Pretty painted paws

Last week at DJ's when you bought two OPI nail polishes you got a base and top coat for free! I bought 'Ate berries in the Canaries' and 'That's Hot! Pink'.

This is 'That's Hot! Pink' - delicious don't you think?

Hello savings...good bye shopping

I am on a self-imposed shopping ban.

For the next three months I am going to forgo shoes, bags, accessories, make-up and clothing to save money.

I don’t honestly think my shopping habit is out of control, but I made this decision with the hope of taking more control of my finances and to also try to wear and use items I already own, rather than buying new ones.

My wardrobe is stuffed full of things I don’t wear enough and whilst I know this isn’t an uncommon problem I feel like I need to stop contributing to it! Honestly, I could outfit the cast of gossip girl with cocktail dresses for a year and have dresses to spare.

Anyway, I have devised a couple of rules to help guide me through what is bound to be a challenging few months:

1. I can look and touch, but I am not allowed to buy. In other words window shopping and trying on are perfectly acceptable flirtations. Committing to a purchasing relationship is not. I mean it. ASOS I will probably look at you lustfully each week but you’ll not be seeing my credit card until June!
2. I can borrow or swap clothing, bags etc with my sister/mum/friends.
3. I am strictly under no circumstances allowed to purchase ANY nail polish as my collection is already pushing 50.
4. I am allowed to replace make-up items if they run out but this is the only circumstance under which I can purchase them.
5. I can break my ban if Zimmermann have one of their fabulous warehouse sales. However, if this does occur, I must continue my shopping ban for the month of June.
6. Items purchased as gifts for others are exempt from the ban (they are obviously not for me).
7. I am allowed to purchase material, patterns etc if I wish to sew something new but the costs associated with the sewing project must not exceed $100. I put this one in but the likelihood of actually doing it is slim.
8. Magazines are on the no-go list too.
9. Other expenses such as books, travel and socialising must be carefully watched so I don’t simply replace hot shoes with hard covers.
10. $50 a week will go into my Piggy bank for a treat when the three months is up.

The challenge starts tomorrow so wish me luck xx

New music, new love

The Boy posted this song to me and I fell in love with it immediately. He knows me so well. Apparently this poorly-named (in my opinion) band are from Manchester. I am excited to see if they have any more songs I fall instantaneously in love with. I predict that within 18 months they will be huge!

Of course, my predictions hold absolutely no value because, well, what do I know? But still, take a listen and feel the New Order-y vibe. There isn't really a video for it (yet again) but listen and fall in love anyway.

Melbourne you stole me heart again...and more of my money

I have mad love for this city

It’s Friday evening and I’m sitting in Brisbane’s Domestic Airport eagerly awaiting my flight to Melbourne. Some M&Ms accompanied by Grazia Magazine and a few Chapters of Northern Lights and the flight’s over. I stride into my best friends flailing arms as we both squeal with excitement.

As we make our way to the car the download of what’s been going on since we last saw each other begins. Bitchy friends, birthdays and dye jobs - I have missed not being able to do this like we used to when we lived together.

I change my gladiator flats to my black New Look wedges and we head into the city to Berlin Bar in Chinatown.

Now I’m not sure if I’ve spoken in detail about my love of Berlin and its history but let me tell you -Berlin Bar was right up my alley. To get inside we had to go upstairs and ring a doorbell where we were let in by a rather attractive foreign bartender…and what did we find once we entered?

An ode to a city that was once split in half. One side of Berlin Bar is fitted out to be ‘West’ Berlin -think Luxe cabaret setting and a decadent cocktail list - and the other side is decorated with bunk beds and army nets – essentially like an East German air-raid shelter or bunker.

We drank amazing cocktails and gossiped the night away, but the exhaustion of a long day finally began to have an affect so we drank up and headed home.

On Saturday morning we went to Vanilla Cafe at Oakleigh for a brunch of Eggs Benedict and coffee to fuel us before hitting the shops at Chadstone. One dress, a pair of shoes and a belt later and we moved on to Fitzroy for more shopping combined with some wandering and food.

