Joy - Blog

Friday, November 26, 2010

So, after Thanksgiving, the one thing I notice I have the most leftover is the Cranberry Sauce. This morning I noticed I had a big jar of Greek Yogurt in the fridge and I decided to forgo my usual honey to sweeten and went with the cranberry sauce from yesterdays dinner. YUMMY!

I love these little cards on Etsy! Julia's Poppies is a cute little shop with great stationary, little accessories and more. Visit JuliasPoppies.com for everything, or click on the picture to go straight to Etsy and order these adorable little Typewriter note cards!

Lovetta Conto is just 17. She is a refugee from Liberia with a dream in her heart that the people at STRONGHEART FELLOWSHIP helped her bring to life. Here is her jewelry that she designed with a very specific purpose in mind...

"The history of each necklace begins in Liberia. In the part of Liberia where I am from, many thousands of bullets were fired during the war. Even though the war ended in 2003, the spent shell casings can still be found, scattered across the land in places.

Handcrafted, the leaf pendant is made from melted bullet shells, the part that is left over after the bullet is fired. The bead is the actual bottom of the bullet shell.

I chose the word “life” to be inscribed into the leaf to remind myself that new life can begin after hardship. It is even possible for new life to arise from something as terrible as war.

Men and women can both wear the bullet and leaf. It’s strong – I hope they remind each person who wears them that no matter what they’ve been through, they can rise."

Visit AKAWELLE to buy one of these unique and amazing pieces.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

HAIR!

Okay, I've been getting lots of messages about people wanting tips for curly hair! As I've been tweeting and trying to figure out the best way to go about sharing this info, I realized it's a bigger task than I originally thought. You see, when I'm home on my time off I pretty much wear my hair one of two ways: Curly & Up or Curly & down. The rest of the time I have a team of professionals working for an hour or more every morning, blowing, straightening, recurling, teasing and shaping my hair. Most of the hairstyles you guys twit pic'd actually took a really long time and a certain amount of expertise to accomplish!
So, I thought I'd better start with the basics... (insert cheesy photos of me here...)

My hair is naturally thick and curly/wavy. I am prone to frizz and, if it's humid outside, my hair won't hold a curl from an iron to save it's life. The best thing to do on humid or damp days is to leave it with the natural curl, put it up, or straighten the HELL out if with a really hot flat iron and a heavy anti-humectant product (like AVEDA's Anti-Humectant Balm).

To really get it flat, section your hair off, start with the lower half and gradually move up to the top layer. Take small sections and iron two or three times, using just slightly more product tha

n you think you need because thick hair soaks up product. When you get to the crown, take the top section and iron it all forward so when you flip it back there is some volume at the top. Front and Center should never be split, just iron it all together like a salute and it will fall into place. Less product on top.

For natural curly hair (top left), my best bet is always to wash it before bed and apply a liberal amount of volumizer (Phytodefrisant is my favorite). Then, I flip my head over, add some curl balm (Frederick Fekkai is good - the pink one) starting at the ends and under my neck, and go to sleep. When I wake up my curls usually have dried into a good place. If there are a few wonky ones, I'll just wet them and reshape, or just give them a light once over with a medium barrel curling iron.

A few other must haves in my hair cabinet are Kerastase Thick Conditioner Masquintense, and BedHead's Headrush shine spray.

Helpful?