Beauty on a tight budget!

    At home microdermabrasion

    I usually exfoliate my face with the microdermabrasion from Mary Kay but Ive been out for months and I honestly haven't had the funds to purchase it or anything else like it. And then I remembered coming across an article in a magazine that mention you could use baking soda and water since the grains would act as an exfoliant, so I tried it and it worked. 

First I wet my face, then I just poured a small amount of baking soda into the palm of my hand.

 Added water little by little until it turned into paste. 

     Once I've reached my desired texture I applied it in circular motion and voila I created at home microdermabrasion for only a dollar. When I was done I rinsed off with warm water then I washed my face with a gentle cleanser and hydrated with an oil free moisturizer. My skin feels amazing!!!! Now, since I haven't exfoliated in such a long time I'm probably going to wait a few days before doing it again and depending on how my skin reacts I might exfoliate two times a week for a few weeks and then go down to once a week. Let me know if you end up trying it and how it works out for you, enjoy!!!

xoxo Maria

Diaper cake

    Today Joel and I went to his cousins baby shower and me as usual I didn't want to get just any gift from the registry instead I made a diaper cake. I've made four so far including the one I did today and I must say I've gotten pretty good at making them.

    For this cake I got the inspiration for the colors from the topper which is a rattle toy that was on the registry. I do make it a point to look through the registry and pick a few small baby items to place on the cake. Once I've gotten all my items I then get the ribbons to match. After the diaper cake is put together I think about placement of the baby items. Balance is key so I try to put all the bigger items at the very bottom of the cake and then work my way up. In the future I hope to share another diaper cake post where I can elaborate on the specific steps to building a diaper cake. Hope you enjoy!

Xoxo Maria

My 1st day as a couponer!

     Iv'e been wanting to do couponing for months now and I finally got the chance to attend a class on 5/12 in Apollo Beach. I only went to Apollo Beach because the next class available in tampa isn't until june and I really didn't want to wait that long to start saving on my groceries. Im all about saving money, getting great deals, and shopping the clearance.

    I have to admit I was a little hesitant at first just because you have to make sure you take time out of your already busy schedule to clip coupons, write your shopping list and go do the shopping, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought. At first sorting out the coupons got confusing only because I didnt technically have all the flyers where the coupons would be coming from, but I did have a big portion of them that came from the Sunday paper.

    The truecouponing.com website makes it really easy for you to set up your list, it gives you the date where to pull the coupons from and it matches them with the sales going on at which ever supermarket you prefer to shop at. The class is a must they go into intricate details on how it all works, and at the classes they have a really cool starter kit for $40 dollars with a months worth of coupons, you get an automatic discount with the Sunday paper for attending the class and a FREE gift, cant beat that.

    So if you're into saving money like me and your interested in couponing sign up at truecouponing.com attend the next class thats convenient for you and make sure you take notes.

I got all this for $34.86 with a total savings of $81.44

16 small tubs of butter

4 toothpaste

2 bagel bags

2 pasta sause

4 boxes of pasta

2 bags of chips

2 dips

4 packages of propel water 

and 4 FREE pepsi's  YES people I said FREE  

    What I love about this is that all these products are products I use and eat. You defiantly don't want to buy products you don't use and you don't want to become a pack rat and start stocking up on all kinds of stuff. Shop wisely! 

p.s Please let me know if you decide to attend a class and start couponing I'm still new at this and might not be much help but we can always learn together.

Thank you Michelle for introducing me to truecouponing.com

Xoxox Maria

My crazy fun filled weekend

    This past weekend was fun and exciting except for the mini hurricane on Saturday that was a bit extreme. We started the weekend off with a birthday dinner at Iavarone’s Friday night for Mike, Joel’s older brother. It was our first time at Iavarone’s and I must say it was great. The food was delicious and the drinks were even better!

This was my outfit for the evening.

This is our group picture in front of the restaurant.

Sunday I helped host my best friends bridal shower while Joel stayed home dealing with this...

