Check This Out

Check this Out

Share the knowledge

Today is a really bad day. And I've decided not to vent and tell you how I feel. That's a step in the right direction right?

Okay so I was talking, while waxing eyebrows, to my niece a little while ago. I told her that her skin looked good and she started telling me about what she didn't like about it. Then I started to tell her what I knew about skin and what would help her and then I thought, "as much as she may want to my 13 yr old niece is not going to remember nor be able to do anything about this info that I am telling her, but her mom could.", and then I thought, " I wonder if anyone else would care to know this info?", of course they would! I want to know so many things. I figure others probably have the same want and may not have the means. And then I thought of all the things my friends know and have a talent in that I do not but would like to know more about. Then A blog friend of mine said she was going to start doing posts with her photo shoot ideas because several people have asked her about them. That's when I came up with share the knowledge. If there is something you know about that others may not, share it. Whether it be computers, food, health, raising kids, decorating, sewing, whatever, share what you know. I have a lot of random information and I also know quite a bit about skin and hair because it is my job. So, I will share the things I know and hope you will start to share the things you know.

First off, skin and makeup. My niece has oily skin. We were talking about makeup and what to use and not use.

#1 no no for oily skin- liquid foundation. Oily skin is shiny. Liquid foundation will only make this worse. As well, it tends to clog sweat glands. When sweat glands are clogged sweat has no where to go, which means it stays on your face all day long and this can then cause your pores to clog and then lead to break outs. The reason for this is that the liquid part of liquid foundation is usually some kind of petrolium or some such substance. Now, dry skin can take the excessive moisturizers such as petrolium and a little more sweat. Sweat is a natural moisterizer and dry skin isn't normally bothered by sweat.


Even though liquid foundation is a no no, liquid concealer is okay. Concealer is used to cover up pimples. Pimples are caused when the pore is already clogged and therefore the pore can not produce sweat anyways. Which means that concealer on a pimple can not do further damage. Once the pimple is popped and starts to dry out, however, I suggest you stop using the concealer and return to you normal foundation.

I reccomend a powder foundation or a tinted moisterizer. I also suggest using as many natural products as you can afford. It's worth it. Plus if you spend $30-$40 on something natural it'll usually last about 6 months and therefore end up costing the same as an $8-$10 item that lasts one month.

My favorite products for all skin types, problem skin, dry skin, oily skin, literally all skin types is Origins. There moisturizers are awesome. A Perfect world is for dryer skin


And Make a difference is for oily or problematic skin.



My favorite facial cleanser is the bar of soap facial cleanser from origins. The bar is $10 and last me about 12 months. Wash morning and night.

I find that when I use this I don't need an exfoliant but if it doesn't naturally exfoliate for you then you do need an exfoliant. If you don't want to buy one sugar works really well. If you have oily skin or problematic skin use a little salt with sugar or a mask of egg white. One egg white one night a week can do wonders for skin. It naturally exfoiates and tightens skin. Just put it on your skin and let it dry and then rinse it off. If you have dry skin leave a little yolk in the egg white. Ashes also make a nice natural facial mask. Just mix clean ashes with a little water and you have yourself a mask.


And next, lets talk a little about burns. I've learned a little on this subject lately. Blisters.

If you burn yourself and it blisters pop it. Yes, pop it. It can't heal until the liquid is gone. Use a nice sharp needle and hold it in a flame for at least 30 seconds to make sure it's sterile. Pop the blister and push the liquid out. DO NOT REMOVE THE BLISTER SKIN. Leave it on. It works as a protectant. This process should not hurt one bit. Even poking the blister with the needle will not hurt.

Once you have popped the blister and drained the fluid put some neosporin on the burn. I like Neosporin+pain relief the best. It has a nice topical pain reliever as well as a natural cooing affect to ease the heat of the burn.



Finally, cover it with a band aid. I suggust a larger band aid. I also don't recommend that you use the tough strip band aids. They are bad for burns. The skin surrounding a burn becomes sensitive and tough strip band aids are just a little too tough for that skin. It can bruise and do further damage to the skin around the burn. Flexible bandaids are nice because they move with the skin.


At night remove the bandaid and clean the area. Leave it open at night. You can put neosporin on it but do not cover it. This will allow the area to dry out a bit and heal quicker.

