My Review of R&B

Originally submitted at LUSH USA

While we love listening to rhythm and blues, R&B actually refers to 'revive and balance'. A supreme hair softener perfect for dry, brittle or split ends, R&B was created to keep coarse hair in check with deeply moisturizing olive, avocado and coconut oils. Smooth some through dry ha...

R&B

deliciousness for your hair

By Rachel from Maryland on 8/28/2012

 

5out of 5

When you survey your stash, you label this product: Must-Have

Pros: Smell, Frizz control, Moisturizing

I bought this because I wanted a leave-in conditioner. I didn't care much for the scent when I first came in but bought it because when the girl put it in my hair it looked AMAZING. Ever since then. I'm completely addicted to it! I've been told my hair smells like heaven and the scent lingers for much longer than just my regular shampoo and conditioner! Also, for those days when it's really humid and your hairs gone wild, it's perfect to run through your tresses with your fingertips and smooth all the frizz! Pretty much my favorite product ever!

love this stuff!

(legalese)

Updating the etsy shop

Woohoo!

I  love the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do something. Especially something productive.  I'm not knocking those little victories like finishing a load of laundry, doing the dishes, taking the dog for a walk, cleaning out junk email. In fact, I think those can be some of the most cathartic events.

I'm having a mini victory in terms of my etsy shop! It has been a slow, procrastinated process mainly due to my lack of a nice camera for pictures, working during all the good daylight hours and the excuses that I make, like the first 2 ones I just made.  But since Kim and I are interested in doing this as a joint venture, we collaborated for one of our typical cook and be crafty nights. Where Kim spends the night or I go to her house and spend the night, we collaborate on creativity and brainstorm brilliant, crafty ideas for the shop.  This usually involves me cooking or baking a lot as well. So there's a lot of laughing, epiphanies, planning and eating involved.

We ended up only taking pictures of eachother and a few of the milk glass vases I have for sale, which you can see here. But I'm still trying to decide if I want to paint/glaze them a pretty teal color as an alternative to the standard milk glass you see everywhere. Either option is  gorgeous as a standalone decoration or for a pretty dinner event.  With all the house-shopping we've been doing lately I am SUPER excited to finally have a place to put all of my thrifted treasures! Anyway, here are some photos from our day.

Kim flipping through a fashion magazine to gather some inspiration on a cluttered counter while cupcakes are being baked



making some lemon-mint ice cubes and for some reason a picture of my butt. I like those pants, so who cares.

frosting the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes. Looks like we have a cupcake bandit in our midst!

setting up a backdrop for the milk glasses that we ended up not using.

my treasured box of milk glass and new plates ready for their big moment. Not selling those plates, too in love.

I was also considering selling these beautiful juice glasses but could not bring myself to do it. I need to use them a few times for a brunch before I can part with them.

Finally snapped some pictures before the clouds rolled in and storms began. 

 It was also getting late in the day and Kim and I agreed that next time we would try to get out early and take some good fashion photos for the clothes and accesories I'll be adding to etsy and blogging about soon. Can't wait for more productive days like this! Hopefully next time I'll be able to get even more done!

Cupcakes

I've been baking since I don't know when.  Typically I bake for family and friends during birthdays or other special occasions. It wasn't until the past year that people started asking me to make them for them and telling me that they would pay me to bake them.

What?

You mean you will give me money, to do something I love and share with the world? Amazing!

Well I was thrilled with the idea of this and after several commissioned cupcakes and birthday cakes I came to the realization that I do love to bake and I love to share my baking with the world.

The problem with baking is that, no matter how delicious whatever it is that I bake is, 3 people can only consume so many baked goods.

Since I was rear-ended last month and my car is still in the body shop, I decided to make some of my famous Strawberry cream cheese cupcakes for the guys at the shop so they take extra good care of my baby ; )

My little brochacho, Adam, is not as big of a fan of the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes as everyone else. I think it has something to do with how he pieces apart the cupcakes starting from the top, licking off all the frosting and then munching on the cupcake itself. I decided to make his own special batch of simple vanilla cupcakes, topped with whipped cream and a strawberry. I think the picture describes how much he liked them!

Adams strawberry whipped cream cupcake on one of my favorite thrifted plate sets!

I got these plates for $1 each at Goodwill, all 8 of them! Aren't they the perfect cupcake serving tray?

Here are the strawberry cream cheese cupcakes. The problem with giving/selling them now is that my favorite cupcake box manufacturer is on a temporary hiatus. I am dying for them to come back so I can keep spreading the cupcake love!

These babies are filled with cream cheese and strawberry jam. For sure my most popular cupcakes to date!

I have a dream of one day combining all of my favorite things in the world into a little brick and mortar store.

It took me a while to come to this dream, for years and years I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. It sort of came upon me accidentally as my interests in things started becoming passions.

Of course dreams take time, motivatio, sweat, blood and tears which I am willing to shed to pursue my passion. But one day I do hope that I can fulfill that dream. That dream, of course, being to have a little brick and mortar cupcake/vintage/handmade shop. Where I sell cupcakes on beautiful, vintage and artsy little plates. Walls of shelves filled with vintage pyrex and Catherineholm bowls and bakeware. I'd like a little corner of vintage clothes, accesories and handmade trinkets/pillows/artwork all the while beautiful music wafts through the air.

Sounds pretty dreamy, right?

I do get a little ok, a lot excited sometimes, and this starts that bubbling up inside of me that I just cannot contain! It makes me giddy with excitement just daydreaming about it until I can finally put it into fruition.

In the meantime I'll start with my modest online cupcake-facebook page, making local deliveries and my humble little etsy shop with only a few items in it. But one day, I hope to turn it all into my full time career, spreading the joy of all the things I love to everyone else in the best way I know possible.

