Category: How To

How To 10X Your Productivity With This Simple Tool // Using A Red Line Graph

Learn how to increase your business production with this one simple tool.

Quick Weekend Makeup Look

weekend makeup look, drugstore makeup look

Alright Mommas, I think it’s time to update our weekend makeup look for those lazy days that we still need to look put together.

Now that the temperatures are hot, hot, hot and the humidity is almost suffocating, it’s time to get a look that lasts all day and doesn’t take ages to apply. Because, let’s be honest with one another – we enjoy looking put together.  We don’t want to scare the neighborhood kids with our bare face even if we still want to leave the house in our favorite pair of sweat pants and a ball cap to cover the three day old hair.  It’s the truth.

Give me a little bit of foundation, highlighter, brow gel and mascara – that’s all I need to feel like a million bucks in my husband’s old t-shirt and my Croc sandals (yes, I own a pair of croc sandals and love them!).

So I think it’s about time we find some summer-proof makeup that doesn’t cost a fortune and lasts throughout it all.

In today’s video I’m sharing my weekend makeup look that takes less than 10 minutes to apply, has full SPF coverage and is super affordable.  You can watch this makeup look online or down below:

Details for this simple summer makeup look:

Moisturizer with SPF – Garnier SkinActive Mouisturizer with SPF 15

Foundation – Covergirl Clean, 110 Classic Ivory

Concealer – Maybelline Fit Me Concealer, 15 Fair

Highlighter – Wet N Wild MegaGlo, Hello Halo Liquid Highlighter, Halographic

Bronzer – Wet N Wild MegaGlo Makeup Stick, Oaks On You

Eyeliner – e.l.f. Waterpoof Eyelinter Pen, Black

Brow Gel – Maybelline New York Tattoo Studio Waterproof Brow Gel, Deep Brown

Mascara – Wet N Wild MegaVolume, Very Black

Blush – Covergirl Cheekers, Brick Rose

Setting Spray – Wet N Wild Photo Focus Natural Finish, Seal the Deal

Beauty Blender

Foundation Brush – Morphe

Bronzer Blush – Mac 130 Synthetic (I purchased this brush back in college, so close to 10 years ago and I’m still using it daily!)

Blush Brush – Morphe

Most of the makeup can be purchased from Walmart, Morphe or Walgreens.

During the cooler months, I do my makeup a little bit differently, but one things is for sure! I don’t want to spend forever in the bathroom getting ready.  So don’t forget to check out my makeup look for busy moms!

Simple Father’s Day Gift [You’re Reel-y Awesome]

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Alright, Father’s Day is right around the corner and I would be lying to you if I said I was ready.

Honestly, I forgot about Father’s Day.  I know, I know.  It’s sooo bad!

J is such an amazing Dad and Dent loves being with him so much.  We get home for the day and most of the time Dad has to be the one to get him out of the car (I guess Mom doesn’t do it right?).  He runs and hugs Dad every morning and on the days Dad leaves before us then we have to spend close to 5 minutes searching the house for him.  It’s cute.  They have such a great relationship.

So I can’t believe I forgot about Father’s Day.  Oops!  Now, you might be thinking, “Meredith it’s only Wednesday, you have days to pull something together!”  And I know, I know I do.  But this week is going to be pretty busy for us since I have to work late most nights.  I either needed to put something together now or it was never going to happen.

He’s always talking about taking Dent fishing for the first time.  So I thought this would be a good excuse to finally get what he needs to take our boy with him.  After scouring Pinterest for a few minutes I came across a really sweet idea that involves one of J’s favorite things to do…. Fishing!

I really don’t remember what I did before Pinterest.  Honestly, I was in college when Pinterest came out and you had to have an invite to join.  So I was unmarried, single, no children and lived by myself (well except for having Maggie).  There just wasn’t a need for fun birthday party ideas, last minute Christmas gift ideas, or any other holiday that seemed to slip through the crack.  Now that life is a little different and I’m always running around last minute for things, Pinterest has been a life saver, that’s for sure!

simple fathers day gift, simple father's day, father's day gift idea

Once I found a few ideas I then in true Meredith style took a few different ones and combine them into one gift. I was surprised it turned out as good as it did (I’m no Pinterest-perfect Mom).  I really think J is going to love it and if only he doesn’t check the blog before this weekend then I’m home free!

Here’s a super sweet, fun-filled fishing Father’s Day gift that took less than $25 to put together and only a few minutes.

