Sweet Like Kandee

My beautiful daughter, prior to her current obsession with the ever-popular Minecraft, went through a lengthy phase of watching makeup tutorials on YouTube.  I have no idea why, but all the time she would borrow my tablet and because she's too young to type or spell, figured out how to use the voice command function to look up "make up videos".  It was cute!  On occasion I'd watch over her shoulder or she'd ask me to snuggle with her while we watched some of these tutorials.  More often than not, we ended up on the page of this cute little girl who did Monster High makeup tutorials and on the pages of Kandee Johnson.

Kandee is a celebrity makeup artist who has her YouTube channel and one or two blogs.  She makes tutorials for things like: how to apply winged eyeliner, how to contour and highlight your face, reviews of beauty products, and imitating other celebrity beauty looks.  At first you will be captured by Kandee's energy.  She's upbeat and chatty and descriptive and happy and goofy and funny - and really quite good at what she does.  The more we watched the more I learned.  As some of you know, I do my makeup in the car so learning and applying new techniques was difficult but as long as I don't poke my eye out I consider it a win.  There's so much I never even knew about!  I had to buy more play makeup for my little girl so she could put it on me while describing what she was doing, just like in a tutorial.  "Now I'm applying some shimmer to the inner corner of your eye to make it pop!"  Maybe I'll record her sometime and post it :)  

Aside from the makeup, I grew to know Kandee a little more.  In every video she tells people that they are more beautiful than they think, more talented than they know and sends hugs from her house to yours.   She doesn't do just makeup.  In her videos she gives her heart.  It's hard to explain.  She's one of those people that just radiates joy and encouragement.  She's sweet, like her name implies.  She doesn't try to tell you what to do or what not to do, what is right or what is wrong - she just tells you that you're amazing.  She makes you feel wonderful somehow.  She's never negative and always inspirational.  I look up to her and hope that I can emanate the kind of love and joy that she does someday.  

Recently she vlogged about surviving the holidays after losing a loved one.  I have pasted the link here for those of you that might find it helpful and I hope that it does.  Give her a chance:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waL5eBdpWTo

One of my favorite Kandee videos is this one with her sister:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hG5EJMa0lwA 
I love how they interact with each other, love their sisterly bond.  This one makes me smile a lot.
And speaking of Kandee's sister... she is currently suffering from some infections related to Lyme Disease.  Shout out to my good friend Riley!  Dr. Riley, let's get this disease a cure!  (My good friend Dr. Riley is a scientist studying for the cure.)  I would post a link from her blog so you can read about that but I think I've given you enough links for the day :)  

Sorry for the hasty post.  I wanted to get this out before Christmas because of the holiday aspect of it.  Don't forget to comment, share, subscribe and give me ideas for new topics!

Hey.  Merry Christmas to you all.  I am extremely thankful for your readership.  Truly.  Warm holiday wishes from my heart to yours <3