Fro Fashion Week Recap

Hey guys,

I know it's been a while, but I definitely wanted to get on to chat about the wonderful time I had at Fro Fashion Week! I didn't get to attend as many workshops as I wanted to, but it was wonderful to meet so many and to connect. Networking is so good for the soul. I had the chance to meet and chat with people like Afrobella, Felicia Leatherwood, Kim Coles, Ken Burkeen and so many more!


When I got in on Friday, I checked in to Hotel Melia and got a chance to relax a bit and grab a bite to eat. I then spent the bulk of my night and most of my morning helping my dear friend put together the Shea Moisture suite. I think we did a wonderful job and so many people got a chance to enjoy complimentary massages and nail services...

After setting up the suite and getting dressed for the day, I was enable to meet many familiar faces and enjoyed the wonderful experience that all of the companies provided. It was indeed a well spent weekend. The vendors and suites at Fro Fashion week created a great experience. I mean these companies really did their thing. I got a chance to check out the Beautiful Textures suite, Curls Unleashed suite, Kynx suite and of course the Shea Moisture Suite for a massage.




























I ended up rolling along all day long going from place to place and honestly don't even recall eating lunch on Saturday... I am sure I did, I just don't remember at this point what it was, weird huh??? After enjoying the events during the day, I managed to catch a 30 minute rest upstairs and changed to attend the Penthouse Party which was fun. I danced a bit, chat with some of my new natural friends and called it a night. I was pooped!!! Below you will find a pic of myself with Kim Coles and Tarin Boone.














After having some fun at the penthouse party, I was in for some well needed sleep and relaxation. I slept in on Sunday and didn't get out to enjoy the festivities until about 11am. I ran into a few other familiar faces and had to leave before the fashion show portion. I was devastated about that, because EVERYONE warned me that it was the best part of the event! I will make sure not to miss it next time around. Here are some pics I took with Jess of Jessicurls, Chimole of Shea Moisture and Mae of NaturalChica.com.

All in all, I had a ball and made some really good connections! Look forward to some great things in the near future! Here is one last pic of me on the final day of the festivities. I was soooooooo beat!

Ebbie ツ

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year -Quick Christmas Haul

Hey guys,

Happy New year and all that jazz!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season and is off to a wonderful New Year. I just wanted to get on and post about my Christmas haul. I literally didn't have a Christmas list or ask for anything, but.... Well, you will see in the video. I will just say that I am so thankful and truly blessed. Feel free to post video responses or comments! I hope you enjoy!

~Mrs. D

Flexi Rod Set and Design Essentials Natural Hair line

Hello lovelies,

A couple weeks ago, I was a hair model for Design Essentials natural hair. It was great fun and I look forward to working with them in the future. Here is a video that I uploaded after the event. Hope you enjoy! I enjoyed how it made my hair feel that day and even used it a couple days after, but there was a bit of a build up issue for me. It just felt like to much product was in my hair after using it for a couple days. So maybe the ingredients are just a little to harsh for me.

Either way, I just wanted to share the video and let you guys see my flexi rod set hair. It only lasted like two days, it got puffy... So I washed it out and did a twist out. which resulted in the product build up on my hair, so I did away with it and haven't used it since :(

~Mrs Drayton

Quick Outfit of the Day (O.O.T.D)

Happy Monday,

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I also hope that everyone is ready or preparing for a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and loved ones this week. As I was at my mother-in-laws house this weekend learning some great family recipes, I decided to have my niece grab the camera and help me out by filming a couple frames so I could put together an O.O.T.D video as requested by one of my youtube subscribers.

This outfit is just a casual laid back fall look and I plan to do more O.O.T.D videos with different looks throughout the rest of this year and next year so stay tuned. I hope you all enjoy this short vid. Shouts out to the 14 year old behind the camera!

~Mrs. Drayton

G.R.I.T.S- Monday Meal

Hey guys!