Truthfully, I ordered a few things on amazon (because Amazon is amazing!) as I was creating the draft to this post (#momlife, right?) and then left them in my car until I could put it all together.  I even put it together in the parking lot so I wouldn’t ruin the surprise! I plan to leave it in the back of my car until Father’s Day this weekend.  I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed it stays put together and he doesn’t peek in my car between now and then.

simple fathers day gift, simple father's day, father's day gift idea

simple fathers day gift, simple father's day, father's day gift idea

Here’s what you need for this simple Father’s Day gift:

Lures – I got this 77 piece one for under $13 and it came with a mini tackle box
Gummy Worms
Fishing Pole for Dent – I found this Paw Patrol one for less than $10

Now, you can always add more to this simple Father’s Day gift.  You could go out and buy a cheap Styrofoam cooler, some of dad’s favorite beer and a few more fishing accessories.  My original plan was to create something sweet like the one off of Delia Creates and I wanted to combine it with one from Eighteen25, but let’s be honest… I’m putting together this Father’s Day gift last minute.  Plus, I want to keep our budget in mind.  J and I decided years ago we wouldn’t go crazy on gifts for one another.  We would keep them sweet, thoughtful and inexpensive.  For Mother’s Day J brought home donuts from my favorite place in town and that was it.  I loved the gesture and it was more than enough for me.  That’s why I decided to keep Father’s Day simple.

The lure set came with a bunch of pieces so I just left those in the original container to make sure I didn’t lose anything.  I then upped the sweet factor by creating a simple Father’s Day card in Canva.  Once it was created, I printed it off, glued it to some orange cardstock I had around and then stuck it in the bag with his gift.

What goes into planning 3 months in advance

how you can plan out the next three months in less than an hour

In one of the most popular posts on the blog, I shared how we plan for 3 months at a time – in one sitting.  It sounds like a lot, but in reality in a world full of chaos it’s something that calms the storm.  When life starts getting crazy and you’re not sure how you can fit in one more thing, that’s when having your biggest events all ready pre-scheduled.

Here’s the original post, but it caused a flurry of questions… how do you do this? what about planning out for this…Do you really schedule family dinners that far in advance?

So I wanted to go into more detail about exactly how we plan for three months out and how you can start incorporating this system in your life.  Because, trust me, this system is gold!  Here’s what you need – your calendar (either Google calendar, paper planner or one of those giant desk calendars), a pen or a pencil, a blank piece of paper, and laptop.

Look At Birthdays

This is always the first stop in planning.  Mark down any birthdays that you will need to know about – kids and spouse (duh!), parents, siblings, nephews, nieces, etc.  I like to mark down everyone, but I always make a special note of any birthday that will probably have a party and need a gift for.  Now of course, most people don’t plan out kids birthday parties and send out invitations three months in advanced (unless you work in a tax office and have a son born on April 15th, then at that point you plan their birthday party 2 months in advance).

However, you do know within reason when the party will probably be – either the weekend before or after the child’s actual birthday.  This isn’t a full-proof plan, but it does work for the majority of birthday parties I’ve been to.  Once you make a mark of when everyone’s birthday is or when there party will most likely be, now it’s time to update your budget.

Make a note on a separate piece of paper any gifts you’re going to need to get or upcoming (but not confirmed) travel.

Look At Out Of Town Trips

With J’s family living a few hours away we like to visit at least once a month.  If we can plan out a few weekends to visit in the next few months then we can make sure it lines up with everyone’s schedule.  Plus, it helps on the budget and finding someone to watch our pups.

You can also mark down any vacations, girls trips, guys weekends or anything else that you know is coming up.

Plan Date Nights and Family Dinners

I’m going to be honest, date nights are few and far between (is that how that saying goes?).  But we try to do something at least a few times a month just the two of us.  It’s a lot harder to plan those nights out, so here’s what we do.  My parents typically keep our son one night a week, so we plan those nights first.  Then it makes date night a lot easier.  We don’t have a weekly date night, unless you count being childless and crashing at 8pm as a date.

One family event we do plan in advance is family dinners.  We have those just about every week.  We try to stick to every Thursday to make it easy on everyone’s schedule, too.  Family dinner can mean meeting my parents at a restaurant or heading back to one of our houses for dinner (usually my parent’s house because, let’s face it, it’s cleaner than ours).

