Spring Shopping

Last year at about this time, me and my little sister Megan went spring shopping at Twelve Oaks Mall. It was so much fun, so we decided to do it every year, as an annual shopping trip. It is a great way for us to kick off the warm season, and I wanted to share my findings with all of you!

When we went on this trip, I had two destinations in mind. I had other places to go, of course, but these two were the ones I knew that I would spend the most money at. They were Teavana and Lush. I didn't end up spending quite as much money at Teavana as I thought I would (everything is so expensive in there that a lot of money doesn't go very far), but I spent close to a hundred dollars at Lush. 

I bought way too much, but I am totally okay with it. I had a list of things that I wanted to get when I went in there, and I got all of them. I bought a bath bomb for me and a few for my friends, a few bars of their handmade bar soap (in Sea Vegetable and Sexy Peel), shampoo and conditioner, and some of their Emotional Brilliance makeup. 

The shampoo and conditioner were pretty expensive, these tiny bottles were ten dollars apiece. But, I love them. As most of you know, I am vegan. But, there are different kinds of vegans and I, personally, don't have a problem eating or using honey (which is considered by most to be an "animal by-product"). So, I bought Lush's Fairly Traded Honey shampoo and Veganese conditioner. The shampoo is made up of 50% honey, which I thought was awesome. I am in love with these two, especially when I use them together. They honestly make my hair smell like I just got it washed at the hair salon, and it feels clean for a lot longer.

One of my favorite products from Lush is their Emotional Brilliance makeup. I had never heard of it before this shopping trip, but it is a pretty cool concept. A Lush worker will sit down in front of this spinning color wheel, and tell you to close your eyes while they take your hand. They tell you to relax and focus on yourself, how you're feeling, and what is important to you in your life. Then, they tell you to open your eyes and pick three colors off of the wheel that represent how you feel. I picked a light blue, bright pink, and pastel yellow. Now, each of these colors represents a feeling or an emotion. They say that the first color represents your demeanor, mine was the light blue which represented "calm". The second color is something that you want to focus on, mine was the bright pink which represented "believe". Finally, they tell you that the last color represents how you enjoy feeling the most, mine was the pastel yellow which represented "uplifted". I thought that this little exercise was awesome, and I ended up buying the bright pink Believe bottle. They told me that when I wear it to focus more on the feeling that the color represents, rather than the color itself.

Did I mention that it is an all-purpose makeup? Yeah, it is amazing. It can be eyeliner, mascara, blush, or lip tint. I seriously use it for at least one of those purposes every day now.

Megan and I also went to Teavana, where I got a berry tea, as recommended by the worker there. I really loved the store, since they had a great selection of teas and tea products, but it was my first time there and I did have a few issues with it. The tea was ridiculously expensive, which I did expect, but I was still a little disappointed at the teensy amount of tea that I was able to afford for twenty five dollars.

Plus, the worker that was helping us was really pushy, and I hate being pressured into buying things. She said that I had to buy this tin for the tea to go in so it wouldn't go bad, so I bought the tin but then had less money for tea. I have a really hard time saying no to people, so I can get suckered into buying almost anything if a salesman is persistent enough. Other than that, though, I was really excited about my first Teavana purchase!

This is my tea! I believe it is called Berry Amaretto. I haven't had the chance to try it just yet, but I can't wait until I do! It smells amazing.

Megan and I also bought some clothes and accessories, stopping by Forever 21 and some of the other stores like it. I bought two dresses, a shirt, two pairs of earrings, sunglasses, two pairs of shoes, and a new purse.

Overall, I was extremely happy with this year's Spring Shopping trip, and I can't wait for another fun day with my little sister next year :)

Hayley :)

PS-I'll have another post up soon with the outfits I bought on my trip! 

My Work Party!

So, I work at a credit union. Every year in March, we have a party. It's just a little employee appreciation party; they provide food, drinks, and something fun to do (the past few years, it has been a photo booth). And, if we have a really good year where we meet all of our goals and have high profits, we get prizes. These aren't the usual, $25 gift card to Applebee's kind of prizes. These are nice. Two years ago I got a laptop and last year I got my Nikon. At the party, we get our names drawn and we get to run up and get the prize that we want before our coworkers.