*3rd degree burns- usually a 3rd degree burn does not blister. If you or your child gets burned and it does not blister I highly recommend you go to Maricopa Medical Center Burn ED(Emergancy Department). They know on site the extent of the burn and if it is not a 3rd degree or worse they will give you information free of charge. Because my 3rd degree burn blistered it took me 9 days to get the proper care for it. That is bad. So other signs of a 3rd degree burn are, #1) the burn does not hurt and is numb. This happens because 3rd degree burns are a full tissue burn. This means it burns through the nerve ending that cause sensation therefore leading to numbness. Another sign of a 3rd degree burn is the burn site being white and not pink or red. Now it can also be white and a little pink or red around the edges. This is due to the tissue being dead. Neosporin is a HUGE no no for 3rd degree burns. The ingredient that keeps all the bad things out of the wound also keeps everything trying to get out or off a 3rd degree burn on and in the burn which is bad.

Okay, that's all the knowledge I have for today. Please spread the knowledge and share what you know.

No more burn pictures, Fergie, and Jewellry

I have been making more jewelry lately. Here are the latest 2 designs. You can find these as well as others on sale at Tantrum hair salon.

Necklace=$24
Bracelet=$13
Earings=$8
3 piece matching set=$40









I've had a thing for sweaters this winter. I have 4 and they seem to be all I want to wear in this cold weather. My doggie Fergie seems to share love.


When I am done for the night and plop down on the couch to watch a show or two she comes and nudges at my sweater until I make her a little area to fit in. She prefers this to the hot bed whereas my doggie Monty spends %95 of his time in the hot bed.

Christmas stocking project

This year I decided to make the Christiansen side of my family new personalized Christmas Stockings. I looked all over for base stockings to decorate. You know, just plane old stocking to decorate. The size I wanted and quality I wanted was hard to find. None the less cheap cause we're broke. The cheapest I could find was $10. Now they are 6 of us and I didn't want to spend $60 before I even started decorating them. Plus $20 for the stockings of future Christiansen members. So, I decided to make my own. Using my moms stocking as a pattern. I toyed with the idea of felt and didn't like it. Then I thought of flannel and fleece and didn't like that either. So, I was at Target and a new idea popped in my head.

Towels.

I know. At first I didn't want anyone to know they were towels, but they turned out well enough that I don't care. I found some super soft towels and picked the red and green colors I wanted. I also had to look at the ribbing at the ends of the towels to make sure I could do the names properly.

Each towel cost me $5. They were half off. And I got 2 stockings out of each towel. So, with the 2 future Christiansens in mind I bought 4 towels for a total of $20 and had 8 stockings for $20 instead of $80. Nice right.

I suggest if you do this that you keep the extra material. It can come in handy if you make a mistake and need to cover something up.

I also suggest that you have the decorations for all your stockings laid out before you start gluing or sewing them on. I learned the hard way and made katies twice because the first one I made for her didn't match the rest of the family's.

My family room looked like this for about 3 or 4 days so, be prepared for that. Don't rush the process if you are a perfectionist like me.

Most of the decorations are Ornaments from Hobby lobby that I bought at %50 off. If you do this they have to be light ornaments. If they are heavy they don't work.

The letters, snowflakes and trees and stuff came from the scrapbooking store.

It took me a while to find a package of letter with enough to do all of our names without having to buy more then one package but eventually I did. They are cloth letters even.

Finished products. I have to say that they are much better in person. They did not photograph well.

I put hooks on them and they worked perfect. As you can see here I finished them off by putting off white braided, something, on the middle line on the top of them.

I used a dark olive green because I liked it. My mom hated it though. She said they weren't Christmas green. I've seen stockings that are all kinds of crazy colors nowadays, so if you decide you want to make stockings and then decide you want to make them out of towels, use whatever colors you want. My 6 decorated stockings and 2 undecorated stockings came to a grand total of about $10 each. In my mind that's pretty good. At the urging of my mom and sister, I gave them to my family about 2 weeks before Christmas so, "they could be enjoyed".

Womens jeans.

Does anyone else have this problem? My thighs are big and my my butt is butilicious. This makes buying jeans, that fit well, rather hard to find. I used to dance so my thighs and butt used to be big due to muscle. Now they are just big. My waist on the other hand is small.

