Fall 2014 Candle Loves ♥

Bath & Body Works fall preview is here! Since I find candles to be one of the most soothing things in the world, I couldn't help but do a little online window shopping. Now I'm being good and not buying them ahead of time like I really really realllyyyy want to. For one, they don't have the 2 for $22 deal on these yet and I also have some summer candles to burn before September.

Now the good news is that I actually need some fall candles this year! I believe I burned most if not all of my fall candles last year, so I have absolutely none to burn this season. That means that I can splurge a bit on fall candles and still justify my crazy expensive candle purchases. But that's just how much I love burning candles, especially in the fall. Candles to me are a fall-winter thing so I go through literally a candle every 2-3 weeks from September-February. In fact, I barely burn candles in the spring and summer because I don't really like floral/fruity candle scents and also because I don't feel the need to be cozy in the summer time. I pretty much burn through all fall-winter candles I purchase, so I always think it's a good investment especially if it makes me happy :) Plus, I love to try new candle scents and always LOVE fall and winter scents (mmm cinnamon!). And believe me, this fall will be so crazy busy I'm going to be burning candles like crazy while studying for medicine shelf exams. 

BBW has a lot of amazing collections out this fall, but there are a select few candles that caught my eye and that I will most likely purchase this fall. Probably September since they tend to have the 2 for $22 deal around late August/early September, which is the start of fall in my book. I really hope they don't release more scent collections because I already have my eye on five candles I will most likely purchase and don't need more to add to the temptation. Here's the five I narrowed it down to (...for now):

By far, I'm most excited for Pumpkin Cupcake and Pumpkin Sugared Doughnut. OH MY GOSH. I love bakery-scented candles, especially on days where I'm feeling like doing some housekeeping, cleaning, organizing, or baking. I love cupcakes and doughnuts, so these two candles are perfect. Plus, they're raved about like crazy and I missed out on Cinnamon Sugared Doughnut last year, so I'm excited to finally get my hands on these sweet candles this year. 

As popular as Leaves is, I've never even smelled it in the store. However, literally every review I've read has raved about this candle like crazy, I don't think I've seen one negative review to date. Therefore, I thought I'd cave in and give this candle a shot. I hear it's fall in a candle, which sounds pretty promising. I love fall, this candle looks/smells/sounds like fall, so it should be a winner. 

Yankee Candle released a candle called Vanilla Chai last year, so this one caught my eye while I was browsing the BBW site. I went through a large tumbler of the YC Vanilla Chai in about a month. Yes, that's how much I loved that scent. I'm hoping this one smells similar to the YC version. It's such a unique, but perfect scent for the fall time! Warm, cozy chai with cinnamon...ahhh reminds me of a fall afternoon at Starbucks. I love Starbucks in the fall, so no wonder I love this scent so much.

Lastly, I've always really wanted to try Marshmallow Fireside. Not gonna lie, mainly because of the name. I hear it's a sweet, but smoky scent and another great fall candle scent. I think this candle would be great for wintertime too, but I'm pretty sure this is released as a fall scent only if I'm not mistaken. I'm always up for trying new scents and this one would be a great one to cross off my list this fall!

Bath & Body Works Wallflowers

So I've gotten some new Wallflowers to add to my lil' scent collection and thought I'd sort them out by season. I love the BBW Wallflowers! They make so many pretty plugs, have a ton of great scents (you are sure to find one to fit any season or mood), and they often are on sale! The only problem is that some of them have a really strong throw and others have a really weak throw. In fact, my very first Wallflower (Cinnamon Frosting) was so strong that we had to take the scent plug out every morning so that we wouldn't have a headache! I haven't found such a strong Wallflower since, but I like me some Wallflowers that have a decent throw. Most of them last about 1 month, sometimes more. Even if there's alittle bit of fragrance left, I usually end up throwing it away and changing the scent every month.

Here is this year's Wallflower collection, sorted by month and season I plan on using them :) I absolutely CANNOT wait to use some of my fall and winter scents. I love love love warm, cozy winter/fall scents and even burn some of my Christmas candles during the summer months. Okay enough rambling. Here they are!

June -- Garden Strawberry

July -- Aloha Waikiki

August -- Sugared Lemons

September -- Cider Lane

October -- Marshmallow Fireside

November -- Frosted Gingerbread

December -- Evergreen

Weekend Decor & Monday Night Baking

Happy Tuesday! So, despite doing barely any work the past few days, I have managed to get a few "projects" done, which in retrospect have actually helped my mental health since I feel a lot more relaxed, calm, and fulfilled now. 

First off, I FINALLY put up Christmas lights on my headboard like I have been meaning to do for like three months now. I just found a box of white lights from Christmas and decided to loop them around my headboard. Note: the picture does not do these lights justice at all!