    Its a slide and swing set we bought for Vince to enjoy in the backyard. Just by looking at the picture I’m sure you know how Joel felt, multiply that by 100 and that's how he really felt. If I had a hidden camera the entire time he was putting this together I’d get rich off that alone on you-tube. He was so frustrated with this swing set I really couldn't help but laugh, but not in front of him. He was upset about the instructions not being clear enough. The pictures shown in the instruction booklet really were no help at all. We were missing tools so he had to run to Home Depot last minute. When he finally got started 15 minutes into it he was already yelling and throwing things like a two year old. Hmmm I wonder where Vince gets that from. In the end Joel did an awesome job and Vince now has fun in his backyard all thanks to Daddy.

 

The finished product

While Joel was working on the swing set I was off enjoying my time away from the kids at Hamburger Mary’s for my best friends bridal shower. We had a breakfast buffet with endless mimosas and a drag show, you already know how that went. Michelle and I being the hostess for the event decided to split tasks and I was in charge of three game prizes. Since I have been getting into DIY projects I decided to be crafty and came up with three different DIY home decor.

  

Flower candler holder

What you will need:

A bouquet of fake flowers (Dollar Tree)

a glass candle holder (Dollar Tree)

sheer spool of ribbon (any color you prefer) (Dollar Tree)

a glue gun (Walmart)

a pair of stem cutters or scissors. (Walmart)

     What I did was remove three flowers from the stems of the bouquet and cut the bottom part to make the bottom of the flowers flat. I then cut individual straps of ribbon and glued it to the glass. Finally I decided where I wanted to place the flowers and glued them on as well. This one was my favorite.

 

Glitter tea light glass holder

 What you will need:

Glitter (Walmart)

Adhesive spray (Walmart or any craft store)

Tealight holder (Dollar Tree)

This one was a little tricky and messy so if you want to try this one I would recommend to wear gloves. I sprayed the inside of the glass bowl with adhesive spray but please make sure you use one that adheres to glass. Then just sprinkle the glitter all over the inside of the glass and let sit to dry for 30 minutes. You could also use glitter spray, I didn't simply because they didn't have the color I wanted.

Seashell center piece

 What you will need:

A small tall clear glass (Dollar Tree)
A bag of flower decorations (Dollar Tree)
A bag of accent glass (Dollar Tree)
Glue gun (Walmart)
Regular Ribbon (Dollar Tree)
Seashells (Dollar Tree)

I started by layering the glass, the seashells and the green grass balls. Once I got to the top part I wanted the shells and the glass to show so I glued them to the last grass ball on the top so it could look nicer. I felt it was missing something so I decided to tie a bow with ribbon that matched the colors of the seashells and glass.

Here are some picture of Yadi's Bridal shower

 Michelle, Yadi and I

 Way too many mimosa's

 The Drag Queens

Denise won the first prize, she took home my favorite.

My Son's 1st hair cut, too smooth!

    Joel and I took Vince into NYC fades about a couple weeks back for his first hair cut. After having to reschedule three times we were finally able to bring him in. Ray Joel's old barber did the cut, and he did such an excellent job that Vince almost didn't even realize what was going on.
 
   This was such an exciting moment and a huge milestone in Vince's life. My baby transitioning into a big boy, I almost cried. We were such proud parents that day. Vince did so good he didn't cry, he wasn't scared, and no tantrums, those are always a plus. At the end he was rewarded with a lolly pop for being so cool, calm, and collected during the entire process. We hope next time around it goes just as smooth.

e.l.f

    Last month I celebrated my birthday with one of my best friend Michelle at Bahama Breeze. In the picture of us below I debuted my e.l.f lip stain (rep carpet) from there studio line it was a big hit, everyone loved it.

    So when cinco de Mayo came around they had a promo for 5 free lips or eyes with a minimum of $20 purchase. I'm all about a sale, so I got 4 more lip stain and I'm going to try out one of there minty lip gloss. I also got there big eyeshadow palette since it was half off and some of there eyeshadow brushes and for referring three of my girlfriends I got a free gift! I think I might be more excited about how much I saved on my purchase than the product itself, lol. Anyways I cant wait for my next event so I can show off all my new colors for the summer.

NinyaBella vs Rihanna

   So the craziest thing happened to my sister in law today. As you will see in the picture below Nina was tweeting like any other day and she happened to make a comment on Rihanna's new album cover and Rihanna snapped back. From that point on it was blown way out of proportion. Check out Ninyabella response after all was said and done.

