Sweethearts and Celebrations

Back yet again... this time for good!

2011-08-18T00:33:00.004+10:00

Hello all!
Yes I am back... and I promise this time I am back for good!
You'll have noticed that I've been taking a break from blogging these past few months. I guess I just wanted to concentrate on the remainder of my studies, and also with the changes going on at Chictopia, I just wasn't feeling up to blogging for awhile.

But now I am definitely ready to start blogging again! I have been meaning to get back into it for more than a few weeks now, but I tend to procrastinate, and also, a lot of things have been happening these past few months. The most major thing was that I passed all my uni subjects, which meant that I finally finished my Bachelor of Arts degree (with majors in Art History and Cultural Studies) which has been dragging on for quite a few years now! I even had my formal graduation on Monday, which was fun in parts but not so fun in others... (a separate post about that to come.)

So now I am currently looking for full time work, as I want to take time off from studying (after studying for 17 years in a row!). I've been applying for lots of things but no luck yet. I do want to continue studying at some point in the future, though I don't know what yet. I do miss seeing my friends at uni and will miss the atmosphere though.

Meanwhile... my closet has been expanding and is now overflowing into my tiny bedroom. Even though I've been buying new things, I've also been going through a bit of a style drought where I'm not really feeling very inspired or fashionable, which is also why I haven't taken any outfit pics in awhile. I am currently trying to cull my wardrobe and refine my style.

As I mentioned, I haven't taken any outfit pics recently, and have a lot of older outfits which you guys haven't seen yet, I'll still be uploading those so it might be awhile until you see some really recent shots!

Just to leave you with some oldish pics- awhile ago, my friends and I decided to dress up and have a picnic at Hanging Rock. Yes, the real Hanging Rock which was the basis of the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, written by Joan Lindsay and also the film adaption from 1975. We decided to dress in our best 1900s inspired garb and cavort around the rock formations for a few hours- and got some pretty cool photos from it!
these were taken by my bestie using the iPhone app Instagram (i'm sure she won't mind me putting them up on here cos they turned out great!)

Photo of me up near the summit. Ironically, even though I brought my DSLR to take photos, this quick shot turned out to be one of the best photos of the day as the wind caught my skirt perfectly and the vintage effect is awesome!

Lovely picnic on the grass. So much delectable food!! My feet look odd from the angle in the photo though!

Schweppes Agrum + plastic wine glasses + parasol = great photo!

Anyway, thank you for reading!! I know my long absence will have cost me some readers, which is why this time round I'm going to dedicate myself to this blog and update regularly. Also thank you to any new followers who started reading even with the lack of posts recently!
You'll hear from me again very shortly... Hope to hear from you soon!

On top of this I ain't ever gonna understand

2011-04-07T22:06:00.004+10:00

Hello! Quick update from me :)
Oh wow, these photos are old, my hair has grown a lot since then!
Outfit worn to... I can't even remember. Probably going out with some friends or something! Wearing: a floral Cotton On dress ($10, although the quality is not that great... i only wore the dress a few times and the material was already fading and pilling... at least it's cute though!), thrifted cream blazer $2, vintage leather brown bag, ripped tights, ROC combat boots from Ebay, originally from wantedshoes.com.au

I remember taking these photos... surprisingly I only ended up taking about 10 shots and they turned out really well, in terms of pose and also camera lighting! This rarely happens even though I use my DSLR, as even though the shots look good on the screen, when you upload them to the computer sometimes they can be blurry and a lot darker than what is on the camera screen.
Another thing, just recently I realised that my method of attempting to take photos with a sharp foreground and blurry background has been a bit misguided. I know you're supposed to use Av mode and use the widest Fstop but for some reason I thought you were supposed to zoom out as much as possible. Must have read something wrong- you're supposed to zoom in instead! So I have been taking lots of photos of random things in my house very close up :P and the shots are turning out quite well!

Enough from me. Please comment and i'll be sure to check your blog out! xoxo
Title: Last Nite by the Strokes.

Moomba

2011-04-03T21:24:00.006+10:00

Hey again :)
How's everyone going? Still really behind on all my posts hehe. But I have heaps lined up for you! Also, I decided i'm going to do some more inspiration posts, have been lurking around Tumblr and there are so many pretty pictures! (Might get a Tumblr too, we'll see what happens...)
Anyway tomorrow is the start of week 6 of uni. So the semester is already almost half over! Scary. And did I mention it's the last semester of my Bachelor of Arts degree? FINALLY!