I usually do pretty well at the party. We have about 150 employees, and I usually get called within the first 30, so I get a pretty good prize. But this year, I was one of the last people to get drawn. I still got a cool prize, though! This year, I got a Keurig. For those of you who are not familiar with this awesome gadget, it is a coffee machine that makes a single serve cup of coffee (or tea, or hot apple cider, etc.). It was perfect for me. I have been on a tea kick lately, and I swear that it is all I drink. When you don't put a "k-cup" in the Keurig, it just makes a cup of hot water, in which I put my tea bag to make my nice, hot tea. I also make the occasional coffee, when I'm in the mood :)

The best part is that I'm finally using the honey that I got from my uncle for my tea (he keeps bees)! :)

Until next time!!

Hayley :)

My Jo-Ann's Addiction...

So every once in a while, I decide to go to Jo-Ann's. Upon walking in, I realize that it was a bad idea. Instead of walking out like I KNOW that I should, something draws me in deeper. I black out and two hours later I'm walking out with three bags of crafting supplies.

Okay, so I don't black out. But, I do spend way too much time and money in that store, and I love doing it. A few weeks ago, I made a trip over there, and I thought that I would share my findings with you!

First off, I love scrapbooking. I don't actually get the time to do it a lot, but when I do, I go crazy. Like, sitting down and starting and finishing an entire scrapbook kind of crazy. So when I saw that they had paper packs on sale , I had to buy some. I got some really cool designs, and it helps that I already have a plain paper pack at home, so now I can make all of my pages look amazing! They had a few stickers on sale, too, so I bought some. I just want to scrapbook all the things.

They also had 40% of basically the entire store, so I got this cute floral box to keep all of my scrapbooking paper in, because it was starting to take over my house. Now I have it all organized in my box up on my shelf.

I also bought an organizer for my spools of thread, which is super helpful! I color-coded them because I think that I might be slightly OCD. Finally, I bought three of those reusable tote bags. I was only going to buy one, but the designs were so freaking cute that I bought all of the ones I liked. I use them for grocery shopping now, and they are so strong and durable that I wish I had bought more :)

The funny part is that I only went to Jo-Ann's because I had a bunch of coupons, and when I got there, I realized that everything was already on sale, so the only things that my coupons were good for were by $2.00 tote bags :)

Until next time!

Hayley :)

Vegan Update #1

So I've been vegan for a few weeks now, and I think it is going pretty well so far. It is pretty hard going out to eat, but as long as I pack my lunch, it hasn't been too bad. Some restaurants have vegetarian options, and if they do, I usually just ask for it without cheese and I'm good to go! But, with this post, I wanted to talk about some of the vegan alternatives and what I think of them.

1. Vegan cheese
So, I have tried vegan cheese twice now. I tried it on my cooked veggies one night (because I LOVE real cheese on my veggies when I cook them on the stove), and it was completely horrible. I thought it was just because I still had the memories of cheese freshly in my head, but that wasn't the case. I made vegan pizza last week with the same cheese. Vegan pizza is pretty much regular pizza, but with an egg-free crust, vegan cheese, and only veggie toppings. The cheese ruined it. It honestly tastes like plastic, and I will never be able to eat it again. I had to throw my pizza out because of it. It was a sad day.


2. Veganaise
This is basically mayonnaise, but made without egg. I thought this stuff was going to be disgusting, since they use other ingredients in it to try to make it taste more like mayonnaise. It is amazing! I love it, and I use it on my sandwiches all the time. I've been on this kick lately where I make a sandwich for lunch with my special Veganaise, spinach, cauliflower, and cut up pieces of avocado. It's so good, I have it almost everyday :)


3. Chicken-free Chicken Strips
Horrible. No other words. Just horrible.


4. Veggie Burgers
I was always a little worried to try veggie burgers. When I saw them, they always looked burnt. I was afraid that I would hope that they would be too much like burgers, and not like them because of it. And they don't taste like burgers, but they taste amazing. The ones that I bought from Meijer were better than the ones I bought from the health food store, and I recommend that everyone tries them, even if you aren't vegan!

Until next time,

Hayley :)