They look a little bit gnarly as they are right now, so I may re-arrange them around the posts or straighten them out a bit, but I really like how these are looking so far! My bed is right in the center of my room, and I would definitely say that it's "the focal piece" of my room. The camera didn't capture just how beautiful these look when my lights are off, and they would make a great reading light or a soft light for when I'm trying to relax a bit before bedtime. Super excited I finally put these up! I may try to find some heart-shaped lights or colored lights this summer to maybe jazz things up a little bit, but for now, these plain white lights are definitely staying.

Next, I did some cooking this weekend (my weekly Sunday night baking was a Monday night baking this week). Let me just start off by saying that I have found my new pasta sauce love. Ohhhhhhh my, I picked up the Classico Seasonal Selections Creamy Spinach & Parmesan pasta sauce over the weekend from Walmart and I am IN LOVE.

It tastes so fricken amazing, it's not loaded with too much fat, and it doesn't have a crazy high amount of salt. That being said, it isn't the healthiest pasta sauce in the world, but for how it tastes, it's not bad either. I've grown tired of my monotonous regular marinara sauce and thought this would help jazz up my dinners this week while keeping things somewhat healthy. It's so creamy and delicious, but what I love is the spices in this sauce. It has a bunch of Italian spices I don't even dare try guessing, but they really hit the nail on the head with not going overboard like a lot of other pasta sauces do. This is definitely my new favorite pasta sauce brand. In fact, I went out the next day after using this to purchase another Classico Sauce. My grocery store didn't have this sauce, so I ended up getting the Classico Vodka Sauce, which I'm sure tastes just as amazing.

As for what I made with this sauce....ehh that was kind of boring. I basically tossed some red onions, chicken, and whole wheat penne into the sauce and topped it off with mozzerella cheese. Nothing too fancy, but the pasta sauce was definitely the star of the dish.

As far as the nutritional value of this dish, each serving has roughly 430 calories, 13g total fat, 4g saturated fat, 49g carbs, 29g protein, 430mg sodium and a pot of this dish makes 7 servings and takes roughly 30-45 mins to make (boiling the pasta and all). Not bad at all considering this dish tastes like heaven! A little more carb-heavy and fat-heavy than I would like, but it's much better than eating a plain-jane pasta&marinara sauce dish, feeling discontent, and trekking up to the hospital cafeteria to get a burger and fries. So yeah, this dish may just become a dinner staple. And even my mom liked it, who usually hates Italian food! Big kudos right there.

My Favorite Spring Beauty, Fashion, Health Links!

So April is almost here and time is literally flyingggg. I'm not sure what the official date of the beginning of spring is, but it sure feels like spring is coming to Pittsburgh really soon! And I'm actually really really excited. I'm usually not one of the ones obsessed with springtime (it's actually been one of my least favorite seasons in the past), but I'm really excited this year because the winter was quite long and terrible here this year. It's nice to finally see some sunshine and a bit of greenery come back. Plus, with the hum dum glums that go along with Step 1 studying, it's nice to think that a new, bright, cheerful season is coming up soon!

So here I've compiled a series of YouTube videos from my favorite beauty gurus that really get me in the mood for springtime and is full of really useful tips for looking and feeling your best this season. I haven't really organized them in anyway. The general ones are at the beginning, followed by beauty hauls, makeup tutorials, outfit ideas, and health/fitness tips in that order. Without a doubt, these are my go-to videos for when I'm feeling a little glum or uninspired and these manage to turn my mood around instantaneously. Plus, it's nice to have a spot where I have my video/inspiration collections, kinda like a video Pinterest? I don't know. I'm slightly weird if you can't tell :)

But anyway, here are the videos in the playlist. Of course, I'm probably going to add to this playlist as more spring-related videos are posted, but here they are for now:

General/Randoms

Morning Routine - StilaBabe09

I ♥ Spring Tag - MissGlamorazzi

Beauty

Spring Haul - MissGlamorazzi

Spring Haul - Kellylovesbeauty

Natural Makeup Tutorial - MakeupByTiffanyD

Spring Makeup, Hair, Outfit - MissGlamorazzi

Natural & Glowy Makeup Tutorial - MakeupByTiffanyD

Fashion

Spring Clothing Haul - Casey Holmes

Spring Outfit Ideas & No-Heat Curls - Bethany Mota

Spring LookBook - Tanya Burr

Spring Hair, Makeup, Outfits - Bethany Mota

Spring Outfits - Bethany Mota

Spring Haul & Styles - MakeupByTiffanyD

Spring Floral Outfits - Bethany Mota

Health/Fitness

Starting a Healthy Life - Breelovesbeauty

Tight Tummy - Breelovesbeauty

Bikini Body Ready Tips - StilaBabe09

Boosting Happiness - Breelovesbeauty

Breakfast Ideas - Breelovesbeauty

I <3 Spring Tag - Miss Glamorazzi
Spring Outfit Ideas - Miss Glamorazzi
Get Ready With Me -- Miss Glamorazzi
Soft Lilac Eye Makeup -Amarixe
Spring Fashion Tips - Tiffany D
Fresh Spring Makeup - Tiffany D
Spring Green Makeup Tutorial - Tiffany D

Springtime Decor!