Hear are my jeans. They fit right.

They look like they fit anyways.

And they do is some areas. See, they hug my thighs.

And they hug my tooshy.

But my waist is a whole nother matter. This is like an extra 4 inches.

I mean seriously. I feel like my pants are falling down at my waist all day and when I pull them up they don't go anywhere because they are still nice and on my thighs and bum. What the crap. Peopl say to buy Lucky jeans or Buckle jeans. Not only do those make me feel fat but they don't fit much better, they are super expensive and they are hard waisted. The hard waist is the worst part because when I sit I have rolls. And if you have rolls, a hard waste hurts.

Do any of you have this problem and have you found any nicely fitting comfortable jeans?

Burn Update

My burn has finally started to change/heal. Burn are complecated. They constantly produce heat and therefore constantly produce water. Due to water pockets, burns are not allowed to heal over. Thats the puffiness you've seen on my burn. It looked like several blisters in my burn. That's normal. It was just water under the skin. It's also why skin grafts are crosshatched and not solid. The water has to be able to drain. The compression sleeves that go over burns are to force the water out. Suprisingly even when scar tissue forms burns still produce heat and water. Compression sleeves are worn for such a long time to ensure that all the water is pressed out. Sometimes they use a piece of solid silicone to place between the healed/healing scar/burn and the compression sleeve to press even more fluids out. Crazy huh. Anyways, my burn takes so long because I did not want to pay for a skin graft or for surgery to cut the burn out, press the skin together and stitch it up to heal like a wound rather then a burn. Oh and I just so happen to have the worst luck ever and am very allergic to the gauze like, skin graft alternative, healing aide.
This is my compression band that I will hopefully be getting on Monday. You have to measure your arm in 3 places to make sure it's the right size. It's white and I got 2 because my sister said they need to be cleaned alot and you still need one to wear while the other is being washed. I understand this now. Due to cream and constant water production there is a lot of 'goo' involved with burns. It's too white. I think I'll take my permanent markers to them.
The noticable change happend pretty much over night. Before I woould notice little changes and would show my mom or my husband and they would just grimace at me. Now they too, admit it looks better.

I finally have scar tissue forming and the puffiness has decreased substantially. When I wrap it with another wrap really tight the puffiness goes down even more. When I get my compression band it should get totally flat.

I kind of describe it like looking like the inside of an orange when it heals. Like when you pull off the thin skin and see the little juice pockets inside. Thats what the center of my burn looks like. See.

It heals from the edges in. The skin gets tight and they say that you are not allowed to let it get tight so you have to stretch it. I pull and stretch it when I clean it. That's why Nie Nie still does yoga too. It stretches her healing skin. It's also why her bottom lip was so big for a while. When her skin on her chin healed it tightened so much it pulled her bottom lip inside out.

It produces that water quickly and constantly. I dry it off and about 5 seconds later it's shiny with water. I have to dry it right before putting cream on it or it's like frosting a cake while it's still hot. Nothing sticks.

Doesn't it loook so good?! It's so much better. Really it's more of a hasssle then painful. I'm never ironing again, I've decided. A very stupid expensive mistake.

My toes

I haven't done my own toes in forever. I get a pedicure every 4 weeks or so for my eczema. Yes, my eczema, honest. If you go here, http://callieandbryce.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-eczema-when-i-wait-6-weeks-to-get.html, you'll see why. However, I have not been able to get a pedicure. You know, Christmas and medical and all. Priorities, you know. Well, I got tired of not only having painful, itchy feet but looking at ugly toes along with it. So, I sat down and did my own toes. I haven't done them in forever. This is what I came up with.

Not wonderful but at least they're not ugly. I've had several people say they wish they could do it. So, If enough of you leave comments on wanting instructions on how to keep your polish from chipping for 4 weeks and how to do some simple decorations I will post some instuctions along with pictures. So, if you're interested leave a comment. If you're like me and normally let someone else do your toes, don't.

I was a little proud of myself for bucking up and doing my own toes.

Christmas and New Years

We started off the season with a 'funny' white elephant gift exchange. It was really fun. We recently bought a fire pit thing and so we just do get togethers in the back yard around the fire. We had hot dogs and Stephens hot chocolate. The we did the gift exchange. Due to the economy we did a funny one. So you could bring something you found the last time you cleaned your house or something.

