Welcome to the first ever Makeup Museum staff picks! Today Museum Advisory Committee member Sailor Babo will share his favorite nautical-themed beauty finds. Anchors away!
He fondly remembers MAC's Naughty Nauticals collection from 2008:
While some of the above items may be long gone (ahem, MAC) here are some more recommendations from this little scamp that you can still get your hands on to satiate your nautical beauty cravings.
Much to Sailor Babo's delight, nautical-inspired collections have proved very popular in recent years. In addition to the aforementioned MAC releases and Dior's Transat collection, there was Misslyn's 2012 In the Navy collection:
What do you think of the nautical trend? Have you tried any of Sailor Babo's picks?
Please give a warm welcome to Space Babo! He's a bit of a space cadet, obviously, so I'm not sure what I can have him do at the Museum. He's got a super fancy belt that he can store things in so maybe he can be another art handler. In any case, he is ridiculously cute and very happy to meet the rest of his plushie family!
Amidst all the holiday bustle I forgot to introduce our newest staff member, who joined us a few weeks after Thanksgiving. Say hello to Ugly Yeti! As you know, it's very rare to spot a real live Yeti, but we managed to snag one! (And he is indeed rare – he's one of only 50!) He loves forests and snow and all things winter, so he especially liked hanging out with Babo Bear beneath our white Christmas tree.
He might look ferocious but he's actually quite cuddly. 🙂
I think I'm going to put him in charge of museum membership…we'll see how that goes.
Thanks so much for entering the Makeup Museum's giveaway! Art handler Secret Mission Babo (a.k.a. Ninja Babo) is very pleased to announce the winner.
Yay for Citrine!!
Oh no…"Ooooh, cookie!!"
And that's the third giveaway that's ended with a Museum staff member trying to eat it! Fortunately I was quick enough to get the item away in time. 😉
– I'm a Perrier guzzler and Warhol fan, so this is a very intriguing collaboration. Some might argue it's not right to use Warhol's images to sell fancy bubbly water, but it's very meta, and I actually think Warhol would have gotten a kick out of it…even more so had it been Coke.
– Createquity asks, what is a museum? As you'll see, this seemingly simple question actually has quite diverse and complex answers.
Locally:
– Oooh, new pizza place opening in Hampden. Can't wait to try it.
– The Daily Beast ran a piece on the stars of The Wire – where are they now?
The random:
– I mentioned in the last edition of Curator's Corner that there is a
new Animal Planet/Discovery Channel special on mermaids. This year people seemeven crankier
about the fake "evidence" than they were last year when the first
special aired, and I'm baffled as to why. Chill out, everyone! Mermaids
are freakin' awesome and you should appreciate this show even though
it's not real.
– On the Riot Grrrl front, I received my copy of the Riot Grrrl
Collection book. And now I may just indulge in some Chapstick or a
replica of Kathleen Hanna's dress courtesy of the VFILES. Additionally, Bratmobile's seminal album Pottymouthturned 20!
– I see another addition to the Makeup Museum family in the future!! That's right, make way for Superman Babo!!
I just hope Power Babo doesn't get too jealous – after all, he's also a superhero of sorts.
What have you been up to?
Say hello to Babo Bear!
Here's the description from the Uglydolls website. "Babo thinks Teddy Bears are SO awesome!
But carrying them around is such a chore.
First he has to deal with those sad individuals who tease him for
carrying around a stuffed animal…how many times does
Babo have to give THAT speech…right?
You know…the one about how people who mock others or tease…
they only do so because they are player haters and secretly wish
they could do the same? Calling me a baby?
Notice how adults with brief cases never tease people…
it’s always LITTLE KIDDIES. Now who’s the baby.
Then there’s the getting lost thing. Teddy Bears get lost!
Hotels, restaurants, skydiving…forget it! So the easy fix is BE a Teddy Bear!
Mega-smarty combo! Now he can be himself AND get on with the day."
I introduced him to his Babo brethren…so many Babos, the rest of the Makeup Museum staff couldn't fit in this pic!
Like all Babos, he was able to immediately make his way to the cookie jar. I also got him some honey. He is a bear, after all.
He's an unusual size – not as big as a regular Uglydoll but bigger than the Little Uglys.
Since he is just a wee cub, I'm not sure what he'll do around the Museum. Whatever it is, it'll have to be only for spring and summer, as he'll want to hibernate in the cooler months. 😉
If you're not too tired from viewing the exhibition, here are some behind-the-scenes shots I took as I was setting up. I still can't believe how expensive it was to put together…cake plates don't grow on trees! Still, I was determined to have some pretty things on which to put the objects.
I got the green cake plate from Sweet and Saucy, the white one from Williams-Sonoma, and all the silver pieces (cupcake stand, sugar bowl and candy dish) were from Etsy.
The husband gathered macarons from two bakeries: Bonjour Bakery and Patisserie Poupon. I swore I'd never go back to the latter after they messed up our wedding cake, but they do have the best macarons in town so I didn't have much of a choice.
In between figuring out what should go where I made the cupcakes. I got the liners and silver ball decorations from Fancy Flours.
