How I Spent My (Ridiculously) Long Weekend

On Friday night my lovely parents decided that they wanted to get away for the weekend. 

As it was my mother who made the suggestion I waited for further finalization as she is an optimistic thinker with a pessimistic heart (like mother, like daughter) who will more often than not burst her own bubble with one or more reasons why her fantastic idea will never come to fruition. 

However, this situation turned out to be different as they now had me in the picture, aka their in-home babysitter!

I could practically see a light bulb appear and come to life over my mother's head as she asked the question out loud: "But who will watch the kids?"

Ding, ding, ding! She's got it! 'My oldest child, of course.'

Now, let's back it up a moment or two, shall we?

My parents are very hardworking individuals so I was completely supportive of the idea that they should get away for the weekend and enjoy themselves.

I am technically currently employed by my step-dad as his office manager. So a long weekend for him meant a long weekend for me as well. 

Last but not least, I am the oldest of two children. My younger sister lives in an apartment with her best friend so in all actuality the "kids" my mother is speaking of is a reference to our five dogs. Yes, folks, you read that right. 

That's 5, as in 1-2-3-4-5. 

Well, if babysitting the little heathens would get an extra day tacked onto my weekend I was all for it. In fact, I even set up the reservation for my parents and come Saturday morning they were off on their merry way and I was stuck with four yappy Yorkies and a jumping Jack Russell. "Let's do this," I thought.

{My little angel baby, Tucker, who would never do any wrong...ever.}

I have to say that I was actually surprised with how the weekend turned out. Instead of slaving over 50 lb. bags of dog food and insane messes around the house (which is how my normal week with the dogs goes) it was actually really enjoyable. I don't know if my dogs were just like, "It's cool, guys, the grown-ups are gone. We can act normal" or what but there was hardly any messes to clean up and everyone was generally well-behaved. Which meant one thing, I could enjoy myself and do things that I actually wanted to do. Yay!

I have felt so inspired this week and really jumped back into blogging full time but I realized this weekend that I've been pumping out the posts but they've been generic and filled with things you see on every other blog or beauty guru channel and that's not what I really wanted to do. 

{My Tumblr-esque bath moment.}

So naturally I ran a warm bath complete with a Lush Dorothy rainbow-adorned bubble bar, sank into Season 12 of Project Runway on Hulu, and continued reading "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" by Mindy Kaling (all of which are incredibly inspiring things believe it or not).
It wasn't until I was scrolling through my Tumblr dash, as I do every day, that things really changed.

 I ran across a link from shewillmove-mountains aka Samantha, that was for her blog...
The Lazy Girl Guide.

Once I started reading I just couldn't stop. Not only were her posts interesting and relatable but her writing is laugh-out-loud funny and that is what makes it so special. 

Then it hit me, what I was reading was something special and in that is where I found my greatest inspiration.

I had an epiphany, if you will. I realized that the intention and ultimate goal of my blog should be to create something special for my readers that I also enjoy. Which is what I had intended all along but may have forgotten along the way. 

From what I've gathered so far, Samantha and I have quite a different style so don't expect too many similarities to stem from this sudden burst of inspiration, it was mainly of the figurative sense anyway. I love reading her blog though and also love to see other bloggers succeed (she's a correspondent for USA TODAY College, how cool is that?) so I will definitely keep reading because I can't wait to see what the future has in store for her. (I really hope that doesn't sound as creepy as I'm making it out to be) 

I finished out my weekend by over indulging in Mexican food and Cherry Coke (what else is new, right?) but I also got down to business with my blog and what it actually is that inspires me so I am totally starting this week on a high note that leaves me looking forward to the future. 

So here we go, a new chapter.
Keep a look out for some awesome stuff coming very soon.

until next time
xo
Merisa

How to Clean Your Makeup Brushes

What a nice way to start off the week...I found this earlier today on Tumblr and sort of ran with it, which brings me to today's post.

When I think of productive Sundays I think of doing things that get me ready for the coming week. To most that might mean starting the two term papers I have due next week or preparing for my Senior presentation but no...what that really means is doing the laundry I've neglected, clearing out my makeup bag, and ultimately...

cleaning my makeup brushes!

Now, while taking on this task I started to notice that I've developed quite a nice technique so I thought I'd share it with you all!

Yay for clean makeup brushes! Yay!

This may seem like the most simplest thing in the world but honestly, if you're doing it right, it can take a little effort so I've actually developed a routine for cleaning my brushes in between cleaning but for now here's the deep clean. 

Start out my gathering all of your brushes!

As you can see, they definitely needed a cleaning. Please excuse that rather nasty looking Beauty Blender, we're about to fix that situation.

Now, gather the rest of your supplies!

I use a small bowl (or mug, in this case) filled about a third of the way full with warm water, some baby shampoo from the Dollar Tree, a wash cloth, and napkins. 