Let me start off by saying that I normally try to cook healthy for the most part, but sometimes being the Girl Raised In The South (G.R.I.T.S) that I am, I like to do a little somethin somethin in the kitchen. So for now, I am about to put the hair talk to the side and jump in the kitchen.

Today, I wanted to do some fresh veggies, southern style and get some good ole fried foods in there too. ( I only eat fried stuff maybe once every couple of months). I went to the store and picked up a couple sweet potatoes, some fresh okra and a nice head of cabbage.The first thing I started were the sweet potatoes... I started by peeling them and slicing them up. With turkey day right around the corner, why not get use to things made with sweet potato ;) I added a little melted butter to a mixing bowl with some vanilla extract and a little brown sugar and tossed away...Topped with a little cinnamon and put them in the oven on 325 to start baking while I prepped and cooked everything else...

Next, I started seasoning the chops and cutting up the fresh cabbage and okra... OMG, I was getting so excited about dinner at this point. I just knew it was going to be tasty...

After seasoning the chops, I started on the cabbage. A few pieces of beef sausage, little EVOO and a little seasoning lead me on my way. I let that all steam down nicely and after seasoning the okra and chops I battered them with a little buttermilk and flour it was time to head over to the deep fryer.

I know I am really breezing through the whole thing now in this post, but it was a really easy dinner to make. If I could have changed anything, I would have made sure I knew how to properly operate the deep fryer. LOL, I couldn't keep the temperature at the correct level and it ended up making my chops come out not as golden as I would have liked, but all in all everything turned out great....

I hope you all enjoyed the post and feel free to ask any questions or post any comments.... I will get into some more natural hair posts very soon as well as some outfits of the day as asked on my youtube channel... Now that the dinner has been made and the hubby was home, the only major decision to be made was red or white? Ideally, white wines pair well with chicken, pork and seafood. I tend to reserve reds for steak or beef. Ciao....

Shea Moisture Giveaway

Hey guys,

So, I've just finished posting a giveaway on my youtube channel of the Velour Lashes and now, it's time for me to do a facebook and twitter giveaway! I know, tis' the season! LOL... I am in a giving mood! We all know that Shea Moisture is on sale BOGO 50%off this week at Walgreen's stores so of course I stay stocked up. I have also found a couple target stores who did a price match (try it, you may be surprised!)

In addition to what I already had, I have added a few other items and will do a giveaway. So here it goes... As for my facebook page you have to like it by clicking HERE and post on the wall why you want to win the Shea Moisture giveaway! As, for the Twitter contest, you have to follow me on twitter by clicking HERE and tweet @NaturallyEJHalo with why you want to win the Shea Moisture giveaway!

The contests will go on until my moms birthday Saturday November 19, 2011 at 11:59pm. On, Sunday November 20, 2011 I will announce the winners on my facebook and twitter pages! Let me know if you have any questions!

Prizes:

Facebook: There will be 3 winners!
1- Thickening Shampoo and Thickening Growth Milk
2- Curl Enhancing Smoothie
3-Deep Treatment Masque

Twitter: There will be 3 winners!
1-Lavender and Wild Orchid Body scrub and Bath, body & massage oil
2-AntiBreakage Masque
3-Olive and Green Tea body scrub


Good luck everyone!!
~Ebbieツ

Hey guys just checking in!

I have been beyond busy since the wedding, but I just wanted to check in with everyone and say hello! Things have been going great and I miss blogging, so here I come with some more treats! I am close to 1,000 subbies on youtube and as soon as I cross that threshold I will be hosting a 1,000 subbie giveaway on my youtube channel with at least 1 giveaway for every 100 subscribers that I have so there will be at least 10 things given away and I will have at least 10 winners! Stay tuned for that. In the mean time, here is the latest video. I posted this video last week after getting my hair pressed.

