It's time.

"I just feel like I have so much to say but no good place to share it. Oh wait, that blog thing...."

HEY, friends! It's me :-)

Bet you've stopped reading.

Well, things have been really busy. Really frickin busy. Between twice weekly softball games, trying to find a new place to live, visitors, showers, friends, clients, and family stuff, my head is kind of spinning!

The best bet for me is always an outline format. Eliminates that whole extra complication of transitions....

1. The pool is still fucking closed. Softball friend Taylor just moved to the Burlington and can see the progress (whereas my place doesn't have a view). Let's just say that there isn't any. I'm seriously furious and it's definitely caused a big hit to my emotional health.... it's the absolute foundation of my happiness in the summer months and now every nice day I get serious pangs of anxiety feeling like I should be out, by water, somewhere. Hey doc, I need a boost in my SSRI dosage.... yep.

But is there anything I can do about it? It was estimated to be finished by, well, yesterday, and clearly isn't anywhere close. I wish I could get a discounted rent, but I'm afraid to ask....

2. Business is good. Not referring to my day job, obviously. Although that's fine as well. I've booked a number of clients and just did two last week. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog through my makeup website detailing some of my work with the clients and such. Kind of make it a bit more personal and make the potentials and even those that I've already booked feel a little more "in" on the inner-most workings of the arteeest.

So, here's the schedule:
June 23rd -- did a boudoir session, super fun! I love doing these because of the extra "va va voom" factor. Everyone wants to vamp it up.

June 27th -- bride + others. Bride looked exactly like Kendra from Girls Next Door (except 35 and not annoying). Gorgeous!! Did her 15 year old daughter, and her 70 year old mother(s), so there was a good range.

July 11th -- another boudoir shoot shot by pal photographer "Callie V."
July 25th -- bride + others
August 8th -- bride + others
August 15th -- Erin's wedding!! Bride, mother, bridesmaids, self...
August 22nd -- Ashley's wedding to my cousin Mike!! Bride, bridesmaids....
September 12th -- Lisa's wedding!! Not sure of who....
September 26th -- Cretin Derham Hall homecoming girls
October 9th -- bride + others
October 17th -- bride + others

Then I start school on October 20th.... holy cow!

3. Softball is going -- and I have the MOTHER of all bruises on my right thigh. It's literally larger than my hand. It's about 6" in diameter. A fast hit, low-flying ball took a hop off the ground and nailed me. Yeeeowtch!

We WERE doing great until we had a game cancelled -- we've tanked ever since.

4. That's all I can manage for right now.... because otherwise I'll get distracted and never finish.

Hope you've enjoyed!

My New Website!

After discovering that my lovely friend Erin had linked my blog as my website in her wedding "vendors" listing, I decided it was time to toss something together.

Two days later and I have this:

KM makeup services

As I said, it's not a full-fledged work, and some pieces are missing, but should work well for all intents and purposes at this point in the process. I'm enjoying getting together a collection of photos of my work -- it's so fun to look back and remember those moments shared with friends.

Please let me know your thoughts and criticisms! And thanks to those that have already helped make it better :-)

xoxo,
KTM

Another Saturday, Another Gorgeous Bride!

This past Saturday, I had the privilege once again of doing makeup for a bride on her wedding day. What a fun experience this is! It brings me so much joy and fulfillment to make someone look and feel beautiful, especially on such an important day while surrounded by CAMERAS!

Saturday's bride, Jen, was so sweet and had such great features to work with. A beautiful bride, that's for sure. She has the most gorgeous green eyes with caramel brown in the center and holy schamoly lashes! I'll hopefully have pictures to share soon.

Some day in the near future, I'm going to create an online photo album of befores and afters of all sorts of friends, brides, etc. So look forward to that!!

We're years past "shotgun"...

This is killing you. You can't take it anymore. You're dying to know, aren't you.....

Alright then, here's the as-promised story of the WHITE TRASH WEDDING.

Background: this is Brian's 26-year old cousin that knocked up his girlfriend when they were 18 and then again at 20. While still living at home. Fast forward to Saturday.

To start, the ceremony was at 2pm at the courthouse. One could expect a 20-minute wedding, if that. The reception start time was listed as 6pm. Super. We skipped out on the tiny courthouse deal, and let Brian's parents go without us and hit the reception part. There was likely no way that all of the invited guests could fit at a courthouse wedding anyway.

