in front of the camera or anything. I wonder if it's perhaps I've been blogging for awhile now, so I feel comfortable in front of a camera? I have no idea.




Comment down below what you thought! Did you like watching this YouTube video? Lemme know in the comments what you thought of the TMI tag! 

Also, if I were to start a YouTube channel, would you want to watch? Lemme know in the comments below! 

I may just stick with being featured in his videos because then I don’t have to do the editing haha (I’m so lazy I know) but who knows?



Thanks for stopping by! I really hope you enjoyed reading, and that you enjoy watching the video! 

Definitely go and subscribe to his channel! I will probably be featured more in the future too. If you wanna see more of my face, GO SUBSCRIBE! As I said in the video outro, it won’t kill you to subscribe so why not? I’m clever I know.

Have a wonderful day!!


Til next time,
~A

My friend got a chocolate from Godiva and this little pumpkin truffle was so adorably wrapped!!

Hey everyone!


I hope you all had a happy Halloween! Did you guys go out and party, or stay in and just dress up for a good Instagram photo? I did none of the above. I had to work, and study, so none of that fun for me. Though, at work we did dress up. We had an ocean theme, and if you follow me on Instagram you will know I went as Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. It was kind of an impromptu costume. So kind of a semblance of a costume but not really a costume... What did you dress up as?

It’s been a long time since I was actually nominated for this Blogger Recognition award. (Random thought but when I started with that phrase it instantly brought to mind Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s song "See You Again", anyone else?) I was nominated back in August and September, so a good couple months ago (cue awkward chuckle and shrug). Huge apologies because I’ve been meaning to do this post for awhile. I’ve just been planning it out and all. I felt like November was a good month to do so. 


Side note: Can you believe it’s November already? I swear it was just summer yesterday. I feel like all the back to school craze barely even happened this year because everything went by so fast, and now it’s almost time for holidays! 

I have prolonged this post for awhile because one year ago at around this time is when my blog really started taking on its identity. November is also the month to give thanks, a month of reflection if you will. I was nominated by TWO lovely fellow bloggers, the blogging duo of Aleeha and Lucy from halesaw.com as well as Barbara from barbiegirl06.wordpress.com. I definitely recommend hopping over to their blogs to see what kinds of things they post. They always got up interesting posts to read, and I always enjoy getting a taste of their character and personality from their posts. 

So, what are the rules to this award?

1) Write a post to show your award
2) Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you
3) Give a brief story about why you started blogging
4) Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
5) Nominate 15 other bloggers/blogs for the award

I guess I can cross off the first two. Check and done.




Why did I start blogging? Good question. I’m glad you asked. And if you didn’t, just go along with it and pretend you did. 

I initially started blogging back in February 2014. I launched this blog when I was a senior in high school. This was around the time when the air was filled with thick angst from the pressure of our unknown futures ahead. People in my generation already grow up in a world filled with social media that showcases all the successes of others. To the point where it can almost feel suffocating, like a huge weight. I’m not someone who doesn’t know where they want to go. I know where I want to be. But I am someone who doesn’t know how to get there. 

Many of the little known YouTubers whom I had watched for years were finally gaining more and more recognition around 2014. More people were starting their own channels in hopes of attaining success like them. I chose a different path. It’s not just fame or success I want. I created this blog for a space where I can be completely myself. What I wanted to do was to put myself out there, to do something outside of my comfort zone. I wanted an outlet where I can voice my thoughts, and to share these opinions with other likeminded people. Or at the least have a way to reach out to and meet others. That’s what I feel many people intentionally wanted when they started their own YouTube channels or blogs. 

By creating this blog, I did something for my own future. I took control and made sure there was something there for me that made me happy, something that can be a constant, something that could at the least help me find a way to be where I want to be. As cliche as that sounds… 

I did stop blogging for pretty much a year and half. I relaunched this blog last fall in 2015. Finishing high school, starting university, and basically taking a step in what resembles the real world was a stressful, emotional time. Hence the year and half hiatus. There were lots of changes in my life, and it took awhile for me to get back to blogging. 

