My Photo Shoot with the talented Cat Thomson!

Wow! I had such a great experience yesterday. I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a singer song writer named Cat Thomson on promotional photos and a possible album cover. It was SUCH a blast. She was gorgeous and funny and I actually found myself really digging her music! It's no wonder she's signed to such an awesome record label! (604 Records - they have some pretty famous artists signed to them!)

Her project manager, Kyra, is a blast to be around and definitey someone I enjoyed working with. Although, I knew I would. She's always been fun. It was a low budget shoot so she used her own mad photography skills to get the shots. That's not as crazy as it sounds. She actually does photography.

We had to find a hair person last minute - one of my boyfriend's coworker's wife is a master hair stylist and she agreed to come out! But, she had to bring the baby! Eep! Except. Her baby is SO well behaved and SO SO cute. We were all smitten.

Anyway, I snapped some crappy cell phone pictures to share with you all! Hope you enjoy.

 Yeah, I basically just thought it was really sick that I was doing makeup under that plaque. That is an 8 times platinum plaque. Even if you hate Nickelback, you gotta admit that's pretty legit!

That was just a lovely collection of photos I snapped during the shoot. They do not do her hair, face, or makeup justice. I was not born to take photos. Also, yes, it was raining pretty hard. It only let up for about an hour!

SO! It was a really great experience for me and I just wanted to share it with you all. Make sure you check out Cat Thomson and all the other 604 artists. :)

Purple and Black Cut Crease Tutorial!

Today on Random Acts of Makeup one of the users, doubleosepti, hosted a contest where you had to put something that was out of your comfort zone! For me, really anything bold is outside my comfort zone when it comes to my own face. I love neutrals and soft, pretty looks. This means you guys see a lot of soft, pretty tutorials.

But. I LOVE a good cut crease. And lately I've been seeing a lot of looks posted as Cut Crease that aren't actually cut creases. So. These two facts coupled led me to believe it was time to step out of my comfort zone and do a cut crease tutorial. Finally. On a night where it's sweltering hot and humid. What was I thinking?!

 This is not clean, moisturized skin. This skin already has foundation and eyeshadow primer on it. Truthfully, after the gross care I took of my skin all week it is not looking very good. I am *so* impatient for my Missha BB Cream in 13 to come in because the 21 is looking a bit dark.

 Holy moly are these pictures ever yellow. Bathroom lighting fail. ANYWAY. Back to the tutorial - Using my NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk I primed my lower lid for shadow.

 I decided to tape for an extremely crisp line when I do the cat eye. Then I patted MAC pigment powder in Violet onto my lid up to the crease.

 Using my Maybelline gel liner on an angle brush I drew a straight, clear line following my crease. This part is ESSENTIAL to a cut crease. The top can be messy, it's going to be blended out but the "cut" in the crease on the bottom has to stay crisp. You want this line to go right to the tape.

 Then I blended matte black eyeshadow from an old school palette into the cut crease line and above. Again, blend right out to the tape.

I highlighted my brow bone using a matte white shadow and filled in my brows using my NYX brow kit. You can also see here I started to line my eyes before realizing I hadn't taken a photo!

 With the same Maybelline gel liner I used before, I lined my upper lash line and extended it to a dramatic cat eye following the tape. After this picture, I also realized I needed to blend my shadow into the cut crease line a bit more!

 Pull off the tape and VOILA! I almost left it at this because I don't like the way I look in bottom eye liner. But this was about going OUTSIDE my comfort zone. Let's also take a moment to giggle because I used breathable medical tape to create the line - breathable as is has holes which you can totally see!

 So I lined my bottom waterline with Smashbox Limitless Liner in Onyx.

 And blended it out with my MAC Violet.

 Unfortunately, at this point the bathroom became unbearably hot. I could not stay in there to finish my makeup let alone take pictures. So I came outside and did my makeup in a compact mirror! I finished off by contouring and highlighting pretty dramatically with matte shadows from the same school palette I was using earlier. Comparable colors would be NYX blush in taupe and.. uhm plain Matte white. My lips have Smashbox Enhancing Gloss in Illume on them. I also used Smashbox Mascara.Yes, I got their try it kit before the wedding and I definitely recommend it!

This picture is titled "Do Not Contour When You Are Sweaty and Have No Mirror. No. Blend."