Less Stuff Less Stress: Using Products Up in 2017

So last year I started using the saying "Less Stuff Less Stress" as I attempted to get rid of items and create a simpler life. 

I'm on the journey again this year because I have accumulated far too much stuff yet again! Well, I don't think I've brought too much stuff in this year, I think I just have too much stuff to begin with and have trouble getting rid of things that I consider useful. My greatest weakness is certainly products.

To show you what I'm talking about I laid all of my lotions out on a towel...

Holy crap right? Now where did all this stuff come from?

Most of the Bath and Body Works lotions are things I actually purchased. Whether it was a great sale, a free item, or just me walking in and insisting I needed something they were mostly me.

I know for sure I purchased the Pure Seduction lotions from Victoria's Secret on recommendation from Elle Fowler's youtube.

Lots of the other items I got for free during couponing or were gifted to me.

No matter how I ended up with them, they are my problem now! This year I will NOT buy products until I use up what I have.

I know for certain I will not finish up all my lotion in a year but some other items I may have to repurchase this year. I only have one face lotion once that is gone I am allowed to purchase another. There are certain items like deodorant or mascara that I don't purchase in bulk so I will need to replace those.

This is the year I get my products under control and I hope you will come along for my journey :)

Getting Organized in 2017: Starting In The Kitchen

Welcome to 2017 friends! 

It's that time of year when everyone feels the need to get organized and I am not different! For Christmas we received a new silverware set and some new dishes so I thought a great place to start would be in the kitchen.

Here's our new silverware which is great since we had very limited silverware before.

We also picked out some Fiestaware sets in Tim's favorite color! I love Fiestaware plates because they are simple, heavy duty and last forever. I can't wait to add other colors in the future.

Here's what our kitchen utensil drawer looked like before. What a crazy mess! We don't have a ton of items and are still building our home together and purchasing items for our kitchen but there were still plenty of items cluttering up that drawer and no organization in place at all.

I pulled out a vase and out all of the tall utensils inside. We don't have much counter space but I was willing to give a little up to organize items a little better.

Our silverware drawer was revamped and reorganized. It looks so much better and the new silverware looks amazing!

Ta da! My new utensil drawer! Doesn't it look great? I love the blue bottom containers and I think it will be easy to keep up with. Even if items get moved around they at least have sectioned off areas.

These are the containers I used for this project. I purchased them at Target and while they weren't super cheap I was willing to pay a little more for them since I know they will last a long time and I absolutely love the pop of blue in my drawer!

What are you going to organize this year? I have a lot of projects I'm planning and hope you'll be organizing along with me!

December Birchbox

This months Birchbox came in the cutest box!

 It looks just like a little gift all wrapped up- so cute!

No extra goodies this week, but there are quite a few things in here I can't wait to try out!

I don't use face masks regularly but I find myself enjoying them every time I try one. This face mask by Leaders is called 7 Wonders Himalayan Camellia Pore Minimizing Mask. It is one of those creepy clear masks you just lay on your skin. I do like that these masks don't really make a mess but I do find  them a bit creepy looking!

I have received one other LOC shadow stick and I love how they are a one stop shop for eyeshadow. It's a quick easy way to apply some eyeshadow every day. This color is Rock Steady and is a gunmetal shade which is one of my favorite colors for my lids. I will definitely be using this beauty!

I love love love hair masks! This Mineral Mud Mask by Sapphire Hair sounds like it will do wonders to my dry hair. This little container looks like it will give me one use on the amount of hair I have, my only complaint about small hair samples- I have a lot of hair and generally the samples only last me one use!

Not going to lie; Tim and I have already used this little sample of Hey Honey Walk The Walk Propolis Foot Cream and it's great! I have super dry skin and after one use my feet are already a little less dry! We will definitely be finishing this sample up quickly!

I never need  a lot of volume in my hair but It seems like this product will be great for my roots when I straighten my hair- it might give me a little bit of a better hairstyle!

Last, but not least a little mirror! I love little extras and will definitely be sticking this in my purse!

What did you get this month in your birchbox?

Christmas 2016 Recap

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We certainly had a great one here! 

We had a super busy weekend but it was a great one with a lot of celebrating. Today I will be sharing a bit of a recap with you so you can see what we were up to, but I have a few other Christmas related posts planned for the next week or so, so stay tuned!

These are my favorite treats to make any time of year, but they are certainly popular at Christmas! Tim's sister asked me to make them for Christmas Eve so I made a huge plate for that as well as small bags filled for my co-workers. I have shared the recipe before, but it's super easy and only involves butter snap pretzels, hershey kisses or hugs, and m&m's.

On Thursday after work we went to Brittni and Stephen's for dinner to celebrate Christmas with them and Emma.

Emma was pretty hilarious and could've cared less about opening gifts. She enjoyed ripping up paper and playing with boxes more then playing with anything we gave her. I did hear she also felt the same way on Christmas morning.

See? Hilarious. She makes the best faces.

We ended up doing our own Christmas on Friday night at our apartment. Both of us could not wait to open gifts and decided we might as well go for it.

I love our little tree and all our collected ornaments. It was a perfect first Christmas in our first apartment!

We also filled stockings for one another which was super fun. I plan on sharing what I put in Tim's stocking to give you some ideas for stockings for your loved ones!

Christmas Eve was busy but fun!

I shared this picture on snapchat:

 This is my hat that Tim got me- I really wanted a Patriots hat and he surprised me with one!