I forgot to include it in this photo but I also use Sephora's Daily Makeup Brush Cleaner spray.

Now comes the messy part but to help the time go by faster I usually check out some of my favorite YouTube channels for their latest videos while cleaning my brushes.

(I watched Tanya Burr's Nicole Scherzinger makeup tutorial and March favorites videos this time around) 

I start out with the smallest brushes first mostly because they don't really hold all that much makeup. 

After mixing a little baby shampoo into the water, I dip a brush in the water and swirl it around a little. 

Then, I take the brush and wipe it in a circular motion on a napkin (I usually save the wash cloth for the bigger brushes) until all of the makeup comes off and the brush looks clean. 

For bigger brushes or ones with a lot of makeup like my foundation brushes, I tend to use the Daily Makeup Brush Cleaner first by spraying it directly onto the brush then swirling the brush around on a napkin or cloth. If it's a brush I haven't used a whole lot, like the pink powder brush, then that's usually all the cleaning it needs but for more heavily used brushes I need to repeat the steps I used for the smaller brushes. 

My foundation brush and my Real Techniques Expert Face Brush required a little more care as they both had liquid makeup throughout the bristles, meaning I had to repeat steps a few times.

My Beauty Blender comes with its own cleaner but to be perfectly honest I don't really like the way it smells so I usually just end up running it through some water with baby shampoo and rinsing it until the water runs clear

Finally, once all of the brushes are done I give them a good rinse making sure all the makeup is off and squeeze out any excess water. Then I grab a towel, roll up one end, place it on a table (or my bed), then prop all of my brushes up against the rolled up end so that the bristles are facing down onto the towel. 

This allows the brushes to dry without getting water down into the glued part that holds the bristles and handle together ensuring that your brushes will last longer.

No, that's not some sort of pink latte that's actually the dirty brush water after everything was done. I think that means I might wear too much pink blush. haha

I hope you all enjoyed this look into my clean brush routine. I'm all set to start this week off fully prepared...I'm about to get started on those papers too, I promise!

Leave a comment below letting me know if you found any of this helpful and also if you have any tips or tricks of your own.

until next time, darlings.

xo

Merisa

Follow Friday

Hey guys! 

So apparently I decided to take a little blogging break over Spring Break this year, even though I had every intention to do the opposite. But oh well, I'm here now and I thought since I'm away I would do a quick Follow Friday post. 

However, this is gonna be a little different from my previous Follow Friday posts...this one's just going to be a shameless plug! :) 

Because, really, if you like what we've got going on here at Monogrammed Magnolias then I would like to think that you'd love my other social media outlets so let's get to it!

Twitter!

You can follow me, @angelmerisa23 by clicking this link ---> Follow Me!

I love Twitter and think it's a great way to keep up to date on everything from Awards Season, March Madness, or what the girl in front of you in Stats class is really thinking. Plus, Twitter has turned into my main news source nowadays. That's how I found out that my childhood favorite band's lead singer had a baby...and made a video about it...which you should so totally watch below! 

(I know that's incredibly random but it's gone crazy viral and I wanted to include it, 

plus it's is seriously the cutest thing ever!)

Instagram!

Hi, my name's @angelmerisa23 and I'm addicted to Instagram. 

I try not to be a typical white girl but sometimes you've just gotta post a lunch time pic...plus, I'm obsessed with photo editing so if your Starbucks pic features some cool filter or frame it'll probably get a like from me no matter what. 

Pinterest!

I know I throw this phrase around a lot but I am...OBSESSED with Pinterest! Like seriously, it's kinda crazy...I've got over 50 boards and 7K+ pins...that means you should definitely follow me!

SIDE NOTE: I started this post then the Kansas State/UK game came on and it's no longer Friday but I am determined to get this post together...perseverance is the motto! By the way, we're winning! Go CATS!

Tumblr!

Tumblr is like my guilty pleasure...which is probably what every Tumblr user says but it's also like my baby blog and where I go to complain to the internet without fear of my grandma seeing it...thanks, Facebook.

 follow me at angelintheoutfield.tumblr.com

Spotify!

This is a crazy one because honestly I don't think a lot of people know about Spotify but I've had it for like years now and it's like the best of both worlds between Pandora and iTunes...a music library with literally every type of music ever! I'm not so sure how the whole music sharing stuff goes with Spotify but they recently made it to where you can download their app to your phone (I've been using the desktop version until now) and listen to playlists on the go. You can check out my playlists that range from my obsession with anything British to music for my Southern Belle soul! 

to check out my Spotify playlists click THIS LINK!

 Thanks so much guys I hope you've enjoyed this peek into my social media world, feel free to follow me on any of the sites mentioned! Thanks!

until next time, darlings

xo

Merisa