But I’m extremely glad I did. I really love blogging. I’m not just saying that in a cliche way that you have to say. I truly view my blog as my baby. 

Here are two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

First off, welcome to the blogging world! One thing I definitely recommend when you start your blog is to really figure out what it is you are trying to do for your blog. I guess, find a direction you are going. You don’t need to have a full understanding of what your blog has to be like, and you don’t need to follow a particular standard. You can always change it up whenever you want because it is your blog after all. But at the least, know what it is you want to do with your blog. With that, you build more of an emotional connection to your blog. At least it did for me. Blogging can get stressful; it is like a job in itself sometimes. But by always keeping in mind what I wanted to do with my blog, this helped motivate me. Keep going, and don’t give up. You know what it is you want to do, and just keep doing it. 

Second piece of advice is to just be yourself. Don’t be afraid to really let your true voice out. Don’t do what you don’t want to do, and don’t feel like you need to do what others are doing. Honestly, the types of bloggers I follow religiously are the ones who write in a way where you can really get a sense of who they are. Yeah, they might be posting the usual OOTD or Beauty Favorites or Haul or whatnot. But, it’s the way they go about it, the format of their posts and their blog, that makes it more than just reading some random webpage you stumbled across. Ignore the pressures of society, and just do you.

(I know it’s only two pieces of advice, but I also really wanted to say that making sure you are a part of the blogging community is very important. Very important. After all, it’s a community and you can’t just sit there like a loner and expect others to approach you.)

The 15 fellow bloggers I nominate for this award are as follows in no particular order:

Roberta milleunrossetto.blogspot.com
Kay shoesandglitter.com
Jasmine thesixthdisneyprincess.blogspot.com
Sora viasora.blogspot.com
Jenn thepinklemonadegirl.com
Julia Kaylee jkdawn.blogspot.com
Kayla kaylasvibrations.com
Samantha mybeautycloud.com
Aly alyinwanderland.com
April beybiapril.wordpress.com
Lovingrose lovingrosestyle.blogspot.com
Marianne myhappybubblexx.blogspot.com
Vildana living-like-v.blogspot.com
Farah vatkinary.com
Pallavi wildfirecharm.com

**if you've already been nominate before or already did this, sorry it's been awhile since I've seen this award going around so I lost track of who has been already nominated and all**


If you were not nominated, I still highly encourage you to comment down below why you started blogging! I always love finding out more about you guys! Lemme know in the comments below the best advice you've got to bloggers, new or old! Also, comment down below what you did for Halloween!

Thank you all for reading this super long post! I think I took a lot of steps with this blogger recognition award post. But oh well. Unapologetically, I thank you all for reading! I wish you are all having a wonderful week so far! Happy November! 


Till next time,
~A

Hey everyone!

Awhile back, I was nominated for the Miranda Sings Award by the amazing Jasmine from thesixthdisneyprincess.blogspot.com. She is a wonderful blogger who posts really great, interesting content on topics such as fashion and beauty. She is so real and relatable and creative, so definitely go check out her blog! Thanks so much Jasmine for nominating me!

The rules for this award is as follows:

Announce your nomination with a post, including a link to the blogger who nominated you
Include the featured image on your blog
Nominate 10 other blogs and link the nominees in your post
List seven things you love about yourself (such as appearance, personality, skills, and so on and so forth), and no negative comparisons.

And so to continue on this lovely tag/award thing, I'm sharing with you all today the 7 things I love most about myself. This is in no way an excuse to act conceited and self-obsessed; it is simply a way to spread the idea of self-love. Okay, fine. Maybe it is a little bit conceited, but you know what? Society ingrains into our brains that it is wrong to show some self-love because it comes off as conceitedness. But you know what? I think that to some extent it is okay to do so, rather than always acting so modest.