They were pink champagne flavored and yes, I drank the champagne that was left after making them! There wasn't much though, I needed a lot for the recipe and the bottle I had was fairly small. It's a good thing…otherwise I would have been too tipsy to take pictures. 😉
Getting there…
As you can see, the truffles that appeared on the bottom tier of the cupcake stand and on the plate with Shu palettes in the exhibition were Godiva. I had bought them a week before and it was sooo hard to resist eating them before the exhibition went up.
I finished setting up everything and took pictures. Then the sun went down and that's when the exhibition opening started! Makeup Museum staff was very eager to start dismantling everything so they could eat some of the props.
Here's Cookie Chef Babo warning Seasick Babo not to puke on the cookies.
The party's in full swing…
…and petered out after Exhibition Designer Power Babo collapsed from exhaustion. Poor little guy. I guess I worked him too hard.
Still, I think a good time was had by all!
This week's links.
– I'd love to see this exhibition celebrating Revlon's 80th anniversary. Too bad it's in London.
– Oof. Australia-based beauty brand Illamasqua misses the mark with their latest ad campaign featuring a model in blackface. Why, why?
– Add this to the list of ridiculously expensive luxury beauty items: Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura ruby-encrusted false eyelashes, which retail for approximately $1,500. And the lash glue isn't even included!
– On the local front, today is Holiday Heap, the Charm City Craft Mafia's annual holiday show. I was sad to miss it as I was visiting my parents for the weekend, but I took along Zeke, one of our Cotton Monster staff members (Cotton Monster is a favorite Craft Mafia vendor of mine). Speaking of which, I was pleased to see this shout-out to Cotton Monster.
– While he was visiting the parents, Zeke and a couple of Museum advisory committee members managed to suss out a pan of my dad's famous "junk squares", so named because they're filled with sugary junk (graham cracker crumbs, shredded coconut, raisins, chocolate chips, almonds, all held together with a can of sweetened condensed milk).
As you can imagine the entire pan was gone within 2 minutes. They love sweets so!
How was your week?
(Thanks to the husband for the awesome "Babo Warhol" pic)
Thank you all for entering the Makeup Museum's NARS Andy Warhol giveaway! Museum Education Specialist Cookie Dream Babo is very excited to announce the winner.
YAY! Congratulations to Emily S.! This is very exciting!
Oh no…
"Oooh, shiny silver square cookies…these must be special for the holidays!"
I had to explain to him that those weren't cookies before he could sink his teeth into them. He was extremely disappointed and to soothe himself, decided to take a nap.
Emily, once I pry out your prize from his little wings and paws I will mail it!!
Thanks again to everyone who entered!
Saturday was the Baltimore Running Festival! For the 2011 festival, I wrote, "Come hell or high water,
I'll be running the 2012 Baltimore marathon! Fingers crossed my body
cooperates and the injury doesn't flare up too badly again (it's still
not even completely healed), and that something else doesn't start
hurting." Well, unfortunately, back in May my knees started acting up. Back to physical therapy and doing exercises to help my knees. While I can still run through the pain, something I couldn't do with my previous injury, I figured it wasn't the best time to start marathon training. Additionally, I wasn't able to devote the time to developing a training plan due to a major career issue, which also occurred in May and is just now being resolved*. So I had to scrap my hopes of running the 2012 Baltimore Marathon and settle for the half. I was disappointed, but maybe 2013 will finally be my year!
It is a nightmare getting there and back, but luckily we live close enough to walk both to and from the race. We got a gorgeous day for it – sunny and chilly.
I am, once again, in head to toe Lululemon. They really need to start giving me free stuff.
It was getting very close to start time, so I peeled off my jacket. When we still weren't moving after 10 minutes after the start time, I began whining and pouting. I get extremely anxious before races (once I get going I'm fine.) I REALLY needed the race to start so I didn't get too panicky and end up chickening out.
My husband commanded me to stop pouting and start smiling because we would be starting any minute. I obliged.
And we did start, hooray! As we walked towards the start I saw some great signs.
Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the actual course (I run way too slow to take pictures along the way) or the finish – my husband had gone home while I was running and didn't make it back to the finish line in time to see me cross it and take a picture. Take my word for it, it was a nice, fairly easy course with literally thousands of people coming out to cheer you on along the way. What I really liked was being able to run with the marathoners. The half-marathon and full marathon course meet at mile 3 (or mile 16 of the full) so you get to run with them. In addition to their race bib with the number, some were wearing another sign that said "full" on the back of their shirts. The whole time I was running I kept looking at them and really hoping I would be one of the people wearing the "full" sign on my back next year.
Here's the medal, as modeled by Museum Advisory Committee member (and resident tough guy) Jeero:
I love that silly cartoon crab!! All in all, a great race and I would definitely run it again.
*You may have noticed that I was having trouble keeping up with my posts and remarking how crazy things were. Now is the time to come clean – in late April my boss informed me that I, along with several other co-workers, was getting laid off. My last day was supposed to be in mid-June, but fortunately we received enough funding to keep me on until mid-July. Between trying to tie up loose ends at work and scrambling to find a new job, I simply had no time to devote to marathon training. In late August I started working again – it was a temp position, but after a few weeks I was liked enough to be offered a permanent job. :)