So, onto the reception at the Monona Community Center. Picture it if you will: A small, 70's style gymnasium type room with a few strands of icicle lights, cafeteria tables lined up with plastic chairs, plastic table"cloths", fake lavender rose petals strewn across them with random glass containers in which swam purple beta fish.

Hope that set the tone and the ambience appropriately for you.

Now how about the food & beverage situation?? Always important in the wedding world. The tiny bar had a little soda station (the old kind with the four tappers you used to see at high school football games) set up next to it with plastic cups. Kids surrounded the machine. The bar itself was serving complementary Miller High Life in plastic cups. The champagne of beers if you will (which WAS consumed by the bridal party out of champagne glasses. Ironic, no?). Other than that, it was cash only.

It came time for the buffet, so folks started lining up..... we finally arrived at the buffet table to find styrofoam plates and plastic "silverware." They had run out of napkins. A couple of veggies & dip trays, followed by giant containers of potato salad (heavy on the mayo), pasta salad (very heavy on the mayo), and coleslaw (guess what? MAYO). A box of buns, and two trays with meat -- BBQ pulled pork and pulled turkey -- completed the spread. I ate all my veggies and one small pork sandwich. I didn't bother with the mayo-plus salads.

The cake, prominently displayed by the buffet, was an instant throwback to 1988. Tiers offset with little "bridges" in between upon which stood the little plastic (purple) bridal party, leading up to the top tier featuring the plastic bride and groom. And don't forget a red wine fountain positioned beneath the top tier. Everyone raved at how beautiful and what a masterpiece this cake was. The bride's neighborlady had made it. I'm pretty sure her name was Barb or Kathy or something.

But the real treat was the interesting crew of guests in attendance..... I can sum it up in one word: babymomma. OK, maybe that's two and maybe a few more words are necessary.... such as JEANS, t-shirts, baseball caps, drunks, flip flops, cigarettes, (short) sun dresses, unfortunate English usage, tattoos, hoop earrings, tennis shoes, "pimp hats"...... the list goes on. And LOTS of kids. My favorite was the 8 months pregnant girl (19 maybe?) wearing a SHORT blue sundress (spaghetti straps no less) with silver flip flops slow dancing with her man (baby daddy? not sure) while he grabbed her butt. Score dude, high five.

The highlights of the evening:

MUCH TO MY JOY, the cake was frickin' delicious. WAY TO GO, Connie!!!! or whatever your name was. Perfectly delightful lemon poppyseed with white buttercream. Yummmm. I had two pieces. But hey, I didn't have much dinner :-/

And the night was MADE when the DJ announced that the bride and groom requested that guests not clink their glasses to get them to kiss, but instead sing yadda yadda..... clink our glasses, you say? Um, excuse me... Mr. DJ.... may I briefly hearken back to the part in the story where I mentioned plastic cups and plastic "silverware?" Not much clinking to be done, eh?

We left still laughing....

HOWEVER, I do have to say that when budgets get cut, some otherwise "classy" brides & grooms eliminate things for their guests such as dinner, free alcohol / soda / bevs of any sort, dessert, and dancing while still expecting people to show up with gifts. This couple made sure to provide those items while remaining within their means, which is definitely worthy of praise. So CHEERS, Chris & April!

ADHD about blogging: a collection of mini-updates

There are many times each week where I think of an idea for a blog post, but become so overwhelmed with the idea of said post that I just nix it all together. And then times where I have 10 potential ideas and don't know where to start.

This is the story of my life.

So rather than topical, organized posts.... I thought maybe I could just word vomit (in an outlined format, of course) about various stuff and things all in one place. Okay? Okay.

#1: Things are almost set for me to start school at Aveda on October 20th. HOORAY!

I'm really pumped at the thought of being a stylist! Colors, cuts, straightening, curling, men, women, children. I love hair! I cut Brian's hair the other night, and while it was a new "style" and new process (from his usual crew cuts), I think it worked out pretty well! The longer hair definitely hides mistakes better, which is nice ;-)

#2: Our six-month anniversary was yesterday. HOORAY!

