Month: March 2023

2023 First Quarter Stash Shop Finale

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

I am ending this around a week early. And why? Because I finished the item I so wanted to finish in this quarter, the Stila foundation!

Now, let me preface this post with some information-you will not actually see fantastic progress on many of these items this second half of the quarter. You see, in the first half of the quarter I did wear makeup extremely regularly. But in the second half of the quarter I lost almost 3 weeks of usage due to a skin biopsy on my face. Thankfully everything turned out to be fine, but at the same time I wanted to follow the doctor’s directions in hopes to keep scarring to a minimum. Even 4 weeks later I still have a pretty significant divot in my face and the entire place the spot was formerly is very red. But I do think I did well with getting it to heal prior to wearing makeup again.

So since my progress was basically cut in half for the second half of the quarter I was extremely surprised to realize that I’d made it through the Stila foundation! I shouldn’t be, it’s a very runny and watery foundation which I generally had to use about 4 pumps of to get appropriate coverage on my face. So I was definitely racing through it in a manner that doesn’t happen with thicker foundations.

Where I started in January:

A month and a half in:

And now:

Now on to progress:

-Stila Foundation, gone
-Mac Fix Plus Rose-a bit of progress made but not much. I will be working on finishing this bottle up this year though. I will intersperse use of it with other facial sprays in the quarterly stash shop.
-Maybelline Concealer, surprisingly it seems like the progress is similar to the previous half despite not having worn makeup nearly as much.
-Mac Mineralized Skin Finish powder started at 71 grams, it was 70 grams last time and remains at 70 grams. However, I did notice that I can start to see the clay pan (it’s a baked product) at the very top of the container so progress has been achieved.
-Mac Painterly Paint Pot-same here, I had used a gram in the first half but it weighs the same now.
-Mascara Maybelline falsies lash lift-this one is done as it’s been open for 6 months.
-Clinique eyeliner-I’ve used it consistently but there’s no way to show progress. I’ll keep after this one this year as I believe I will be able to finish it.
-Elf brow wax-no discernable progress even though I have consistently worn it.
-Maybelline liquid eyeliner-I did not use this at all this half of the quarter. I am not going to add anymore liquid liners to the stash shop because I don’t really use them.
-Hourglass ambient lighting edit palette. This one also remains the same weight as last update. I did use it very regularly and I am pleased with the progress. The difference between the first photo and this update is significant. I’ve got lots of pan in the bronzer in particular. I also made a lot of progress on the two face powders. The blushes are, of course, slower but the warmer toned one is far flatter than the cooler toned one. And the highlighter has a very large divot in it in one spot.

So, to review, in this quarter I finished:
-Eyebrow pencil
-Sunscreen
-2 mascaras
-Stila Foundation
And good progress was made on the other items, with two I believe I can finish this year even while keeping up with a quarterly stash shop. While progress was slow this month and a half, the overall progress of the 3 months was quite good. Now to relax for a week and then post and begin the second quarter stash shop, post will be up either at the very end of this month or beginning of next.

This week in stitching

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

I’ve got another stitching update for this week, as I managed to turn a corner of the border on my Fox and Rabbit stitch along. I am working on the March clue, the border, now but could not resist adding in the small piece from the February clue.

The teal and the aqua are to be my main tie in colors, I used them for the large vase in the January clue and I’ll be using them for the entire border. I love the look of the border and I have a suspicion I am really going to love the look of the entire sampler. I am glad I have chosen to work this one. Can’t wait to see how it progresses over the upcoming week!

Small Changes Perfume Project

/ shellssells / 3 Comments

Mid January I had posted what I was going to do with my perfume project, indicating that I’d post another update at the end of February. Here we are past mid-March and I finally am getting around to an update.

The previous schedule was:

Monday-Mugler Alien
Tuesday-Ellis Brooklyn Bee
Wednesday-A sample size of whatever I like
Thursday-One of my YSL perfumes, my choice
Friday-Replica By the Fireplace
Weekend-Apres and Wildcard

I finished my sample size of Ellis Brooklyn Bee which was in part the goal. The other goal was to finish Alien. There’s very little left.

I am making a couple tweaks to the schedule for the upcoming month and a half. You see, I’ve found out that someone on the flyball team is sensitive to fragrance so I am going to make a concerted effort to remove fragrance from my life on any day which flyball happens. For the next month that means Tuesday nights. It also means some Friday nights. And some weekends are flyball weekends as well. So I’ve developed the next 6 week (ish!) schedule bearing all this in mind.


Monday: Mugler Alien-then when that’s gone, go directly to Alien Goddess sample size
Tuesday: Nothing, unless no Flyball, then sample size of anything
Wednesday: Sample size of anything
Thursday: One of my YSL Frangrances
Friday: Kayali Vanilla Royale Sugared Patchouli (Unless it’s a flyball practice night)
Weekend: Wild card and sample

My biggest goal would be to finish both Alien and Alien Goddess, since there’s not much in either I believe I could make that happen particularly if I considered these for one of my wild card days. Additionally I love the idea of really working on finishing some sample sizes as well. Because I am doing the whole no buy thing, it’s a fantastic time to deplete my stash of samples as nothing else is coming in to replace them.

SAL Update

/ shellssells / Leave a comment

It’s been a bit since I’ve had an update, and even longer since I’ve remembered to post. You see, two things were going on. First, my dog Fury competed in her first flyball tournament, did very well for a very first attempt, and then we got really busy with additional training and practice. More on that in a future post I believe. In addition to that, we took care of a 4 month old shepherd mix puppy white her foster family went out of town for a bit, and that kept us very busy. But she was a surprisingly great puppy, and it went much better than I had imagined it would. Nevertheless, we were overwhelmingly busy. Once that was over, I was able to get some stitching done, in part because I took a couple days off to unwind after all the busy weeks.

During that unwind time, I was able to finish the whole of the January chart of my Fox and Rabbit stitchalong for 2023. The whole of the chart except for the extensive border which I did not complete. And I am glad I did not complete it since we now have more pattern in the border and I think it’ll be easier to complete it while also working that pattern area.

I then put this project down for a bit instead of moving right along to the next section. You see, my temperature tree had been languishing. It was languishing for a few reasons I’ll address in a future post about it, but I ended up giving up on it, going to the local stitching shop, purchasing a very pretty piece of linen, and starting it over completely. I have been working on that exclusively for about a week now, and it’s looking really good. In fact I am farther along than I was when I quit the project previously. But, I am looking forward to some downtime tonight where I can get back to this SAL project instead. I am eager to see what the next bits will look like. I am particularly fond of the border filling in framing the piece beautifully.