Maybe Meatwad can even make a cameo as a little shop bunny. ; )

Oh Happy Day

Today was a feel good day.

It's been quite a while since I've had one of those. (on a week day at least)

I took off work so Shaun and I could go house hunting. The thing is, we still don't know where we want to end up. Him working in Springfield and me working in Pasadena has taken enough of a toll on our 4 year relationship so it's time to figure out a place we can live together finally. We decided to check out Woodbridge today since it would be 15 minutes away from where he works in Springfield and where his sister and her fiance are. Also, there's a Savers thrift shop there that I had never been to before, so I figured it would be a great way for me to sneak in some thrifting!

It was definitely the perfect day to be out and about, beautiful, sunny, except 100 degrees. Yikes!
We began by stopping by Historic Occoquan. I personally love this little place on the water. Wonderful antique stores, cute little coffee shops and bakeries.

We didn't do much since we were both starving and wanted to get somthing quick and informal.  Although we drove through the street again and I noticed this funny little shop with the mermaids in the window.

On the way out however, I did insist we stop at this adorable little bakery called Moms Apple Pie.

It's the first thing you see on the right when you pull onto the road heading towards the water.  I figured I definitely could not miss going in here, the giant gingerbread men, pies and strawberries were calling to me!

They had an old screen door and a big porch with church pews to sit and eat gelato. They also had this cool old stove sitting on the porch for some reason. If it weren't rusted through it would be an amazing little find.

they also had fresh farm-grown produce and old-style sodas and candy as well as a plethora of jam and jellies.

They had quite a delicious assortment of pies

I took home a raspberry crumble pie and Shaun chose the traditional apple pie. I also took home a giant heart raspberry linzer cookie and a chocolate macaroon.

They had this adorable vintage Coca Cola cooler being used as a table for the buckets of flowers they had on sale.

After we left Moms with our goodies, we headed off to Cracker Barrel for lunch.  I always forget how much I adore Cracker Barrel with it's old country store theme and rocking chairs lined up in a row on the porch until I'm back there.

It really does feel like you are in an old country restaurant, even the servers seem like sweet southern bells.

When we left Cracker Barrel I decided that since we were checking out Woodbridge anyways, we might as well stop at Savers (a chain thrift store) since it's the first one to open up nearby. I wanted to know what every blogger/instagrammer kept raving about where they got all their vintage treasures.

Since I'm an avid vintage Pyrex collector, I needed to see for myself what sort of deal I could get that would maybe be a bit better than an antique store. The only time I've come across good vintage Pyrex for cheap was when my favorite little thrift store had just opened a 2nd location and they were unloading all their treasures.  I took home a box that day!

Savers was not as fantastic as I imagined. Their housewares section was surprisingly small, the only 2 Pyrex pieces they had were 2 coffee cups with saucers and their prices rivaled/went over antique store prices.  I decided to check back in the curtain section for any good fabric to use for crafts and alas the prices were still that of an antique store with the quality and quantity of a thrift store.

I sadly put my cart back and we continued on our house-hunting trip.

We drove around Woodbridge for a while searching through some brand spankin new communities but Shaun and I both agreed that there was a very impersonal feel to these places. No trees, houses backed up to another houses backyard and the landscaping left much to the imagination.

After driving through the 3rd neighborhood, I decided not to trust Realtor.com and to leave it up to Google maps to help us discover a good place.  I noticed there was a golf course with what seemed like a community backing up to it right down the street. (Shauns dream is to live in a home backed up to a golf course so he can tee up whenever he likes)

Upon arriving in the neighborhood it appeared the community was just like the past few we had encountered. New development, impersonal and cold.

I told him to drive a little bit further back towards the golf course and see if there were some older houses farther off the road.

We ended up driving through the entire housing development and the road kept going even when the houses stopped.  As we drove through the roads began to wind back into the forest with raggedy signs for "Tim's River Shore"  every now and then.  Looking at google maps I realized that if we drove only a couple more miles we'd hit water. Hoping there were houses there, we pushed farther through the woods.

After a bit we came to a railroad crossing and the lights started flashing and the bars went down. A train zoomed past us. The road had trailed off and turned into a gravel path at this point.  I urged Shaun to press on just a little bit further.

There was a small archway of trees and on the otherside you could see the water.

We pulled into a little cove with a little sandy beach and I snapped an instagram picture.

I could've stayed here on this beach forever, just watching the boats and listening to the waves lap at the shore. Of course Shaun didn't bring his flip flops and keep hinting towards the "no trespassing" sign so I got back in the car.

As we were leaving, we could see all the cars parked across the railroad tracks against the woods. Interested in what they were all doing there we drove along the dirt and gravel shoudler of the train tracks and arrive at Tim's River Shore.

On this hot 90+ degree day the outside smelled a bit like trash and seafood from the nearby dumpsters, but the view and the tiki bar were beckoning me so I could not give up.

Upon walking in, the charm almost smacks you in the face (if charm would do that).  Red and white, nautical themed walls with lots of memorabilia and pictures of grinning, old bay covered customers.

Not to mention the tables that have been sealed with layers upon layers of customers at the tiki bar, on their boats, on the pier, in their bikinis, and a couple huskier men laughing and dancing. Generally overjoyed.

 These awesome floor paintings greeted you as you entered, led you to the bathroom and bid you farewell on the way out.

We got a seat inside since the temperature outside was just a bit too much to properly enjoy ones self. Although the views from out table were definitely not anything to complain about.

We ended up getting a half dozen crabs and some beer and enjoyed every single minute of it. From watching the regulars stroll in and take their favorite seats, chat with their waitresses and order "the usual"

Just sitting here, enjoying the delicious Maryland crabs, drowning in Old Bay and dipped in vinegar (the only way to eat them IMO!) was the perfect way to end a perfect day.