Brave & Beautiful

I am Brave and Beautiful – a beauty movement that is sweeping the globe. Colbie Caillat started it with her recent song and video called TRY. My blogging friend Megan of Brassy Apple wanted to push this movement along and invited women from all over to share what they looked like without make up and I joined in!! Colbie’s song says, “Take your make up off. Let your hair down… Look into the mirror at yourself, Do you like you? Cause I like you… “

Megan and her friend Cobi of Peacefrom6pieces have been the team behind this whole project. Their worldwide vision included creating their own video inspired by the song TRY. The talent of Robbins Creative made it possible for them to pull it off. You have to click play and see the beauty and bravery displayed and you might even recognize a few faces in there.

Me along with 101+ other blogging women from different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities, ages, shapes and sizes have decided to be Brave and Beautiful! You can join in this movement too by sharing what you look like without makeup on. You don’t need a blog either! Just tag your photo with #IamBraveAndBeautiful on Instgram and search the hashtag to see who else has joined in. ALSO, if you tag it with a second hashtag – #ColbieTRY we just might be able to get Colbie Caillat’s attention since she was the inspiration behind it all!

Are you brave and beautiful? I am, here I go!

The picture above is the one I use for the majority of my online/business personality. As you can see, I’m not wearing tons of make up in the picture but to be honest, I added quite a few filters and photoshop effects to smooth out and brighten my skin. I didn’t go a crazy as I could have with photoshop but it still isn’t 100% my natural face. Which leads me to…

And here I am without a lick of make-up on and possibly looking even worse than usual because my allergies are so freaking horrible this year. Honestly, this is what I look like about 90% of the time. Most of my days are either spent working at my craft desk or running around with my boys, both of which I find make-up to be absolutely unnecessary. Sure, some days, when I have a little extra time or I decide to wear a cute dress, I might put on a little tinted concealer and mascara but I never want to fall into The Make-Up Trap of believing I ever need any of it.

Because I know how hard it is to pull your self out of that trap, I promise you, I do! My trap started almost five years ago while visiting my step-father, who was battling cancer, in a hospital. I was fine one day and then the next, the skin on my nose began to itch with a slight burning. I didn’t think anything of it for the first few hours (I actually thought it was from me cutting jalapenos!) but immediately grew concerned once the itching and burning migrated to other parts of my nose and the outer edges of my eye and lip.

Twelve hours later, after a sleepless night, the small irritations had spread to three more sections of my face and were itching so badly, it felt like something was eating away my skin. I immediately went to see my general practitioner who prescribed an ointment that did absolutely nothing and quite possibly spread the infection even further. You can imagine how absolutely freaked out I was because the infection wasn’t reacting to any medication and scary words like “MRSA” and “Staph” were now being thrown around. Scary stuff, right?!

The following day I was transferred to an Infectious Disease Specialist and was immediately given a handful of heavy medications to take along with another ointment. Finally, after a few more nervous hours, I began to feel some relief! The infection was finally retreating and we were no longer worried about it jumping to other parts of my body or getting into my bloodstream. The clouds were clearing and after a week or so, I was beginning to feel like myself again…and then I would look in the mirror.

I was so thankful to be alive and healthy but it was really hard to look in the mirror and see the scars of the battle MRSA had waged on my face. You see, all that time when the itching felt like something was eating my skin…it really was and as a result, I was left with a few large “cut-outs” in my nose and a handful of small indention everywhere else. It’s a crazy feeling looking in the mirror and not recognizing the woman looking back at you.

So, yeah, even though I never liked it before, I fell into that Make-Up Trap and I fell hard! I felt like I had lost so much control while fighting the infection, piling on make-up every morning (even though I rarely wore it previously) made me feel like I was “normal” again, like I was in charge, like I was myself again…and then it didn’t…

It wasn’t normal for me to hide behind concealer or foundation. It wasn’t normal for me to take pictures from only one angle. It wasn’t normal for me to shy away meeting new people because “What would they think?” Make-up should be something you put on because you want to, not because you have to. How was I going to wean myself off the only thing that prevented the world from seeing how truly scarred, inside and out, I was?

I started by going out without make-up and pretending that all the people staring at my nose didn’t bother me one bit. Those early days were really hard but eventually, I pretended that I was brave and self-assured enough that one day I realized, I wasn’t pretending anymore. I was brave and I was self-assure and I was scarred. Slowly but surely, I started looking in the mirror and recognizing the woman who was looking back.

So, what’s the lesson I learned from the super freaky Skin Battle of 2009? I am perfectly comfortable in the skin and scars that I live in because the thing is, they aren’t the legacy that I plan on leaving behind. They aren’t my masterpiece.

