I'm contestant #6
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I'm contestant #6 Buy Tickets Use my name (Megan) as a promocode - it helps me raise scholarship money! Donate to the Children's Miracle Network I'm $75 away from my fundraising goal!
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My very first Miss America local is happening in two weeks! I'm incredibly nervous as I'm getting ready for the final touches of my wardrobe and practicing my talent. But there is something different about this pageant than all my others. I'm in this one for the experience, the fun of competing, and to push myself out of my comfort zone. This pageant not only has a talent portion but has some of the toughest on-stage and regular interview questions I've ever heard of. This pageant will have so many more people I know watching me. I've expanded my pageant community over the year I've competed and the chances of embarrassing myself have grown as well.
Despite that, I'm approaching my upcoming competition with a sense of "chill". While it would be amazing to win, I am so content with just experiencing the Miss America system which has already actively been involved in the community before the competition. They have incredibly involved directors; which someone as inexperienced as myself in the pageant scene is, really needs. I've gone to Seattle Children's Hospital for a tour, watched Miss America with my current local queen and director, as well as had a tea party. For the first time my friends and family are having fun WITH me as I prepare to compete. I'm not saying these things are unique to the Miss America system but this is the first time I personally have experienced these things. It has taught me a lot about what I can do and how I can better involve myself as a titleholder. So when I walk on stage, October 24th, I won't be at my physically best shape, my hair and makeup might not be perfect, my wardrobe will be unique but it will all be me. I will walk out on stage and be myself and not worry about the judges and worry about winning. I'm doing this pageant for myself, and that is incredibly exciting. Tickets: http://mekcpageant2016.shindigg.com/ Children's Miracle Network Fundraiser: http://www.missamericaforkids.org/Donate/missmegankelly Here is my official page for my Children's Miracle Network fundraiser to compete in the Miss East King County pageant! The official goal for each girl at a local pageant is to raise $100 and my goal is to raise $200 because I'm not asking for any donations for myself this time around. Please consider supporting and donating just $10 for the children. I've appreciated all your support this past year in pageantry and now that I have used your sponsorship dollars well and don't require more sponsorship for this pageant, I'd like any portion to be used for sick children.
I understand that when it comes to donating money you want to make sure it goes into the right hands. I've put the links below to pages full of information to show you where all the money will be going. Links: Fundraiser Page Children's Miracle Network Miss America Miss America For Kids Miss East King County Like many bloggers out there, I am really into beauty blogs and vlogs. I cannot get enough of how well people put themselves together. I've always struggled with how to be fashionable, confident looking, and everyday glamorous. None of those things are actually necessary in my life to be successful but boy do they make life more interesting (and instagram worthy...). Recently, I've been stalking my favorite fashion bloggers while looking for trendy interview wear and overall more 'adult' clothing. I've really come into myself this past year and I don't want to keep being that girl in sweats. I love wearing "real" clothes, getting dressed up, and all that comes with it. While scrolling threw Emma Wo's blog Aloha Babe (she might be my favorite Miss USA contestant this year) I realized that despite my admiration for her, I can't use most of the products or afford most of the clothes she can. She's a normal (yet more fabulous) American. What troubled me was how that made me feel. While reading her blog I was inspired fashionably but felt insecure about my own financial shortcomings. It made me insecure about how I was ever going to live a vegan and ethical fashionable life when all of these amazing clothes are mostly not ethically made. **I love Emma and all of the work that she does, this is not an inditement against Emma but rather a reflection on how easily I can let my self-esteem go because of my own frustration and desires.** Then there's the make-up. Make-up is a huge frustration of mine because I don't have the money to keep trying and ordering vegan makeup off the internet with the hopes that it will work for me. Of course, I could return it but then I would feel wasteful all the same because someone else couldn't buy it and use it. My constant battle in finding vegan makeup that works for me has lead to some accidental on purpose non-vegan purchases - all products were cruelty free - but has lead to some major guilt when putting on my favorite looks. Ultimately, what makes me feel the most uncomfortable with the social media side of beauty is the power of consumption. It all feels excessive because I don't need a million lip colors, I don't need to keep on trying things when I have things that work. I don't want to feel persuaded to try products that don't fit with my ethical standards. Yet when I scroll through instagram I feel this way. I want that blush. I want that nail polish. I WANT those clothes. What had started off as a scroll to find inspiration ended up with a scroll through self-consciousness. I became aware off all that I supposedly LACKED from my wardrobe and make-up table. While I lost awareness of those who have far less. I am incredibly blessed to have food to eat, a job, a degree, prospects for the future, good friends, a loving boyfriend, and some of the most amazing family members a girl could ask for. I have found and created opportunities I didn't know existed. I am able to create change not just for myself, anymore, but for my entire community. So why do I feel like I LACK anything? That nagging drive to consume driven by my own social media use is unhealthy; not just for myself but for the entire world because it creates waste and socio-economic divides. With this realization, I'm going to choose to be a different kind of blogger. I will continue to talk about beauty, fitness, fashion, pageantry, and the environment but I will create a message and a path that is accessible to ALL. To create change is not to be exclusionary. My goal is to help spread self-confidence without the drive to consume. While I can't get rid of consumption (we've all got needs and not enough products to DIY everything) I hope to find affordable and ethical products that we can all use. I hope to find products in stores we can test out. I hope I can prove to myself and others that it's possible to live this kind of life without thousands of dollars and free access to everything. If you are a vegan, fair trade, low environmental impact, community building company, blogger, youtuber please contact me as i would love to work with you in creating change.What a weekend! This weekend the new Miss America, Betty Cantrell, was crowned and on that same day I found out that I will be competing in the Miss America system! I applied a couple of months ago to the Miss East King County pageant when I found out that this year would be last to compete in this system. I've heard more good and a little bad about the America system but I'm overwhelmed by their dedication to their community and service that coerced me into applying for another competition. If you remember, my friend Tawny competed in this pageant last year. It was her experience that influenced me to go for it!
