Sparkled Beauty

As promised, here are a bunch of pictures taken at IMATS. I wanted a separate post for them, just so the haul posts weren't too long to read through :)

This is Pasadena Convention Centre where IMATS LA was held.

I took this picture at the end of the second day when we finally had some time to breath, lol. It was a beautiful sunny day. Naz and I went to get some smoothies and walked back to sit in the sun, waiting for my friend to pick us up.

It was fun people-watching there, and when the show was over, the exhibitors left the building with tons and tons of stuff in their traincases or rollies. It was fun.

And these are the palm trees, viewed from the side of the building. They were so tall and grew straight up to the sky. At the lower right corner, you can see a bit of the roof of the building, just to imagine how high the trees were.

Not the scene we would normally see at home for sure. And they were everywhere we went. Naz was fascinated by them, and the mountains that we saw while walking on the street. They reminded me of Vancouver, mountains on one side and ocean on the other.

We only booked the hotel in Pasadena for 1 night (Saturday). We got away with Saturday by dropping off our luggage at the front desk in the morning (check-in was around 2pm and we would be at the show at that time already). Sunday was harder, cause check-out was 11am. We had to lug our suitcases with us the whole day, not an easy job with a hall full of people. Next time, we would probably book an extra night, just to rest and recover before going anywhere else.

Here is me, at the "Blogger Hot Spot" (complimentary wifi) right in the hallway near the place where people lined up for tickets. See how my head fit right at the "O" spot, so I'm a Hot Spot alright, lol.

This was a treat to people with iphones in the building. Thanks to this, Naz had fun tweeting live about what we were doing at the show, with pics :)

Surprisingly wifi didn't stretch over to the rooms for classes around the corner from the main hall, so no tweeting at the Guru Summit, lol.

First batch: The gurus.

This was at the Guru Summit. It looks really dark cause there was no direct lighting for the stage. I was sitting at the third row, but my flash wasn't strong enough.

Anyway, here are xparkage, QueenofBlending, JulieG713 and Pursebuzz answering the audience's questions about how they started the channel, what their youtube names mean, how youtube changes their lives, how they deal with haters and advices for newbies who want to start their own channels. It was a lot of fun.

The gurus were really friendly and spoke from the heart, with funny stories to tell too. Pursebuzz arranged some giveaways (company sponsors) for the audience but we didn't win anything, except for the freebies at the door I mentioned in the IMATS Day 2 post.

Also, there were a lot of gurus attended the show but we didn't take pictures with anyone, except for Pursebuzz. She had her heels on while we had flats (well, it was the second day of the show and nobody could wear heels for long), which explains the height difference, lol.

It was a lot busier at this IMATS, so it wasn't easy to just stop someone for a picture. Everybody was busy shopping or chatting with friends, we felt bad to interrupt.

I was so looking forward to meeting a few of my favorite gurus but couldn't find them. The hall was full of people and I didn't end up at the same spot with them at a certain time of day, I guess.

This is Rae Morris, the awesome Australian MUA who was invited in for an interview session on stage.

We enjoyed her story very much. She was so genuine and helpful with advices to the audience. Can't deny her lovely accent too, lol. During the interview, they put up a slideshow of her work, and it was beautiful.

Everybody seemed to own her first book - Makeup: The Ultimate Guide already but she is in the work for 2 more. Impressive :)

And you all know who this is - Kandee Johnson.

She was smiling, saying Hi out loud and hugging everybody at the little meetup she arranged for her fan in front of the Urban Decay booth. We didn't know about it but happened to walk by at the right time. Kandee was surrounded by fans, cameras and flashes the whole time, like a movie star :) We couldn't squeeze in for a picture, so this is a zoomed-in shot of her, lol.

Like we all know, Kandee is so bubbly and full of energy everytime we see her (on youtube, that is). And she is exactly like that IRL. Love her makeup, and the Hello Kitty bag she carried (didn't show very well in this pic, sorry).

I heard she had her Glaminar at the hotel on Sunday too. If I weren't too busy at the show, I might be curious enough to check it out. Wouldn't you?

Second batch: The art work which took hours and hours to finish.

I went to a few classes, as they were also a fun part of the show. This was from the "A Century of Hollywood Brides" class done by MUFE. A fashion show format worked well for the illustration.

It was interesting to see how bridal makeup was done since the 1920's, but naturally, I liked the looks from the 2000 period the most. The makeup was probably on point but I didn't know about the dresses lol.

And a bonus picture that brought a lot of laughters to Naz and me.

This was my dinner left-over that I brought in the second day for lunch. Forgot to take another shot with the boxes opened so you can see the food - kimchi fried rice with chicken. Yum!

You probably remember me mentioning that the food portion at the restaurant we went to was so big that we had to pack the main dish to go. Check out the movie-style Chinese takeout boxes - we called them the "Mother and Daughter" or "Father and Son", lol. The regular sized box was a bit too small, so they gave me a smaller one. Don't they look perfect together? These were just my "takeout", 2 other boxes for Naz, same sizes. We laughed so hard while packing the food in the boxes and I am still laughing now looking at the picture again :)