My masterpiece is the hard work and dedication I’ve put in to a marriage with my best friend.
My masterpiece is the circle of family and friends that represent all that is good and crazy in this world.
My masterpiece is the privilege of knowing the two amazing little human beings that call me “Mama.”
My masterpiece is being brave and beautiful, not in spite of my scars, but because of them.

Don’t stop here. Get clicking around – its a blog hop! Below are more brave and beautiful women bearing more than their natural beauty. They each have a little bit of their heart to share with you. Some get very personal. Some share stories. For some this was very hard to do yet they gathered their courage and did it anyway. We hope as you click around (and YES pin these different posts!) you will feel the importance of it, the empowering effect it has and that it encourages you in some way.

>>>>>>>Important info! Blog Hops often have glitches the first day. If the link has an ERROR, simply click on the HOME button for each site, or google the blog name next to the link, and you should see their brave and beautiful post there. Links will be updated as soon as possible.<<<<<<<<<<<<

1. BrassyApple 2. Peace from 6 Pieces 3. Is this Really My Life 4. Among the Young 5. Love Me Dani Marie 6. Sweet Charli 7. Kim Orlandini 8. XO, Ashton Tilton 9. She Calls Me Mama Leisha 10. Raising Memories – Canada 11. A Little Tipsy 12. Amy Cornwell 13. A girl and a glue gun 14. My Craftily Ever After 15. Maybe I Will 16. WhipperBerry 17. Paging SuperMom 18. All Things Thrifty 19. Ashlee Marie 20. The Project Girl

21. One Little Momma 22. Entirely Eventful Day 23. Diary of a Brown Eyed Girl 24. Tips from a Typical Mom 25. Utah Sweet Savings 26. Flats to Flip Flops 27. One Krieger Chick 28. What Meegan Makes 29. Simply Kierste 30. Live to be Inspired 31. HoneyBear Lane 32. Pretty Providence 33. Ma Nouvelle Mode – in FRANCE 34. MomEntity 35. Serger Pepper – in ITALY 36. Kiki and Company 37. Girl Loves Glam 38. Thrive

39. The Potters Place 40. Crafting in the Rain 41. Cooking With Ruthie 42. Delineate Your Dwelling 43. The Pennington Point 44. Bakerette 45. The Happy Scraps 46. Shannon Baird Photography 47. Tried and Tasty 48. Lionesses at the Gate 49. Fry Sauce and Grits 50. Lolly Jane 51. That’s What Che Said 52. Sugar Bee Crafts 53. Your HomeBased Mom 54. Happiness is Homemade 55. The Crafted Sparrow 56. R&R Workshop 57. I Should Be Mopping the Floor 58. Sassy Steals

59. Let’s Eat Grandpa 60. Being Spiffy 61. Sumo’s Sweet Stuff 62. Ginger Snap Crafts 63. Bless This Mess 64. Apronista 65. Dreaming About Someday 66. Frenchie 67. Tastefully Frugal 68. Four Marrs and One Venus 69. Your Sister Circle 70. Over the Big Moon 71. See Vanessa Craft 72. Infarrantly Creative 73. Family StoryTelling

74. Albion Gould 75. Life as Mrs. Larson 76. Tried and True 77. Play.Party.Pin. 78. Bite of Delight 79. Ink Happi 80. ObSEUSSed 81. U Create 82. My Mommy Style 83. Find it Make it Love it 84. The Contractor Chronicles 85. Novae Clothing 86. Mommy Makes Things 87. At Home with Sweet T 88. We Like to Learn As We Go 89. House for Five 90. Organize and Decorate Everything 91. Sassy Southern Gurl 92. The Creative Mom 93. Keep Moving Forward with Me

94. The Benson Street 95. Mom 4 Real 96. Sowdering About 97. illistyle 98. The Crafty Blog Stalker 99. A Fiery Red Life 100. Cupcakes & Crowbars 101. One Sweet Appetite 102. My DayLights 103. Restless Risa

104. Sypsie Designs 105. Vintage Mother 106. Like Mother Like Daughter 107. 30 Handmade Days 108. Queen B and Me 109. Apples by Ashley 110. Boutique Cafe – in CANADA 111. Just My Little Mess 112. Bombshell Bling 113. Sarah Tyau 114. Taradara Make it 115. Capturing Joy 116. Ivory Lime Photography 117. Jenkins Kids Farm 118. Free Time Frolics 119. Bella Storia 120. Dana Ohlsen Photography

Ready in join in?Snap, hashtag and share! Tag @BrassyApple and @Peacefrom6Pieces if you can too!

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