Woo spring is finally almost around the corner! I took this morning off to sleep in, clean my room, catch up on some organization, and put out my springtime decor! I'm definitely glad I did so, because I feel so much more relaxed now and ready to tackle another rough week of school! There's just something about cleaning and organizing that refreshes my brain. I love coming home to a clean, organized room and get more studying done when my room is tidy. 

I also love spring because of all the colors. While fall and winter are usually full of darker, toned down colors, spring and summer are so vibrant and I have an excuse to brighten up my room even more! I will admit, I have a hard time decorating my room for fall and winter because everything is so bright and pink, but it makes it really easy to decorate for spring/summer. 

I put out some new items I picked up from JoAnn fabrics over the past few weeks and re-organized some stuff on my desk and especially my dresser. I definitely love the changes and compliment my decor even more. First thing I'm most excited about is my new pitcher with daisies, lavender, and bright yellow stems. I found the pitcher on sale (from the Valentine's Day clearance section) for only like $5 I believe. I've wanted a decor pitcher for SO long now and was super happy that I was able to finally get one! It definitely looks very polished and spring-appropriate. I filled it with hot pink daisies and other little stems I found. It looks like spring in a little can! Love love love. Definitely brightens my room up a lot and cheers it up (if that makes any sense). I also want to try growing my own plants this year so we'll see how that goes. Maybe a little later this month or in April.

Next, I moved my little Hello Kitty picture holder from my dresser over to my desk. I had it picture-less for a really long time, but I decided to put some pictures up. I put up one from my trip to Paris a couple summers ago, a picture of me and one of my best friends from high school, and a picture of our trip from NYC. I'm going to replace the middle one with a picture from my birthday dinner last year, but I have to get it developed first. Again, the colors in the base are so bright and pretty, I love it. And I love that whenever I glance up, I see pictures of some of my favorite people and favorite moments of life. Oh! And I also got a little ceramic bunny from JoAnn. Thought it added a little kick of Easter :)

Next, my dresser. I totally re-organized it. It doesn't look like it, but I shifted nearly everything around. For one, I put the pitcher of flowers on the opposite side, so they're not getting crowded and forgotten in the corner. Next, I condensed my makeup brushes to fit into my "Macchu Pichu" cup my friend got me a while back. And then my jewelry lady is in the other corner where my flowers used to be. I'm really liking this change because now all my jewelry is together and my flowers are more viewable than they were before. And my little bottles of daily-use products (deodorant, body spray, eye cream) are front and center. I might get a little dish to hold those in the future, but for now I think they look fine as they are.

Not much changed on this side, except I removed the hearts on my closet door and replaced them with some random butterfly, flowers, and hearts stickers I found at JoAnn. They look lame from far back, but they look nice up front. Not sure if I'll continue to do that for the next season though, I might revert back to putting magazine cutouts there instead since they look better in my opinion. But hey look, my floors clean!




Oh and lastly, I picked up a bunch of sweatpants from Walmart! Yeah not the chicest place to shop, but they had sweatpants on sale for $3 each....hard to resist. I have one pair I bought last year and oh my gosh they are SO comfortable! Definitely had to pick up a few more for this next brutal month of studying. Gonna be so comfy in the library! :) Oh and the pink sweatshirt on the right was also only $3 and looked really comfortable. So I snagged it for days I felt a little lazy and wanted a cozy bright sweater.

So that's about it. I did change some stuff around in my living room (added yellow daisies to replace the Christmas poinsettias that were initially there), but nothing that exciting. I'm definitely loving the new re-organization and decor and it's just all so happy and pink! :) Probably will be keeping most of these up all the way through summer, so probably wont' be decorating as much these next few months until fall :)

Valentine's Decorations! ♥

Wooo! I finally put up my Valentine's decorations! And by Valentine's, I really mean all of February and probably my new default decorations haha. I absolutely love anything pink and heart-patterned, so it's no real surprise that my favorite type of decorations are V-day decorations. In fact, I had to really stop myself from buying every single adorable decoration (which was literally every other item I saw) in the store. But overall I'd say I did a pretty good job restricting myself to only buying a few things. My room is quite big and overall, it's very very pink so any decorations or seasonal changes in colors unfortunately get drowned out quite easily. But, I guess the fact that nearly everything I own is pink, it gels well with the Vday theme going on. 

I chose a few key parts of my room to decorate, since these decorations will only last about a month. I chose to make an adorable heart pick bouquet, decorate my closet door with hearts, and found a pretty heart-shaped pillow. 