If you can't proudly love yourself, flaws and all, how can you expect others to love you? Go ponder that why don't you?

Anyways, without further adieu, here are my list of seven.

1) I love that I am skilled in art. Art has been part of my life ever since I could remember. I really love and appreciate my knack for colors and eye for patterns.

2) I love that I have a creative mind. I tend to think outside of the box. Sometimes I hit a rut where I feel as stumped as a chopped up tree, but when I reach that creative state it is the greatest feeling ever.

3) I love that I can be very much a perfectionist. I really like being organized and being in control. Sure, that may annoy those around me, but at times it really comes in handy. It helps me accomplish things, and it shows the immense amount of dedication and diligence I put into everything I do.

4) I love my hair. It is SO easy to manage and is healthy. I used to wish I had curly or wavy hair naturally, like my friends do. But now that I've learned more about styling hair, and gained a better understanding of what works for my hair, I have come to really appreciate what I've got.

5) I love my wit and sarcasm. I have a sense of humor and I'm not afraid to hold it back. I can make people feel at ease even if I have just met them. I've also been told by my friends that my sassiness brightens their days and has kept them on their feet.

6) I love my intuitiveness. It allows me to be on the same emotional level of that of others, and helps me gain a better understanding of the environment I am in.

7) I love my inability to play sports. I have a complete lack of ability to do well in sports. I really try, I really do. But whenever the ball comes flying in my direction, I can't help but duck and cover. And you know what? That's okay with me. It is humbling. Who needs to be good at everything anyways?

Thus follows are the 10 lovely bloggers I am nominating!

Aisha http://aishettina.blogspot.com/
Ambi http://www.ambiinwonderland.com/
Alyssa http://www.alyinwanderland.com/
Marianne http://myhappybubblexx.blogspot.com/
Julia Kaylee http://jkdawn.blogspot.com/
Kayla http://www.kaylasvibrations.com/
Vildana http://living-like-v.blogspot.com/
Roberta http://milleunrossetto.blogspot.com/
Sarah http://www.vivaepernay.com/
Sam http://mybeautycloud.com/

It's so fitting that it is the Miranda Sings award. I follow her on YouTube, and the way Colleen portrays her is so wonderful and motivating.

Please share a few things you love about yourself in the comments below! Even if I didn't nominate you, it will still be a great way to spread the love, as well as get to know you all better.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all are having a fantastic day!


Til next time,
~A

Hey everyone!

As you can tell from the title, I was nominated again for the Liebster Award!! I was nominated by Julia Kaylee from jkdawn.blogspot.kr. Huge thanks to you girl for nominating me! I really appreciate it. I recommend to all of you, my lovely readers, to go check out her blog because she posts awesome content.

What exactly is the Liebster Award, you ask? Basically, this is a fun little tag/award kind of thing where bloggers nominate other bloggers to answer questions. The questions can be as random as they come. It's just a way to find new blogs, and to get to know new people.

So the rules for this tag award thing is basically to:

Thank the person who nominated you and link back to them
Answer the 11 questions they posed for you
Nominate 11 new bloggers
Create 11 new questions for them to answer
Let them know you nominated them

It's so awesome how I got nominated again for this. I think the timing is what strikes me as interesting. Easter had just passed, and this was actually the time of year when I first got the idea to create my blog. Well, sort of. To some extent. Because my blog did already exist, but not like it is today. So I think it's pretty cool how it came almost full circle.

I hope you guys all had a lovely Easter! On the Saturday before, there was a huge Easter egg hunt event going on at the mall where I work. Well, it's not exactly a mall, but more of an outdoor shopping center, with a gazebo and fountain and such. It was a bright, sunny day out as well. So many people were there, the crowdedness was reminiscent of Disneyland. I've never celebrated Easter myself, but after seeing all of that, doing an Easter egg hunt seems fun! Did you celebrate Easter? If so, comment down below how it was! I'm always curious to hear about the things going on in your lives too!