We celebrated by spending two nights at my in-laws house on twin beds and going to the most white-trash wedding I have ever seen. OH, and 8 hours in a car together. FUN!!! I did get some sweet throw pillows out of the deal though.... so glad I told him that YES it's standard to get your wife a gift for your 6-month.

#3: I really love shopping.

My budget does not support my passion, however. This can be annoying at times. I did get a FANTASTIC new spring windbreaker the other day from, surprisingly, NY & Company. I'd written the place off as the sizing can be weird and the tops aren't big enough in the bust. But thanks to Melinda, we ventured in and I found this gem:

Cute right??

OK, that's all for now. More to come later tonight or tomorrow, including the fantastic tale of yesterdays super white-trash wedding!! I KNOW you want to hear all about it.... ;-)

I rock.

Would you take a look at this? I mean, granted some credit can be given to Dan, Candy and GOD, but the makeup.... all me, baby. And can you believe how gorgeous she is???

Doing makeup for weddings is on the top of my list of things that make me happy. There's nothing greater than making a bride feel AMAZING on her wedding day. And when I step away and watch them look at themselves in a mirror, that's one of my favorite moments. Or when they turn to their mother, best friends, etc. and they all bask in her glow and rave about her beauty, I know I've made it happen for that bride. One of the UTMOST important thing about any woman's wedding day is that she feel stunning, radiant and gorgeous.

My process for preparing for the day always involves finding out more about the bride's usual makeup, what she wants to accentuate, her trouble spots, and a photo helps too. Every woman who wears makeup has their "it" things, whether it be flawless looking, non-oily skin, lots of bronzer, mascara mascara mascara, beautifully blushed cheeks or a pension for heavy eyeliner. Taking those into consideration immediately puts her at ease to know someone is going to give the same time and attention to those as she would for a special occasion.

I literally study these things and the photo(s) before the big day. I try to determine bone structure, how to best accentuate the eyes, skin tones and texture, eye color, etc. When asking for photos, I always ask for a picture that she feels she looks gorgeous in. That helps me to determine how she wants to look in photos. If she's 50lbs thinner in the picture, I'll be sure to contour her better. If she's got a nice glowing summer tan, I'm looking for where her face tans.

The point of all this? I love to do wedding day makeup and I'm fucking awesome at it. That's my point.

(But secretly, it still intimidates me just a little!)

Back on the Blog Horse, I'm Lame, Kate's Wedding

OK, so it's been awhile.... specifically 2.5 weeks. Have you missed me?? And by "you" I mean the 6 of you readers that cared to comment on my Roll Call post below. So, Erin, Ali, Melinda, Brian, Missy and Tom - THANK YOU. This is for you, friends!

Life as of late has been.... interesting. And by interesting I mean dull. Oh, and I was in a wedding. I am a homebody that loves to stay put. I somehow manage to keep friends despite the fact that I'd surprisingly rather be in my pajamas on my couch. Did you know that I'm a bit of an introvert? Yeah.... everyone thinks I'm really extroverted, but I'm just really chatty out of nervousness.

Back to what's new.... Kate's wedding was a really grand time. I don't know if you have seen pictures or what not, but she was an unbelievably gorgeous bride. Katie has timeless good looks -- beautiful bright eyes, great bone structure, long lashes and big lips... can't go wrong, right? Seriously though, she looked stunning.

I myself looked awesomely tan. Hooray!!! A victory in and of itself. I've found the cocktail of electric beaching plus self-tanning two days before = the perfect bronze goddess look.

Here are a few other notes from the big day:

1. Kate & Tyge are a cute couple -- they also have very good looking friends.

2. Christos Union Depot is beautiful!!

3. WHY can't the bridal party sit down at some of these weddings? My feet were numb. I had eventually stopped listening to the goings on because I was so focused on rediscovering my toes. I even considered if anyone would notice me sliding my foot out of my shoe and standing barefoot on the altar. It was bad.

4. I love being a bridesmaid.

5. I am annoyed easily. But we'll leave that one cryptically disguised.

6. I never cried on my own wedding day... is that bad?

7. I may not be the most gorgeous bridesmaid, but I am satisfied hearing that people think I'm "so hilarious" and clearly awesome at taking pictures....

All in all, it was a great wedding. I'm entirely jealous and want to plan my OWN again, because that's how I roll, but I'm so happy that K & T had the wedding of their dreams.