Guess I'll start with the first thing you see when you walk into my room. I found this cute little plushy heart pillow at the Dollar Tree and realized how perfect it would go with my room decor. I initially had it on my door handle, but I think by my bed adds a nice little zing. 

Next up, my heart bouquet. I found some heart-shaped picks at Walmart for $1 per four pack. I bought two packs and then found a vase at the Dollar Tree. I initially was going to use this vase for my eye makeup brushes, but when the picks didn't really fit in the mug I wanted to put them in, I realized that the vase would be much better suited for the picks. I love love love the way this looks! I think this would make a great decor piece in our common room or kitchen once the Vday season is over. I usually put seasonal picks at the corner of my desk, so they most likely won't stay in my room past February. So gorgeous though, and only $3!!! And of course, my favorite Christmas Cookie candle is let right next to it, making it look that much more gorgeous :) 

I found these glittery hearts at the Dollar Tree and although they're meant to be table scatter, I thought they would look amazing on my closet door, which happens to be one of the focal points of my room. I spent about an hour trying to figure out the best way to organize these on my door, but kind of struggled. I wish I had another pack of these! I think making them look like falling heart strings looks quite flattering. I wish I had another pack, possibly with smaller hearts, to fill into the spaces. That would look absolutely gorgeous! I might toy around with the arrangement a little more, but so far I think I kinda like way the best. 

And lastly, these aren't decorations, but these is the fragrance bulb and shower gel I have planned on using this month. For my common room/kitchen fragrance, I chose Winter Candy Apple because it is such a sweet, candy-like smell that is really nice for the season I think. It melts away the winter blues and I don't know...something about the smell just seems perfect for Vday. As for my shower gel, I really think the Sandalwood Rose is a really nice scent for the romantic season and it's perfect because I currently feel quite stressed out with all the Step 1 stuff and this scent should be nice and calming in the shower.

So that's it! My decorations for now up until mid-March most likely. I'm really excited because I got a 20% off coupon from Jo-Ann Fabrics that expires in early March, so it's gonna be great for a nice spring-time decor haul. I'm probably not going to get anything too exciting, maybe just a few new picks for my vase, a spring-themed fleece blanket, plastic flowers, etc. Maybe even some fresh flowers for the new season. Also, trying to get some more crafts done, like my long overdue heart poster and photo album. Definitely next on my to-do list!

Spring Crafts

Over the past few months, I've gotten into quite a crafty mood. I've been so inspired by all the DIY project posts on Pinterest and Youtube that I went out and bought supplies to do most of these projects...only to not have time at during the Christmas season to do them. Hence, this post! Hopefully I can finish some of these projects this spring since a lot of them are quite simple and should only take a few hours.

1. Spring Inspiration Binder

This is probably the easiest project of them all. I've cut out a lot of magazine pictures and articles from my spring magazines from the past few years and don't want them just sitting out loosely on my desk. So I thought it would be super cute to hole punch them and stick them in a binder and decorate the outside of it with some spring flowers or quotes. Easy access for when I need some inspiration or have some free time to peruse for new spring fashion or beauty or fitness ideas! 

2. Photo Album

Another super easy craft. I've bought a photo album, all I have to do is label the photos on the back with a brief description and then place them in order into the photo album. Super cute way to reminisce if I'm feeling low or alone...good reminder that I'm not alone and that I have caring and genuine friends all around me :) 

3. Sticky Felt Hearts 

I found these super cute glittery red and pink hearts at the Dollar Store the other day and thought they would be soooo adorable on my closet door. Right now I have some magazine cutouts on my closet door, but I think these would look a lot more decorative! Just gotta stick some double sided sticky tape on the back and stamp them along my closet door, and maybe even my room door :) 

4.  Motivation Wall

I thought this was SUCH a cute idea and a great way to inspire myself to workout or eat healthy when my motivation is running a little low (which happens quitteeee frequently). I have a lot of magazines I can clip inspiring photos from and I think I have a bulletin board, so this is a definite weekend project that I can get done in a few hours :) just gotta find some free wall space now!

5. Rhinestone Wrap Bracelets

Haven't made jewelry in a while and these are sooo pretty for the spring season! They look a little complicated to make, but it would still be fun to try and make these since the materials are so cheap.

6. Heart Shaped Photo Collage

Another super adorable craft that would look great on my wall and be a great inspiration for when I'm feeling sad or lonely. 

7. Couch Throw Pillows

And finally my last craft! I've been meaning to do this one for like literally 4 months now, it's bad. I wanted to make some throw pillows for my couch. I have the material and everything, I just need to get my butt into gear and make them. I wanted to make rhinestone snowflake pillows for the winter, but I may just convert them into a springtime project. I'm really really excited but the only issue is that it's going to take a lotttt of time which may be hard to find in these next few months :(