My belated Mother's Day gift

    So my mothers day didn't exactly go how I envisioned. I thought that I would be surprised with breakfast in bed, followed by a bouquet of roses and end with a lavish gift. Instead I over slept which jump started my day into rush mode. My breakfast sat in the oven for 2 hours, I didn’t get anything not even a card! All I had asked from my husband (Joel) was to take pictures of me with the kids and to help me at night so I can go to sleep early, because with a newborn and a toddler on two different sleeping schedules, well... you don’t really ever sleep. 

    The only good part of the day was spending time with my mom and Joel’s family enjoying good food and great conversations. I received and mothers day hug from my brother-in-law which was very surprising because he isn’t really a hugger. It felt nice to know that he came out of his comfort zone to show me some appreciation for the hard work I do at home with my kids. Joel on the other hand gave me no pictures, no gift, no card, no nothing. My evening ended putting Vale down for the night at 1am. I was pretty upset and Joel knew it because the next day he gave me a 30 minute I’m sorry speech and then I found this on the bed.

   When I saw this on the bed I just started to laugh. You cant tell much from the picture, but its a Pandora bag with a bracelet inside. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Pandora bracelet there is a really cool theme behind it. If you notice below my bracelet doesn’t have a lot of charms like you would see in the Ads, it’s because you fill it with all these cute charms as you celebrate different moments in your life. My bracelet has a little boy and a little girl with a heart in the middle which represents Vince, Vale and my love for both of them. They have over 100 charms and they range from $25- $800. I know, nice right! Well that defiantly made my night especially since this was something that I actually wanted. Thank you my Love!

P.S. (click ->)  motherhoodwtf  it's a mommy blog I follow and this mother's day gift guide DON'T is hilarious!!! My favorite is # 9. Click on the link and check out the list. 

Happy Mother's Day

   My second Mother’s day and thinking back to all the things my mom did for me while growing up and even still till this day, I was inspired to write this poem for my her. 

Me diste la vida 

Me diste amor

Y se lo agradezco con todo mi corazon

Ahora que yo so madre la entiendo completamente

Porque era tan estricta y quieria simpre protegerme

Por su crianza no solo soy una buena mujer

Pero mejor una madre tambien 

Gracias por su inspiracion

Yo espero ser esa misma inspiracion para mis hijos tambien

La Amo, Feliz Dia de la Madre

You gave life

You gave me love

And I repay it with all of my heart

Now that I am a mother I under stand completely

Why you were so strict and very over protective

Because of your upbringing not only am I a great woman

But an even better mother at that

Thank you for continuing to inspire me 

I hope to be just as much inspiration to my children as well.

I love you, Happy Mother's Day 

Hello Sunshine!

 

    My name is Maria and I am a stay at home mom of two under two. My son Vince is 19 months and my daughter Vale is 6 weeks. I know, I know they are really close in age, (hey at least they’re not Irish twins), but trust me this second pregnancy was a huge surprise. They say don’t drink and drive, I say...

     July 4, 2010, (80's party) I can honestly tell you I have no recollection of the way the night ended but I have tangible proof of the outcome. Everything is very vague and gloomy still in my head and the only reason I knew I was pregnant 5 weeks after conception was a short menstrual cycle, and craving for a cheese burger. For those that know me know that am a chicken sandwich kinda girl, so for me to want a cheese burger really bad kinda gave it away. I remember a few days later my husband and I were heading home and I happened to mention to him “what if I am pregnant again” no lie, he almost crashed the car. It was a very awkward ride home after that comment and I didn’t mention it again till a week later when I actually took a pregnancy test that I got from the Dollar Tree, Yes the dollar store, trust me it works just at good! And well now here I am.  
   

    I’ve been inspired by my sister in law that decided to start her beauty blog ninyabella and reminded me of how much I’ve been wanting to do my mommy blog but kept it in the back of my mind and honestly I was a little scared, but she made it look so easy I said what the heck!
    

    Im excited to start this blog as it’s a new chapter in my life. I’ll be blogging about my experiences as a new mommy of two, my interests and my hobbies. As I share my stories and advice I’m also eager to receive it from anyone willing to share. I hope to be somewhat helpful to any current and future moms by passing along tips that have been given to me from my very close friends, with out them I would be so lost. Hope you enjoy following me on my journey to becoming a better yet much wiser mom, wife and woman.