Mark Down Any Work Events

Are you involved in any civic organizations, Chambers or other networking groups?  If so, then you probably know when your meetings are and other special events that come up.  For me, I’m in Kiwanis that meets once a week, BNI that meets once a week and a woman’s organization that meets once a month.  Those meetings are at the same time, same day of the week and usually at the same place.  So I can easily go ahead and mark those down.

Schedule Doctor Appointments

After all the birthdays, out of town trips and work events are marked down then that gives me room to make doctor appointments.  Now this isn’t for when your child gets sick, because you can’t plan for those.  However, these are for the check-ups – the dentist, pediatrician, physicals, and eye doctor.  By calling a few months in advance, you’ll more than likely get the pick of your appointment time.

Lessons For Your Kiddos

Do you do any learning activities or schedules with your kids?  For us, we searched out a program to help us.  Our son goes to an amazing sitter, but there isn’t any structured learning time.  So we know that we have to provide that at home and on the weekends.  However, I was overwhelmed.  Each Pinterest pin was telling me to start with something different and all had different milestones for the same age our son was.  As someone who thinkis in numbers, it was hard to wrap my mind around it all.  I need a clear cut guide, something that I knew would be entertaining to our son, but also teach him something.

I started searching and I came across the Busy Toddler’s website and was immediately in love.  It had some great ideas that actually seemed doable.  She even put together We started following the Busy Toddler’s lesson plan, Playing Preschool, awhile back.  Life got in the way, so it took a sideline during tax season.  But I am in ready to get back into the full swing of things.

She lays out each week perfectly, so I can go into our calendar and mark down what lesson we’re going to be working of and for what week.  She uses a lot of tools and produce items to help learn, which is great so by marking down what week we’re on then I know what I need to be making sure we have from the grocery store.

Check In On Our Financial Goals and Set New Ones

Once a quarter you should be checking your financial progress – seeing how you’re doing with your budget, your spending and your savings.  What better time to update your goals and create new ones then when you’re planning the next few months out.  We try to have a money date as our planning session, so we can also take a good look at our budget.

If we hit a new financial goal then we cross it off the list and move on to the next one.  It helps us stay accountable to what we want our financial future to look like!

Insanely Easy Packing Hack

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Want in on a BIG secret to make your life a little easier when it comes to traveling?  I’m talking about any type of travel, too. Overnight visit, weekend getaway, vacation, work trip, whatever you have coming up.  This one trick has been a genius lifesaver. 

We’ve been following this tactic for a few years now, we just update it as we change and once our son was born.  You can watch the video online or down below for our insanely easy packing hack:

If you want more packing hacks, check out this post for packing your toddler and this one for packing for a work trip.

Simplify Your Morning Routine

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Raise your hand if you love routines and order. I know I do! I love knowing exactly how long it should take me to get something done, how often I need to be doing a load of laundry and what my day is going to look like from a quick glance.  However, Moms if you’re deep in the trenches then you totally get why toddlers don’t like routines and usually throw a wrench into our perfectly planned days.

BUT we still need our routines that simplify our days.  WE NEED THEM! Because when you come home after a long, hard day and your house is a mess a routine can help you tame the chaos and re-center yourself. 

In this post, I’m going to talk about a few routines you can create to simplify your mornings.  Let’s face what happens in the morning is what sets the tone for our whole day. If we feel rushed while getting ready then we feel stressed and anxious the rest of our day – and that’s no good.

Recently, I shared our evening routine for our toddler and it has made a huge difference at our house.  It has made our evenings a little more calm and it’s been easier to put our little man to bed each night.  I will admit though, it all started when we spend a few days sleep training our son when he was just a baby.

Let’s get into today’s post – simplify your morning routine – because the sooner you can implement some of these tips then the quicker you will get results.  I do want to share a disclaimer – I try to follow each of these every day, but I’m not perfect.  When you have kids, you have to accept that you won’t be perfect 100% of the time – it’s impossible! In an earlier post, I shared details about how I schedule my day by blocking my time, but here are more details in my schedule blocks. 

Now, you’ll notice some of these routines actually happen at night or the day before, which has been a huge blessing to my mornings.  I actually consider anything that makes my mornings easier part of my morning routine.

Here’s your Sunday routine:

Each Sunday evening or any free time you have during the weekend, spend a few minutes planning your outfits or even laying them out for the next week. I don’t have a ton of space to lay out each outfit for work the next week, but I can at least plan out what I am going to wear. 