The Vege Bar was our destination for ‘Dunch’ (my name for a [generally large] Lunch/Dinner combo meal). We both had the burritos. They were so a-h-maz-ing, we had to roll out of there! Thankfully, we had left our wandering to after Dunch so we attempted to walk off our tasty meal by taking in some of Fitzroy’s spectacular street art.

You already know I delight in street art.

Fitzroy’s street art is clearly some of the best in Melbourne. I don’t understand why more cities (read: Brisbane) can’t have street art initiatives like Melbourne. The streets would be much more beautiful. 

Just look at these examples:

Gorgeous

Pure admiration

It's Tricky

Told you so.

Saturday night.  

My beautiful bestie

We drank cider and bantered with our old housemate over the old school hip hop at Sista Bella, then found the cheapest drinks in Melbourne at the science lab themed The Croft Institute.

I would highly recommend both bars for a fun night out. Sista Bella is relaxed and a great place to start the evening off…the Croft Institute is a good place to keep it going!

Our evening ended with the demolition of a tube of Pringles and a long cab ride home. Surprisingly, despite our 4am bedtime, we all felt pretty good on Sunday morning. We had brunch at a café in Gleniris then skipped over to St Kilda to meet a friend of mine who has just returned to Australia after about 4 years overseas.

Cake on Ackland street, then a cheeky cider at The Vineyard ended my whirlwind weekend in Melbourne.

Luna Park at St Kilda

Hooray for Birthdays

Saturday night two of my girlfriends and I celebrated our 27th Birthday at Alloneword in the Valley. It was such a good night! Loads of our friends - new and old - showed up and we drank cocktails under the stars...here are some pics so you can be jealous.

Birthday Girls (unfortunately not the most flattering pic of me)

As you can see everyone looked pretty damn glamorous!

That's right, I'm only friends with good-looking people :-p

I have to say that Alloneword really was the perfect venue for us. It had awesome music, delicious mojitos and a really funky and relaxed atmosphere. We all had a fantastic evening and are now trying to think of excuses to organise more events that call for dressing up.

Alloneword courtyard - we filled it up pretty good!
P.S. I 'borrowed' this photo from their website,

See the beautiful mural? I told you I love Street Art - this place was heaven for me!

Look how caramel my hair is looking!

In other news I am sooooooooooooooo happy with my pink Birthday dress! It's from Cue and it was on sale for $99. BARGAIN! I got loads of comments on it which made me feel even more special wearing it. It is so bright and wearing it was lots of fun. I mean let's be honest - what girl doesn't like hot pink + frills? (that's a rhetorical question by the way). It also gave me affirmation that my decision to dye my hair darker was the right one as I think if I had worn this dress as a blonde I may have teetered close to looking like this:

Glamourous but not quite what I was going for...

 Anyway, I'm off to bed now...got to catch up on missed sleep from the weekend and continue reading this.

Nighty night xo

Another year older...

So on Monday, it was my Birthday and I somehow managed to score some great gifts just a few I'll mention are: this Mimco Bracelet/Cuff.

A love a good cuff

So sparkly!

This stunning Gorman scarf.

The photo does not do it justice.

This yummy Macarons Recipe Book

I am dying to make these Violet and White Chocolate ones.

Rose Macaroons...yum!

This is a photo of a little bit more of my stash...I feel like such a lucky girl and have so much love for all my friends and family!

A change in the h-air

Recently (I'm talking last Saturday) I made the decision to dye my hair from a fairly light blonde to a warmer light brown.

Basically, I've gone from this:

Blondy McBlonde

Multi-tonal blonde

To this:

The new 'do

I personally, really love it and have had some lovely comments on it so far but it is so dark I'm not used to it yet. (Sorry for the poor quality pics by the way - they were taken on my iphone!)

What do you think? Do you prefer light or dark?

My new love: Foster the People

A few months ago I became a little obsessed with Foster The People and their song 'Pumped up Kicks'.

A few weeks ago I heard their new song 'Helena Beat' and once again I immediately bought it off itunes. It has been playing on my iPhone and in my head pretty consistently ever since.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! There is no official video for the song yet but I found this on Youtube so you can at least see a nice picture while you listen.

La La Laneway

On Friday I finished work early to attend St Jerome's Laneway Festival in Brisbane. It is generally a smaller music festival with amazing bands and this year was no exception. I've been to the festival before but in my time overseas, it has gotten bigger and better, expanding to a new site with better facilities.