He also surprised me with a Amazon Fire tablet! He bought one for himself as well and has been using it when I'm not home for a month now! Sneaky sneaky boy :)

Before we left our apartment we took a picture in front of our tree, I love seeing the sign in the background as well. I think this will be a picture we need to frame!

Our first stop on Christmas Eve was my parents house. I didn't take really any pictures at all with the exception of this one of Tim, Annabel, Cailean and my mom making ornaments.

We ate dinner at my parents house and then headed to Tim's sisters for a second dinner. We also played a potato game where you split into teams and "poop" a potato into a bucket and also a game where we had to open a present with oven mitts. We ended up staying there until about 11:30 when we decided to head home to bed since we knew Christmas Day would be busy as well.

We started the morning back at Tim's sisters house where we watched his nephew's open gifts. We also did a secret santa with his family and everyone had a different couple which worked out great and was fun.

So cute that both of his nephews wanted to cuddle him! :)

After all the gifts had been opened and breakfast had been eaten, we headed to my parents house where we opened even more gifts with them and my brother and his girlfriend. Then we ended up relaxing with my parents for a little while watching movies. We ran home for an hour or so before heading back to Tim's sisters for dinner. We had a great night playing Clue and Scattegories and ended up getting home pretty late. 

It was very busy running back and forth but we had a great Christmas! I am so bummed to be heading back to work tomorrow and wish I had the entire week off! 

I hope you had a great Christmas as well and I will be back with more posts!

PopSugar Must Have Mini Box (AKA Tim let me open one of my presents early)

So Tim let me open one of my presents early! I was so excited to get the mini Pop Sugar box. Last year for our first Christmas together Tim got me a three month subscription and they always sent the best items in these boxes. I was ready to see what they would put in the mini version!

When I opened it up I saw two items inside and was immediately intrigued.

The first item is from Yellow Owl Workshop and is a festive stamp kit. I don't think I own a single stamp so I thought this was a cute idea. I can now use them when I scrapbook and also when I write cards for birthdays and other holidays- super cute! I need to get a bigger desk to hold all my crafting supplies :)

The second item is a gorgeous nail polish by Smith and Cult. It looked slightly purple but when I read the card that claimed it was rose gold and opened the bottle I could definitely see it. It's a gorgeous rose gold color and I can't wait to paint my nails with it. I am definitely using this for Christmas :)

Do you get Pop Sugar boxes? If you do, what products have you gotten that you love?

Christmas Around The Apartment

We are one week away! Can you believe that in one week it will be Christmas?!

I feel like the season has absolutely flown by this year and I have felt behind this whole month. I had our apartment decorated the week before Thanksgiving but just haven't gotten around to snapping pictures or writing a post. So here is a tour of our little living room during this Christmas season!

Christmas Kermit sits on our couch next to our Let It Snow pillow. I'm not sure where Kermit came from because I've had him for years but the pillow is from the Target dollar section from a few years ago. I love the color!

Yes, Tim was playing Madden while I took pictures. This is where our stockings hang using some command hooks. I purchased these simple stockings from Kohls this year. I also have snowflake lights from Ikea in front of  the tv. A little snow angel sits on top of my books, a tiny elf on the corner and my newest purchase the little sign that says "keep calm and wait for santa" which was also purchased at Kohls this year.

Our Christmas tree is a fake one from Walmart which has worked beautifully for us. I have a ton of Christmas ornaments that I've collected through the years and I even gave Tim his own Eagles ornament for the tree. I also picked up some mint chocolate candy canes for the tree.

This cute bear is something my papa's girlfriend gifted me a few years ago. I saw this bear in a store  and loved it and she surprised me with it that Christmas.

This little elf is one of my favorite memories. I actually stole this from my grandma and papa's house when I was little because I thought he was so cute. There is actually a yellow heart bead stuck in his rear (not sure why...) and I've had him as long as I can remember.

Just a quick peek in the kitchen. Aren't these snowman towels my mom gave us adorable?! I love that we'll be able to use them all season as well.

In addition to all of these decorations we have our holiday candles burning, our holiday soaps at both sinks, and have been using a holiday oven mitt as well. Might as well go all out right?!

I hope you are all getting excited for Christmas and I'll talk to you a little later this week!

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

My most recent read was Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and I thought it was fairly entertaining. The novel itself it a post-apocalyptic story similar to that of the Hunger Games. It reminded me of Katniss' tale in a few ways mostly because the protagonist Mare Barrow comes from one of the poorest neighborhoods in the region. The premise of the world Victoria introduces us to is a battle of silver blood and red blood. If you have silver blood you are royalty or of a prestigious family. Each person of silver blood has a special ability- magical powers and can use them to defeat others. If you have red blood you are a commoner. Mare is a thief; she has no job and steals what her family needs in order to get by. Her younger sister has a job working with silk and her three older brothers have all been sent off to war. Mare knows that she will be going off to war too, until she taken from her house and brought to the royal family to work.

On her first day working for the royalty she accidentally reveals that she has powers of her own. The king and queen are fascinated that although she bleeds red blood she also holds powers so they decide to have her marry one of the princes and study her. They desperately do not want the public to know it's possible for a red blood to have powers like a silver.

Mare quickly learns that she can't trust anyone as she realizes she anyone can betray anyone. 

Although I was entertained throughout this book and have downloaded the sequel, I wouldn't say it's my favorite book ever. I will certainly continue reading the series but it wasn't something I think everyone needs to read immediately. Have you read this? The next book is The Glass Sword and I'm finding it to be significantly slower then Red Queen.

I have a few other book reviews coming up because I have been reading a little bit more frequently lately! What books have you read lately?