If you’re like me and don’t have a ton of free space to lay out clothes, then here are a few things you can do: create a space in your closet that you can physically hang clothes for the week or you can make a written list in your planner with each day’s outfits.

Prepping for the week includes making sure your clothes are washed, pressed and ready to be put on within seconds. Make sure to think of every aspect of an outfit that’s going to be needed – obviously a blouse and pants or skirt, but also include an undershirt, tights, shoes, jewelry, etc.

Here’s your evening routine:

Review your to-do list for the next day. This way you can make sure everything is ready to rock-n-roll the next morning.

Make sure to look over your meal plan for tomorrow’s dinner so you can defrost any meat and get a head start on the meal. 

Make lunches before going to bed and have the lunchbox packed with anything that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. 

Your morning routine:

Try to get up at the same time each morning – even if you don’t have to. That way your body can get used to following the same routine each morning, too.  

Follow the same steps each morning to help make everything more streamlined:

  1. wake up and shower
  2. put on makeup and style hair
  3. get dressed
  4. review any appointments that you have today
  5. make breakfast
  6. wake up kids and get them dressed

By following the same steps in the same order, you can have getting ready down to a science. You’ll know exactly how long it takes to do each step, which means you’ll know when you’re running behind.

Don’t check social media first thing in the morning. Wait until your little ones are up and dressed to get on social media. You can lose so much time by scrolling on FB and IG, so make sure to avoid it until you are completely ready.

Don’t check emails until you’re at the office. Again, this is such a time sucker. For me, I have personal email, work email and then business email that I like to check.  I try to get to work a few minutes early each day so I can check my personal email and business email before my work day starts.  If I spend too much time before I’m finished getting ready on the computer or my phone then I almost always run late.

Make breakfast easy on yourself. Try not to over-do it on breakfast during busy mornings. Sure you want your little one to eat a healthy meal, but who has time to cook a gourmet breakfast each morning?  Here’s a few tips to make breakfast simple:

  • cook a big batch of scrambled eggs on Sunday and put in the fridge for the week
  • make a batch of freezer waffles to pop in the toaster on the weekends
  • grab fruit at the store for those easy morning breakfasts
  • find simple foods your little ones can finish in the car when they take FOREVER to eat

These simple steps can really help create order in your morning routines. As a mom who is constantly running around from meeting to appointment to family time and everything else I need something that I can follow each day to help tame the chaos.  

 

How To Block Your Time To Get More Done

how to block your time, how to get more done, ways to be more efficient, productivity tips, meredith rines, merelynne

One of my biggest productivity secrets is all about how I schedule my time. As Moms our brains are working overdrive constantly. We may try to be focused on laundry, but our mind is thinking about an upcoming client meeting. Then as we’re sitting in the floor playing with our little one we’re thinking about the dishes in the sink and they’re driving us crazy.

That’s just what being a mom is all about – constantly thinking ahead and multitasking.  Nothing wrong with it, but it’s hard to be present with our spouse and with our children when we’re always thinking about what else needs to get done.

Besides my Mom notebook that contains every little thing I have running through my brain, I’ve discovered a great way to get more done and be more present with my family. 

Want in on the secret…?

You have to block your time.

Recently I started blocking time in my calendar and breaking my day into hour increments.  It is amazing and works wonders for me! 

You can watch the video online or down below:

Here’s how you block your time to get more done:

Instead of scheduling every single detail down to the minute, you dedicate a specific period of time to an area of your life.  Like house work, career, family time, me time, and so on.  Keep all of your to-do’s in a handy notebook so when you’re getting ready to focus on a specific time block you know what you need to do.  You may need to spend the first 5 minutes of each separate block prioritizing what’s most important, but once you have a game plan then you can get started.  Now you don’t have to jump from one area of your life to another, which means you can actually focus on the task at hand.  

When the period of time is over, I close down and move onto the next area.  It really helps my sanity.

Here’s how I block my time:

5:00 – 7:00 am is for getting ready, getting breakfast made and working on my blog.  I like to make sure I’m showered, dressed and ready for the day then I’ll spend any other free time (usually an hour) on making breakfast, checking emails and making sure any blog post is ready to go live.

7:00 – 8:00 am is for getting Dent up and dressed, feeding him breakfast then heading out the door to drop him off at the sitter.  Typically I get to work about 7:30 each morning, which gives me time to check my personal emails and make my to-do list for the day.