Laneway happened to be on a particularly humid day in Brisbane but despite the unbearable heat, it was one of my favourite festival experiences in recent times. Don't you think my friend Char and I look great despite the humidity?

My afternoon started out with a little bit of Beach House and The Antlers and then moved on to the much hyped, all girl band from LA - Warpaint. I find their music quite mesmerizing and although you can't really see it in the below photo they also have great style.

Warpaint

Char and I at Warpaint. Note I am wearing my favourite headband. You can NEVER own enough leopard print.

After Warpaint we headed over to the Main stage to see Two Door Cinema Club. They were so energetic and fun that we danced and sweated our way through their set with huge grins on our faces!

Two Door Cinema Club

See I told you - huge grins while dancing!

Yeasayer were next on our timetable plan and they were phenomenal. To me their set felt quite atmospheric and sounded beautiful.

Yeasayer

Next up was one of my highlights - Australian band Cloud Control. I have missed seeing them a couple times recently (at their own gig and at Sunset Sounds) so I was beyond excited to finally see them live - even if it meant cramming myself into an alleyway with a couple of hundred sweating festival goers and having my arse groped by drunken fools. It was so worth it. They played an amazing set, pulling out a cover of Kid Cudi's 'Pursuit of Happiness' and breaking into Butthole Surfers 'Pepper' halfway through a song. The sound was great and I had a pretty good view too!

Wonderful, wonderful Cloud Control

As the evening wore on the heat began to take its toll on us. Foals followed Cloud Control, but we decided to have a little sit down during their set, to listen and conserve some energy for the Jezabels who unfortunately were my biggest disappointment of the night. They sounded great but they just weren't loud enough! Whilst they played on the same stage as Cloud Control, they didn't really own it to the same extent and the audience was quite restless and moving around a lot which made it difficult to try and appreciate the band. :-(

Cut Copy closed the festival, playing some of their new album alongside some old favourites. It took them a while to get it together but once they started the whole crowd went with them; dancing and singing under the stars...the perfect (lane)way to end a great day!

Mission completed

My eyes wandered over her gently curves and glowing tan. At that moment I knew the search was over. I had found my sole-mate…

I have forever been on the hunt for the perfect tan wedge and indeed I’ve flirted with investing in a few potentials, but they were never quite right for me. They didn’t fit properly or I didn’t like the colour, one was too wide, another not wide enough...I had all but given up when on a fateful day in January I walked past Payless Shoes.

There she was, sitting pretty in the window.

‘Try them on’ said my sister A. 

‘It can’t hurt.’ 

Little did she know the pain my feet had endured on their 2 year “Tan Wedge Heel Mission”.

‘I suppose there’s only one way to find out…’ my voice drifted off. I was already imagining us together. Prancing around the office paired with my Navy Cue frock, sipping cocktails with my girlfriends and dominating dancefloors everywhere.

‘Come on then’ A said, dragging me into the store.

It wasn’t quite the place I’d imagined finding my shoe crush. It smelled vaguely of rubber and lacked the enticing atmosphere of the shoe shops I more regularly frequent…but I soldiered on.

Slipping my feet into the size 8 I felt like Cinderella.

‘They fit like a glove!’ I cried with joy.

I stood up and walked a few paces. They didn’t exactly feel like slippers but they were comfy and they made my legs look nothing short of amazing. I walked a little more and wiggled my toes. Puuurfect.

‘Buy them’ A said, ‘They are $69 and they look twice the price!’.

I tucked the shoe box under my arm, whipped out my savings card and ran to the cash register where I was greeted with the words every woman loves to hear…'alright there? You know if you buy another pair they’re half price?’

I did the maths in my head and practically started to hyperventilate. I could get the same shoes in black for $35?! ARE YOU SERIOUS? That’s $104 for two pairs of dream wedges!?? WHERE ARE THEY?!??! I WANT THEM NOOOOOOOOOOOW!

Of course, I didn’t say this out loud but simply responded with a much more, albeit less fiscally responsible ‘Why not?’.

And why not indeed...threesomes can be fun.

Simple, classic & versatile = my perfect match