Last year at around this time was when I first reworked the direction in which I wanted my blog to go. Not many of you were here when this blog first started back in early 2014. I sort of stopped blogging in mid 2014 because I lost sight of where I wanted to go, and I had some things going on in my personal life that distracted me greatly. Last year at this time, I rediscovered the passion and desire to blog again, and I officially reentered the blogging world this past September. That said, in a way I consider Easter (and basically this time of year) as a marking point as well for this blog because of that.

Like I just said, I've previously been nominated a few times for the Liebster Award as well. If you guys are curious, or just got some time in your hands to waste, check out those posts: Liebster Award, Liebster Award: Part Two, and Liebster Award: Part Three. It will allow you to learn more about me, or it would just give you a good laugh because you will see how weird I was back then compared to now. Well, that's assuming I've changed since then. I'm hoping so. Changed for the better, that is. I'm still pretty weird though.

When you read them, you can really see the growth and change my blog has gone through. Reading old posts to me is like reading past journal entries. It makes me chuckle and reminisce on the things going on in my life at that time of the post, you know what I mean? 

Anyways, without further adieu, here are my answers to JK's questions:


I hope you all enjoyed reading this post, and thank you very much! I wish you all a lovely week!


Til next time,
~A

Hey everyone!

The Lip Product Tag has been circulating for awhile now, and I got tagged awhile back. I'm finally getting around to doing it! The lovely Kay from shoesandglitter had kindly tagged me eons ago. And I deeply apologize that I haven't gotten around to it until now. Do me a favor, and go check out her blog. She is amazing, and her posts are a great read! I love reading about her reviews on perfumes in particular because I admit I know nearly nothing about perfumes, while she is pretty much an expert.

Quick update on my life. Spring is finally here. The weather is getting warmer out. The sun is shining (on the rare days when it isn't storming out because Seattle likes to constantly rain). Best of all, I am on break! Only for a week, but it is still better than nothing. After a hectic, stressful quarter, nothing feels better than to be able to lie around at home guilt-free.

Remember how I was worried about my finals? Yeah, there was more to the story than that. As I've mentioned before, I was taking a ceramics class, art history, and nutrition. However, it was the ceramics class that caused the most stress for me. I am an art major, but I also thought that ceramics would be a nice, relaxing class I could take that would require little brainwork. I was way off. Ceramics is a fickle medium to work with; the many complicated projects we were assigned left me staying really late many nights, and constantly worried about the state of my clay. Luckily, I had some previous experience working with clay because I took some classes back in high school. But, it was still a struggle.

I feel like a lot of times, professors don't realize that as college students, we have other things going on in our lives besides their one class. Add onto that my desire to seek perfection, and you can see why I was so stressed out. For our final project, we had to create a work to perform a ritual that involves three or more people. I came up with a great idea. I had it all down and nearly finished, when it broke. Not just a few minor cracks here and there. No. It was broken to the point where I just had to restart. Once I had FINALLY finished redoing 30 hours of meticulous work, it broke again. But in a different spot. I literally felt so frustrated, I was tempted to just throw it all out a third-story window and break down in tears. That last part (the crying) did happen... But I did manage to salvage what I had in the end! Thank the lord, or else I would have reconsidered my choice in major, which would lead to me rethinking going to college, and then contemplating becoming a hermit who never leaves her parents' house. Ever. Am I exaggerating? No... Maybe.. Okay fine yes. But if you were in my position, you would have felt the same!

Other than that, my finals went well! I aced my other tests. I'm now happily enjoying break knowing that the quarter was stressful, but worth it. Relaxing is nice, but it feels weird to not have something to worry about. Stress can be kind of addicting. Or is that just me?

Anyways, onto the Lip Product Tag! (Man, it feels really nice to be talking about a topic as such, rather than frantically reading articles about drip painting, Cage's obsession on the excellence of everyday life, Greenberg's theories on medium specificity, and other complicated topics.) Comment down below if you actually know what I just mentioned! 