8:00 – 12:00 pm is for working. I focus my attention on my clients, appointments, preparing illustrations, and so on.  I try not to think about blog work or anything like that.  

12:00 – 1:00 pm is for filming any new content and then eating lunch.  I run home on my lunch hour to film a new video (or two) and then I reheat leftovers from the night before to eat before coming back to work.  Each morning (when I arrive to work at 7:30) I make my to-do list for the day.  In that list is what video I want to record and make sure my talking points are ready to go.  So when I get home I just have to sit down and hit record.

1:00 – 5:00 pm is for working again.  I finish up the day with any meetings, networking events, and so on.

5:00 – 7:30 pm is for family time, playing with Dent and following our evening routine.  As I’ve mentioned before we tend to eat dinner by 5:30 most nights and then we clean up the kitchen afterwards.  Once dishes are done then we sit down to play as a family.  Then it’s bedtime for Dent around 7:30.

7:30 – 9:30 pm is for straightening the house, doing laundry then relaxing with J on the couch, editing any videos, finishing blog posts and working on merelynne.com.

Upgrading To A Big Boy Room | Starlight Baby Giveaway

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At what age do you change the theme of your baby’s nursery? When we first decorated Dent’s room, we made a very big effort to make sure we didn’t have to completely re-do every choice as he grew.  We made a few changes here and there to make the room easier to use and better for playtime. For instance, the perfect area rug was not quite perfect. No matter what anti-slider mats, stickers, glue, whatever we bought the darn thing slid everywhere.  It was such a hassle and a trip hazard on those late night feedings. 

We quickly took out the rug and never replaced it.  We also added room darkening curtains for those mid-day naps. A while back I created some wall art for his room. Do you know what’s great about making my own pieces?  When it’s time to change them out then it’s really simple.

Recently I’ve been thinking we need to upgrade a few pieces to make it more of a big boy room and instead of a baby room.  Now don’t get me wrong I am no where near ready to switch out for a toddler bed… and neither is Dent.  But I think we could do a few things to the walls to help the room grow with our boy.  I found these whimsical dinosaur vinyl wall decals from Starlight Baby and just fell in love.  They are absolutely perfect for our son’s room.

how to hang wall decals, how to put up decals, wall decals, starlight baby, meredith rines, merelynne, nursery, toddler room

You can watch the video of my first thoughts on the vinyl wall decals and what his new big boy looks like below or online:

James from Starlight Baby reached out to me and offered one of my readers a chance for a $60 store credit.  I couldn’t believe it. I love the idea of bringing such a great giveaway to you just in time for Christmas.  They have so many great decals, clothes, and more for your little one.  Starlight Baby offers something rare on their wall decals – they will customize the color for you.  If you have a color code from a paint color, wall art or any item then they can custom print your decals to match.  You just send the color code or color idea to them and they will work with you to make it happen.  How cool?! I love their customer service!

Enter the giveaway below. If you want to go ahead and check out Starlight Baby’s store, head on over.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I did receive the wall decals for free in exchange for my review.  However, the opinions are 100% my own.

How To Prepare For A New Month

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It’s that time of the month again – I swear as I get older time just seems to keep going by faster and faster.  I do wish it would slow down so I could enjoy my little boy a bit longer.  Everyday he’s learning something new and becoming so much of a little boy as opposed to a baby.  When we went to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago watching his determination and excitement was just awesome.  He was willing to try just about anything (he didn’t care for the slide in pitch black though) and he absolutely loved the big boy slide.  He just kept wanting to go down it over and over again.  When it was time to leave, a full on meltdown followed.  

Anyways… this post is about how to prepare for a new month, not the challenges I’m having watching my little boy grow up.  

Let’s get back on track.  Focus Meredith, focus.

There are a few things I do at the end of each month to help us kick off the next on a high note.  I highly recommend coming up with a monthly routine for you and your family to follow.  It helps to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.

The first thing we do is take a look at our 3-month plan.  Awhile back I talked about how we plan our life 3 months at a time.  This is how we approach just about everything.  We sit down once a quarter to really get a big picture view of what we have going on, what we need to be planning for and budgeting for.  Then we like to break it down by a month-to-month basis. 

After we make sure we’re on track for our big 3 month plan then we go forward with preparing for the new month. 

