How to make our own tinted moisturizer

I love my mineral makeup, but lately, it's been looking pretty bad on my skin by the end of the day. I need something that wears better, even if it disappears my the middle of the day. I really like TMs, especially the Cover Girl Smoothers one, and wore one today and was much happier at the end of the day with the look of my skin. I do like less coverage too, so I was reading a review on makeupalley and the reviewer mentioned that she maded her own tm. I found the ehow and wikihow articles on how to make them and it really worked.

Ingredients
Olay Complete SPF 30 moisturizer
Everyday Minerals Original Glo in Ivory.

Obviously more mmu in relation to lotion will give you a heavier finish. i used 2 squirts of Olay and used 2 shakes of the mmu and mixed it in my hand until blended and smoothed onto my face and am really impressed with the finish and level of coverage. It's my skin, but a little more even. I still need a undereye concealer and a little facial concealer on a couple of areas and its a bit shiny, so I'll cover it with either EDM Silk Dust or EDM Natural Reflection Fair. Yep, I am impressed and I just used makeup I had sitting around. I think mixing it with a moisturizer does give me a better finish than applying it dry since the powder can sometimes highlight my lines and make my pores look more noticable.

Makeup today and the first wearable muslin

I realized today that I like to think about makeup and what I'm wearing and I like to compare my coloring to that of others and find out what colors work for other that might work for me. So anyway, today I washed my face with Garnier Fructis Detoxifying gel cleanser and used 10% BP and Eucerin Calming SPF 15 face lotion. I used Oil of Olay Age Effect Eye cream too. This is my typical day routine and its been keeping me pretty acne free since I stopped the Tazorac for reasons I will NOT get into. Oh, and I used the Monistat Chaffing Lotion as a primer. It really does make the makeup last longer and go on smoother.

Concealer: Loreal Age Perfect yellow concealer and over it Revlon Age Defying Cream Concealer in light and over that is the now discontinued Vital Radiance Age Spot concealer in medium. I find that without the Age Spot concealer, I get a weird raccoon eye effect and with it, it just looks a little yellow.

Foundation: Mineral Basics in Light-Medium. This is a pretty awesome color choice for me and it doesn't sink into the pores or lines until late in the day, but the product is a bit expensive... Over this is the Finishing dust from Mineral Basics.

Mascara: Loreal Featherlash in True Brown. This is a nice natural looking mascara, it can clump a bit, but doesn't smear by the end of the day like NYC Lengthening does (although that one looks awesome and natural at first).

Eyes: I used a cougar brown WetnWild eye pencil on my brows. I used Jane gel eyeliner in brown and for eyeshadows I used Rimmel eyeshadow in Delicate Rose and ELF gold eye shadow and Meow Cosmetics Marroon loose eyeshadow.

Blush: I used the Everyday Minerals Natural blush and NYC Mosaic Blush in Pink Glow.

So here's the Muslin of Vogue 2354

and here's a closeup...

I don't think I'll do this one for the graduation dress, I like it, but it highlights the hips a bit too much, lol.

Graduation Dress

So graduation is August 8th at 4 pm in Denton and there's a reception afterward. I haven't received my tickets or information yet, but I looked at the site and they say they don't send that sort of stuff out until 3 weeks prior so I shouldn't get it until next week. This gives me plenty of time to diet and sew something. I've narrowed it down to 3 dresses.

Vogue 2354 (a vintage vogue)

An old McCalls pattern like this vintage vogue

and this modern Maggy London Butterick 4657.

So now I'm starting the muslins. I've got 3-4 weeks until the ceremony, so I've got time to make up a wearable muslin and then buy some nice fabric to make the graduation dress in. I've already cut out the 40s style one from an old dark blue sheet and I think I will sew it tonight and see how it comes together. The Mccalls will wait until tomorrow and this weekend, I will do the Butterick. Then I'll decide which one I like best and then buy some properly nice and summery fabric. I'm thinking something pastel, like a lavender or light yellow, or maybe something with a bold print. I think I may even go to Golden D'or to pick it up since they have quite a variety of nice and reasonably priced fabric. I do miss the fabric area in Seoul sometimes, now that was variety, but didn't make up for the less savory aspects of that country for me. sigh.

Sewing and a Job Search

So I continue to look for a job and sew. I just added this nifty toolbar to the lefthand side so you all can access my latest reviews. I suppose it's more efficient that way.

Now about the job search. My problem I think is that I like too many aspects of librarianship. My first love was public libraries, then I worked in an archive and loved that, then worked with a public library as a VISTA and decided I liked that better. Then I worked at Eastfield and decided to go for academic libraries. Sigh. I am sort of too malleable. There are many pros and cons to the various types of traditional librarianship. (Ya'll will notice, I'm totally not looking at Corporate, Law, or Medical librarianship.)

Academic
Pro: Lifelong learning environment, 2nd Masters degree encouraged, pays the best on average for starting vs number of positions, lots of vacation, looks good on the resume
Con: heavy competition for positions, hefty interview process, can be a bit boring when helping a class on a project and they all want to look up the same thing, not the most room for advancement, usually one role (IE systems, aquisitions, reference, cataloging), answering to the college

Public
Pro: Lots of positions, room for advancement, can be exciting depending on who oversees you, variety of tasks, variety of places, the public, reader's advisory, working with local organizsations, newsletter, speaking before groups
Con: Low paying, doesn't look as good on the resume, lower paying, lack of excitment based on your supervisor's perception of your ideas, the public, not many opportunties for reference, answering to local government

Archive
Pro: Organizing things, touching history, not having to be on every day, can still organize activities, get to speak before local groups and can still put together something like a newsletter based on the institution
Con: No chance to work with the public, few jobs, doesn't usually pay as well, lots of minutiae, begging for collections, unpredictable level of work, not much room for advancement, the para-professionals and assistants get to do the fun work most of the time, would be good to have archival certification or degree

Well, I am most excited about public libraries. It's something I am really interested in because most of the time I am a people person. Some days I just don't want to deal with it, but others are great. I know that I eventually want to be a library director and so accepting a public library position is what I should look for. Hopefully somewhere I can stay for 5 years while I gain experience and then go off elsewhere looking for a director job. I just know that I want to be the one in charge, lol. It's strange, when I can younger, I dreaded being in charge and telling people (except my siblings) what to do. I also hated talking to strange people and I'm kinda okay with it in professional settings. I'm still kinda agoraphobic in groups when it's not work-related. Yes, I hate going out in public. If I didn't force myself to do things, I would never leave the house except for work and the occaisonal shopping trip.

Anyway, so I have just about convinced myself only to apply for public library positions until thee end of the month when I will broaden my focus again and I think my focus for the week will be on jobs in the Southeastern US, yes, I think it would be nice to live out there. I think I would like to live in a city or a small town only if within easy reach of a city and hopefully something natury like the ocean or a protected forrest. I've been applying for some more rural positions, but maybe I should stop and look only at the cities...