It was probably the funnest gift exchange I've ever done. Surprisingly there were no trades. Everyone was pretty happy with what they got the first time around. Here's the loot.

Funny thing is that this book was brought with me in mind. I've always said we'll have a little black baby boy one day.

Great minds think alike. Spidey undies and Iron Man undies made an appearance. Ours were better because they had candy in them. Bryce wanted to use a candy bar to leave a skid mark on the Iron Man undies that we contributed but ultimately we decided not to.
Santa Potato head.

Bryce got a sweet vest.

Then came Christmas day. I've wanted a beach cruiser bicycle for a while and Bryce got me one for Christmas. A PINK one even.

So cute.
It had to be a beach cruiser because when I ride it I sit straight up and it's easier on my back. I would always say. " when I get a bike I will eventually put a cute basket on it so I could take my doggies for a ride with me", and it just so happens that my new PINK bike came complete with cute wicker basket. My doggies like it. I put a blanket in to keep them a little warmer and away we go.

We spent the afternoon with the Christiansen. Poor Katie and Kevin had to wait until 11 to start opening presents. My mother in law got a super cute purse from her best friend which just happend to be the same exact purse that she bought me for christmas.

Katie got several books this year.

And santa brought the family several new games and a few dvd's.

Bryce got several things including some UGG slippers. He really likes them. I think he's hooked now too. I got him several gift cards to food places he likes. Outback, TGIFridays, Wendy's, Dell Taco, Barro's Pizza and Arby's.

I got several fun things too. Top on the list is my bike, purse and new phone that I bought myself thanks to Christmas money. I got the HTC Hero. I love it so far.

We filled my mother in law's stocking this year and bought my father in law a book that is so totally Chris Christiansen, it's hilarious.

Katie made Kevin a pair of comfy pants for Christmas.

For some reason it's become a tradition in the Christiansen hom that on Christmas morning we get and play with some kind of young at heart toys. This year it was Nerf guns. Here's the conversation that happend when I walked in the door.

Me: So, what's with the kid blocks and stuff?

Katie: Target practice

Me: K. but what's with th baby blocks? (thinking she was talking only about the guns)

Katie: Target Practice

Me: I don't get it.

then Katie just looked at me and we both started laughing cause it finally clicked in my head that they had set up the table with things we could shoot at for target practice with the Nerf guns.

Then we all loaded up and started shooting eachother.



My mom does Christmas breakfast every year. So we spent the morning with my family. Huge delicious breakfast.

My mom made everything but the bacon this year. Mama G did the bacon. She's wearing the cute new quilted apron I got her for Christmas.

Trigg played his new Leap Frog game all day. I just noticed his shoes are on the wrong feet.

Aahhhh the Christmas year book. Due to the size of my family we stopped doing presents for eachother a long time ago and instead we do a Christmas yearbook.Every individual family does pages of some sort. Usually including pictures and events of the past year. Usually it's pretty funny. This is what the family looks like every Christmas morning.

This is Jan, Greg and Dave reading the year book.

A few of the kids came with their new swords. It just so happened that we had a few smaller swords in our garage because Yousif, bryce's friend, left them here the last time he visited. So, we pulled them out and gave them to the younger boys.

The doggies are always a hit with the kiddos. I love the candid shots of them.

The teens were told they could chill in my moms room. Instead they chilled in mine and Bryce's room. It was a wreck to begin with.

Then for New Years my family got together for some snack and games. Snacks included Jan's home made sugar cookies, Apples with home made caramel apple dip, salsa and chips, Pistachio's, cheese ball and crackers, and artichoke and jalapno dip with frech bread.

Then we played a couple games and ended with a gift game. We roll a dice and if we roll a 7 or 11 you put on gloves and try to open the gift before someone else gets a 7 or 11. Whoever gets the gift out keeps it. Usually it's very hard to get at.

This year was no exception. Teeth were used.

We get really competative in my family.

Like I said, teeth and punching. There were 2 gifts this year. Licorice piggies, red and black. And a giift card to PF Changs. The gift card was taped to a brick to throw people off. I got the licorice piggies. I love black licorice.

We had a seriously awesome holiday season this year and hope you did too.