On Sunday I not only met Miss East King County-Ashley Cranston this weekend but our director, another contestant, and got all the details of the system and our pageant while we watched Miss America 2015. This system is quite different than USA and even Earth but I love that they are wanting to modernize and I love all the events that will help be get more involved with all aspects of my community! I am incredibly nervous about this system, purely because of talent. I have an idea (which won't be spoken of until AFTER I have competed) but I think it'll be good because it's quirky, interesting, and funny if I pull it off properly. Unfortunately, my interview gown was destroyed in the washing (a white dress with a big black stain on it that looks like a burn) and I don't have an on stage bikini... Wardrobe problems aside, I think I will grow even more from this experience. With the opportunity for scholarship money, something my other pageants hadn't offered, I think this is a great once in a lifetime chance (literally only this year). So please support me in this and I will keep you updated on all things pageantry as I get ready to compete! The competition is only a month away so big things are going to happen! Everyone wants new clothes for the semester but affording them is another story. Finding affordable clothes that ethically made and create minimal environmental damage is a whole other story. My solution? Thrift shops. By buying used clothes we divert waste from landfills, we get cheaper prices while lowering the demand for new toxic clothes to made. When I do buy new I try to buy as clean as possible which is not easy for a college student to do! So I mainly buy everything thrift. Yesterday, I went to Crossroads Trading Company in U-district and found some amazing deals! For $116 I bought: shorts, jeans, 2 thick cardigans, button-up, and a trench coat! The brands I found were: LA Made, American Apparel, Madewell, and Knot Sisters. While, other than American Apparel, I have absolutely no idea which brands have what kind of reputation and their original prices. This is the most I've ever boughten because I normally can't find anything I want and yesterday I found a ton! In addition to what I already own, I am pretty much done with fall shopping with the exception of some leggings, a coat, gloves, and some boots. I do have to say my finds aren't the type of clothes you'd expect to find at a typical thrift store which is the benefit of trendy consignment shops! Where do you all like to go shopping? I also made a youtube on it! let me know what you like better, the written word or a video?My second favorite vegan restaurant and staple of the vegan community in the PNW is closing it's doors September 15, 2015! Here's my plea as to why you should eat there while you can!
http://www.pizzapivegan.com/ My very first youtube video all about my first 100% Pure Haul and what I think of all of the products I bought! Please follow my youtube channel as I plan to link my favorite topics from vegan beauty to creating an eco-friendly lifestyle from my blog to the youtube channel!
After hearing much hype about the vegan cuts box and my own love for Petit Vour I've decided to get both of their subscriptions! I have always loved watching comparison videos (mine is coming soon!) and decided to give it a go myself!
Petit Vour: This month the box contained:
I am most excited about the facial scrub because I have a feeling it's going to work like some of my favorite exfoliators from Korea that just peeled the gunk right off your face. At first scent it's alright and the jojoba beads might be a little rough on my face. I'm currently on the lookout for a great exfoliator other than my brush that I use for washing my face so I'm crossing my fingers that this is a success. Next the Juara serum, this was the very first thing I put my hands and opened in this box and with all this serum hype, I can definitely understand why now! I can feel it working as my skin tightens just a little when I put this on. The next morning I woke up with visibly better looking skin. Finally, the Yarok products and the Modern Mineral product are fun but not something that get my blood going. Since my hair salon is my pageant sponsor, I have a TON of hair products that I love and am not looking for new ones. I was excited to use the curl cream since I have debated on buying that from the Petit Vour store. I LOVE Modern Minerals products and the only reason I'm not so excited for this glow powder is because I'm not sure how I want to use it... Overall, I consider this a great box because within the month I've tried over half the products. Normally I just find the samples lying around my house and try them then and have no clue what month I got them in. Vegan Cuts:
If honesty rang true, I'd have to say that I completely forgot about my Vegan Cuts box in my excitement about other things going on in life. That being said I'm pretty excited about a few of these products. The GlamNatural face cream is a hefty sample! It looks small, in it's cute little jar, but you don't need a lot of this face cream to thoroughly cover your face. I'm definitely keeping this in my gym bag! Next, the dry shampoo is something I'm really interested in since I just cut my hair short and don't want to start washing it more frequently. The Harvey Prince perfume is something I've gotten multiple times before from Petit Vour, so I wasn't excited, this smell also smells unpleasant with my body composition... I just bought a body scrub so I am also not as excited as I normally would be about the Kaeng Rang exfoliator, but I'm normally pumped about them! Finally the Melanie Mills lip gloss is probably the best thing in this box. I constantly change up my lip color and the shade is just perfect for me. Overall, this is a good beauty box. I really like the products they chose it's just that the majority of the products I already have well stocked making it less exciting than when I first started getting beauty boxes. Who wins? Am I allowed to call a tie? Value wise, these box are both worth the money in products provided. Vegan Cuts did better with providing new brands that I had never heard of, which is why I get beauty boxes, but Petit Vour provided more products that I tried right away than Vegan Cuts. Truth be told, today I used the Juara serum, GlamNatural face cream, Harvey Prince perfume, Yarok curl cream, and gleam lipgloss. They both win, which is pretty exciting to me since I've had my share of disappointing beauty boxes...
Most importantly, as I finish up the second half of 23, I hope to be even happier and spend even more time with my friends and family. Being an independent, strong, modern woman is fantastic but it can be lonely striving and working after your goals by yourself. The nights in with your girlfriends, breakfast with your dad, and dates all contribute to a better you, even if you're not creating your master plan to success. |
MeganMiss Earth Pacific Northwest 2015 Archives
October 2015
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