Here’s what our 3 months looks like:

January, February and March are planned end of December/beginning of January

April, May and June are planned end of March/beginning of April

July, August, and September are planned end of June/beginning of July

October, November, and December are planned end of September/beginning of October

Here we are getting ready for November, so our 3 month plan is already set.  However, if this was the end of the quarter then we would be going through our steps to get ready for the next 3 months.  

Here’s the rest our monthly plan:

Money Date 

You should end each month with a money date.  Now you typically should have a money date at least once a week (or every other week), but make sure to have one at the end of each month.  This helps you know what each person has coming up and what they would like to do for the next month.

Review Your Budget 

Next you need to take a look at your budget.  Make sure you finalize any calculations or figuring to know exactly how you did the month before.  This is the time to review any receipts, bank charges, expense tracking, etc. to make sure everything is accounted for and your numbers are correct.  When you spend a little bit of time each week then this doesn’t become too overwhelming.  

But it’s a good idea to review your budget before the start of a new month so if there were any overspending or surprises then you can be better prepared.

Plan Any Events

You should know a few weeks in advance of any dinners you need to attend or birthday parties.  This is the time to make sure they are in your calendar and you have prepared your budget in case you need to bring a gift or spend money at a restaurant.  Hopefully you’ve had more than a month’s notice, but sometimes that isn’t the case.  Especially when it comes to children’s birthday parties.  

Also, this is the time to make sure you have a date night scheduled at least every other week (or once a week).  You can swap out babysitting with a friend or see if the grandparents wouldn’t mind keeping your little ones for an evening so that you can relax. 

Before having kids I never understood the importance of date night, I mean we had date night but it didn’t feel special.  Now that we have our son, I get it.  Date night is a chance for you to reconnect with your spouse, have adult conversations and just be together.  The other week J and I had a date night at home.  Grandma and Grandpa kept little man and we did nothing.  We sat outside in our backyard, had the fire pit going and enjoyed a glass of wine.  We then came in to heat up some leftovers and were in bed by 8:30.  It was perfect.

Meal Plan

Finally, you should spend some time meal planning.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you can take stock of what you already have on hand so that when it’s time to grocery shop you aren’t buying something you don’t need.  We like to meal plan for two weeks at a time so we aren’t wasting food and can rearrange meals if needed. Typically if we eat leftovers an extra night or go to my parents’ for dinner then I can take a meal and push it back to later in the month.  It makes grocery shopping easier and we aren’t wasting food.

You can find more about meal planning and eating out back in September’s Budget Q&A.  We found that by meal planning for two weeks we can save a lot more money.  

What do you do to help prepare for a new month? Leave a comment letting me know!

8 Minute Makeup Routine – The Perfect Mom Makeup Look

Affiliate Disclosure: Please note that when you click links and purchase items on this most, in most (not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. Thank you!

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As Moms we have very limited time to get ready in the morning.  Between getting dressed, making breakfast, starting laundry and chasing a toddler it leaves little time to actually look presentable.  

As a working mom I have places to me and need to look decent for client appointments.  I have started mastering my morning routine so that I can not only take care of my family, but also look like a confident professional.  In today’s post I’m showing you how I put together my full face in under 8 minutes.  Of course because I love a good deal, I try to buy affordable makeup products and I love to pass on what I use with you.  I’ve linked the products or a similar one I use down below.

You can watch the video online or down below:

 

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Here’s what I use on a daily basis, some of the links and products may not be available any longer.  But I have put together a similar list for you. 

e.l.f. Poreless Face Primer
Morphe Eyeshadow Palette – 35R
Rimmel Gentle Eye Makeup Remover
Mac Eyeshadow – The Holiday Palette from a few years ago
Maybelline Fit Me Matte + Poreless Foundation (in 112 and 120)
wet n wild MegaGlo Makeup Stick – When The Nude Strikes
wet n wild MegaGlo Makeup Stick – Call Me Maple
wet n wild Brow Pencil – Brunettes Do It Better
LA Colors Lipgloss
Covergirl LashBlast Volume Mascara

Here are the brushes and tools I use:

Morphe Foundation Brush – M439
Morphe Eyeshadow Brush – M428
Wal-Mart Blush Brush
Wal-Mart Eyeliner Brush
Mac Foundation Brush – 130
Eyelash Curler

8 minute full face makeup, quick makeup routine, everyday makeup look, makeup for mom, easy mom look, get ready with me, makeup routine