Livin' the Dream!

Here are a few photos from a recent shoot I did with Michael Coakes in Chicago!  The model is Emily of Royal Models, and I did hair and makeup.  I can’t wait to see more! 

xoxo, 

Mandie

P.S.  Want to see my images more quickly after they are taken?  Like me on facebook and you will! 

I did hair and makeup for a spread for Portafolio magazine, and here it is!  Kayoua Xiong was the photographer, and Mirey Ervinova was the wardrobe stylist!

xoxo, 

Mandie

Recap of an AMAZING weekend, thanks to @Temptu & @BCBGMAXAZRIA

I sort of already did a brief posting of this (as it was a big part of my McPeteSez Lipgloss & Lace Column), but I just wanted to take a minute to re-cap one of the best weekends of my life!

Note:  The weekend was a WHIRLWIND, and it seems like I fit a week and a half’s worth of activity into three days.  I also was in three cities over the course of the weekend, and poor planning/packing led to my personal challenge to myself - could I wear one of those “wear this dress 1039235802453408573408673 ways dress” the whole weekend?  It was, as it turns out, possible, but unfortunately, I took a ton of pictures and ended up looking like I only own one dress!  I assure you that I do own several dresses, haha!  

It all started on Friday afternoon, July 20th.  Yeah, I know, I am a slacker on the blogging front and should’ve posted this long ago!

Anyway, it started with a book signing by one of my heroes, Will Allen!  He started the urban farming movement right here in Milwaukee, WI!  Here’s a picture of Mr. Allen and I!

 

I haven’t read his book “The Good Food Movement” yet, but I look forward to it!

Shortly after I left his book signing, I drove up to Madison to do a promo.  After the promo, I was hanging out with Michelle at one of my favorite places in Madison, Paul’s Club.  Here we are!

 

And then I turned around, and was pleasantly surprised to see the face of an old & amazing friend - Curti!  He was there with his adorable fiance, Danielle.  We decided that I am doing her makeup for her wedding, and I couldn’t be more excited!  Here we are!

 

The next day, I worked for a bit in the morning at Contours Lingerie, then I was off to Chicago!  

The reason I headed to Chicago was to do my first gig as a Pro Artist for Temptu for the BCBG Max Azria Pre-Fall Fashion Show at the Floating World Gallery.  It was AMAZING!

Here’s a pic of our materials (I took the pics and texted them to the other pro artist, Nancy, who was amazing as an artist and a person, and then Temptu featured them on their blog - how cool is that?!

See my leopard print lipcolor bag?  It’s famous now!  Haha.

Here are some pics of the beautiful models, as well as one of the models with Nancy.  I MUST have one of these dresses!  

I think my favorite dress was the one that Lubov Azria (who I got to meet, and who was super sweet) was wearing.  MUST HAVE!!!  You can see it at the bottom of this blog about the event.

Here’s a link to a blog that had a professional photographer there to capture the event.  I LOVE the pics! 

As you can see in the photos above, BCBG instagrammed/tweeted a picture of me doing makeup on one of the models - I am so pumped!  Temptu did as well!  

Nancy and I SO lucked out this night - it was a night of high-fives!  

Our first high five was concerning an awesome non-alcoholic juice drink we had called the “clear conscience,” which is in a picture above this blog!  

Next high five was when we got to have hors d’oeuvres!  Then we got to have dinner, wine, and dessert!  All of those were separate high fives, of course!

One of the best things, though, was when they gave us the BCBG gift bags!

Here are the awesome contents!

Sweet!  

While we were still at the event celebrating life backstage, we realized that we got so caught up in running around that we forgot to re-feed the meter…  It was too great of a day to get a parking ticket, and we were right!  We got back to my car and had another reason to high-five, because my car was ticket free!

Since I had just gotten a dream job (hello, Temptu pro artist), and we had acquired amazing gifts (I think my favorite is the cell phone case, shown above), and not gotten a parking ticket, we needed to continue celebrating!

The night prior, Nancy had befriended the bartenders in the hotel bar where she was staying.  She had been considering going salsa dancing with them, but decided we’d go out and continue celebrating…  When she went up to inform them, they gave her a giant glass of wine we shared! High five!

We freshened up, and then a friend of mine sent a limo to pick us up and take us to Market, where we enjoyed the rooftop bar!  There are pictures of us above, alone in the stretch hummer, and on the rooftop of Market!

From Market, we went to Boardroom, where we had a blast!

I stopped taking pictures, though, because I was having too much fun getting to know my new friend and celebrating a great night!  Now my phone case is an amazing reminder of a great night, and I love to look at it and smile about the fun I had!  

xoxo,

Mandie