Until next time
~Mrs. Drayton ツ

Wedding recap and my first blog post as Mrs. Drayton

Hello everyone,

Life has been so busy and amazing lately. The last time I checked in, I was preparing for my wedding. I am now Mrs. Drayton!


I am going to try to give you the best recap of the wedding I can. Please consider the fact that I have just returned home from a fabulous honeymoon to London for 4 days and Dubai for 3 days...After adding in over 14 hours of flights each way to and from our home airport, we can all understand that I am still a bit exhausted.

My bridesmaids, family and close friends were nothing short of amazing! I really love and appreciate each and every one of them. The weekend got of to a slow, but fun start. People arrived in town and we hung and had a great time the night before the wedding.





The morning of the wedding, I was calm for the most part... Besides stressing the seating chart and wanting to make sure everyone had a seat, I was cool as a fan. Most people want to see pics more than anything so I will just try to post pics and give a caption of what's in the pic, deal?

Since this is my Natural Hair blog, what better to talk about than my hair!!! First off, the person who was suppose to do my hair for the wedding ended up burning her hand 6 days before the wedding frying fish... (I know right?!?!) Thank goodness for Kimeche! She is my maid of honors hair stylist and came to the rescue. I had no idea what was going to be done with my hair and literally 2.5 hours before the wedding was when we started to attack the whole hair thing. She got me done in about 20 minutes... Fast and did a great job!!!


So the next three pics are the gifts that I got during the day and leading up to the wedding. The very first thing I opened was a beautiful tennis bracelet that I was so excited about. The second was a lovely pink face Movado watch that matched our wedding colors... I honestly was thankful and more than overjoyed as I headed over to the wedding venue thinking I had received everything I was going to get from my love.

After arriving at the wedding venue, getting completely dressed and about to line up to walk down the aisle, my maid of honor brought in one last box and said she was told to give it to me just before the wedding. I anxiously unwrapped and opened a lovely pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. I immediately took off my "something old" shoes that I planned to wear down the aisle, panicked to find something else I could use to replace my "something old" and put on my new red bottoms to come down the aisle to marry my man. The shoes were definitely a hit with me and got all of 10 minutes of wear.... Well, until they got stuck in the grass LOL... Those heels are something else! I just love a stiletto!!!





I was surprisingly not nervous and almost made it down the aisle without shedding a tear, but that was short lived when I laid eyes on my then fiancee... I burst out into an uncontrollable mix of emotions from that point. The weather was perfect, the day went great and I really can't express how thankful I am to have had so many of our dear family, friends and loved ones in attendance on our special day! We had about 300 people in attendance to the wedding and the reception and boy did we enjoy mixing and mingling with everyone!




During the ceremony, we did the unity sand, took our first communion together as a married couple and jumped the broom. All in all, the day was perfect and I am still very thankful and highly blessed!


After the ceremony, we danced the night away... After the red bottoms got stuck in the grass, I retired them for the night and ended up putting on my personalized converse along with my bridesmaids while we cut a rug the rest of the night and so I could be comfortable walking around as we thanked the guests... Below you will see a pic of me stepping out of the shoes after they got stuck and a pic of me and 6 of my 12 bridesmaids in our "Chuck Taylors". The other 6 ladies must have been dancing or at the bar :)



I guess I can end this post with pictures of the cakes. Our wedding cake was beautifully done by my moms favorite baker in the Charleston SC area. I showed her a picture of what I wanted and saw her masterpiece at the reception. I was very pleased. The grooms cake was done by my "Superwoman" Maid of Honor... Check out her facebook page if you are in the Columbia SC area. She made my husband the best cake ever, it was red velvet cake made for his alma mater The University of South Carolina Gamecocks....

Thanks to everyone out there who have wished us well, were there in mind, body and in spirit. We love and appreciate you all from the bottom of our hearts.. I will do a post on the honeymoon soon and then it will be back to hair stuff. I did want to share a little piece of my day with you all who have been so supportive!

~Mrs. Drayton~