Okay enough babbling about random stuff! Without further adieu..the questions for the LIP PRODUCT TAG are as follows:


I may have more lip products that I like, but those are all the ones I can think of at the moment. Comment down below if you have ever tried any of those that I mentioned!!

I'd like to tag the following to do this post as well!
Aisha from aishettina.blogspot.com
Roberta from milleunrossetto.blogspot.com
Gabrielle from aglassofice.com
Julia Kaylee from jkdawn.blogspot.com
Jasmine from thesixthdisneyprincess.blogspot.com
Nathaliya from potsofsmiles.blogspot.com

Those of you whom I didn't tag feel free to answer these questions too! I would LOVE to read your responses! I like trying out new products, and I also am curious if you guys like the ones I use too.

I hope you guys are having an amazing week! Break is almost over for me sadly enough. But it has been very relaxing and nice. I'm really hoping this coming quarter will be just as enriching and exciting as the past one has been. Fingers crossed! If not though, at least I got summer to look forward to.

Thank you for reading! And I wish you all a wonderful day!


Til next time,
~A

Hey everyone!

Not only did I have a relaxing weekend because of Thanksgiving, something else pretty awesome happened as well recently. I was nominated for the Liebster Award by the lovely, Roberta Romeo . A huge thanks to Roberta for nominating me! I really appreciate it, and it means a lot. Definitely check out her blog, she posts about really interesting stuff!

I don't know how many of you were following and reading back when this blog first started, but I have coincidentally been nominated a few other times before as well. I started this blog back in the beginning of 2014. Since then, this blog has gone through some MAJOR changes, including the rebirth of sorts that resulted in the blog you all know of today. Not only has this blog changed, but I think I, myself, have changed a bit as well since then.

If you are curious to read, here are the posts for the previous times I had been nominated: Liebster Award and Liebster Award: Part 2.


Here are my answers to Roberta's questions:

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you and comment on their blog.
2. Link back to their blog.
3. Nominate 10 bloggers for this award, and notify them.
4. Answer the 10 questions you were asked, and create more for the 10 bloggers you nominated to answer.
5. Include the rules in your post.

These are the questions I came up with:

1. Name your top three ultimate favorite songs of all time.
2. If you could only use one brand (makeup) or wear one brand (clothes) for the rest of your life, which would it be?
3. What's your favorite holiday drink?
4. If you could trade lives with a celebrity for a week, who would it be?
5. Name your favorite book.
6. What is one food you absolutely cannot stand?
7. What is one thing you really want to learn to do?
8. Where is the ideal place you would like to live when you retire?
9. What about the holidays are you looking forward to this year?
10. What's the one thing you really wish to accomplish with your blog?


Til next time,
~A

Hey everyone!

Guess what? I received yet another surprise! I was nominated a THIRD time for the Liebster award! Three times in one week! This really made me so happy!

I was nominated by Belle from http://belleslook.blogspot.co.uk thank you so much for nominating me!! I'm so happy that I was nominated again and this means a lot to me. Although I recently (as in my last blog post) did the Liebster Award, I still would like to participate and I will answer the questions. Click here to see the 11 facts about me and my answer's to Grace's and Ana's questions!

So, without further ado let's jump into the questions

Hey everyone!

So I was scrolling through my blogfeed the other day and guess what I stumbled upon? I was nominated TWICE for the Liebster Award!! At first, I was thinking, what exactly is this? I Googled for awhile and I found out that this is an award for new and upcoming bloggers. Liebster means beloved or dearest in German. I feel very honored to have been nominated twice in one week! This actually means a lot to me because now I know that people actually read my blog and that people like what I have to say. Thank you to Grace Collett from http://poshballoon.blogspot.co.uk/  for nominating me! Thank you to Ana Valentin from http://fun-sizedfashion.blogspot.com for nominating me!