A few weeks ago it was Moomba in Melbourne. Moomba is a festival that happens yearly in Melbourne over the Labour Day long weekend, and it's held along the Yarra river with lots of music, rides and games, and entertainment.
This year I went on Sunday to watch the Birdman Rally for the first time, the Birdman Rally is where a whole bunch of people create crazy costumes and contraptions in order to jump/ fly as far as they can off a platform into the Yarra River- it's in order to raise money for charity, and it's really funny to watch!! Unfortunately I was too far away to take good photos and couldn't find any on the internet!
This was my outfit for the day: a really thin playsuit from Glassons because the weather was sweltering! The playsuit was only $5 because the seam was coming undone near the zip and it had a button missing, but that's easily fixed! I just love the cut out back. Brown belt (stolen from my mum's closet :P ), thrifted straw hat $2.50, thrifted gold Bloch flats $8, Wittner tan cross body bag from ebay about $20 including postage, and a star necklace from Japan, given to me from my bestie :D

Here are some photos I took while walking around the river and Birrarung Marr. Honestly, Melbourne weather is insane. Around noon, while we were watching the Birdman Rally it was incredibly sunny and sweaty (really glad I bought a hat.) But a few hours later it began to get really chilly and windy, and it started pouring down rain! Luckily by that time I was at the train station, but I had to get Dan to pick me up from the train station because it was raining so much :P
The only ride I went on was the Sky Flyer and it

Plastic seats in the heat... really don't envy the people who were the next to sit in our seats for the ride. Haha, ew...

whee!
It has always been my dream to win one of these giant Kermit the frog toys. Unfortunately, I am horrible at these games!

Daylight Savings ended today... it was completely dark at 7pm. Winter is coming... very sad! I miss Summer!
Well hope your enjoyed the photos! Looking forward to your comments :D

Falls Festival and Tasmania 2010-11

2011-03-27T23:32:00.008+11:00

Hellooo! How's everything going? As promised, here are some photos from my short 10 day trip to Tasmania over New Years Eve. I went with quite a few friends to Falls Festival in Marion Bay which lasted from 29 Dec to 1 Jan, but the few days before and after the festival Dan and I drove around Tasmania and stayed in several national parks!! These photos are late, but I already feel nostalgic for Summer and the holidays... sigh! Well one month of Autumn is almost already over, the year's going by so quick!
Falls Festival (A music and arts festival) was amazing, the first overnight festival i'd been to. So many amazing bands! Camping was great too, we didn't stay in any motels at all, it was tents and blow up mattresses for the whole time! I've missed camping out in the bush ever since I left Scouts/Venturers.

On the Spirit of Tasmania, watching the other Spirit of Tasmania go by!
This gorgeous conservatory in the main city park in Launceston.
We stayed in Ben Lomond National Park for one night, and the next day we hiked up a mountain. Note that the sign says 1.5 hour return hike... well we had been hiking for about 1.5 hours in ONE direction and we were nowhere near the summit! :( We were quite cranky by that time so we went back down again!
Amazing scenery during the hike, there wasn't a clear path either so I was really glad I wore my hiking boots. Unfortunately I forgot to put on sunscreen and so had a burnt nose for the rest of the trip!!
Packing the car before driving to the music Festival. Fit 5 people and tents, chairs, clothes and food for 4 days into a tiny 4WD is no easy feat, let me tell you! We had shopping bags on our knees the whole way there!
A sea of cars and tents at Falls!

The weather was fantastic! Being Tasmania, I expected it to be cold and raining for the time we were there but it was great! Sunny but not too hot during the day, even thought the nights got freezing! (Though it's not too bad when you have lots of alcohol and body heat in the crowds to warm you up!)

A friend's interesting way of sneaking alcohol into the festival... A lot of work for only a couple of shots but it was the subterfuge that was the fun part! :P
Fun times :P
The entrance to "The Village," a crazy section of the festival with comedy acts, circus acts, burlesque and more!
The Living End ALWAYS put on an amazing energetic performance. One of the best live bands I reckon!
Possibly taken while sitting on Daniel's shoulders during the Living End. I think i'm just really uncoordinated because every time I climbed up on his shoulders I could barely stay on, and had to grab other random people so that I didn't fall off... haha!
Marion Bay Beach, lovely!
Angus and Julia Stone on the main stage.
Best friends! :)

Paul Kelly! Definitely the most engaging + singalong performance of the whole festival! :)
The highlight of Falls Festival for me- Interpol, one of my most favourite bands ever! It was worth all the sweat and bruises from being in the mosh pit being attacked by guys twice my size...
Interpol- LOVELOVELOVE.
The Klaxons, playing after Midnight on New Years Eve!
So much fun... I definitely want to go back next year, or at least visit some more music festivals during the year!

Straight after Falls Festival, Dan and I wanted to stay in the Freycinet National Park near Wineglass Bay but the camping was completely booked out. So we had to drive for another hour to the Douglas Apsley National Park. After we got there we had to carry out tent and everything to the camp ground because you couldn't drive directly into it but it was worth it! There was this absolutely gorgeous water hole nearby, and every time we went there it was almost completely empty, hardly any tourists. So we practically had the whole place to ourselves!
The place was so lovely that we decided to stay there for about 4 nights! :)
Like an oasis! (Also, it was good being able to finally have some sort of a wash seeing as we hadn't gone anywhere near a shower for about four days due to being at Falls Festival. Haha!)
One day we drove to Freycinet again to visit Wineglass Bay. The lookout onto Wineglass Bay, one of the top 10 beaches in the world I think.
The steep 1 hour hike down to Wineglass Bay was worth it :)
After Falls finished, Dan and I split up with our friends to road trip on our own. A few of our friends were also planning on staying for a few more days but they couldn't all fit into the car as well, so they went off by themselves, and we told them we'd be heading up around the East Coast of Tasmania. By the way, hardly any of us had mobile phone reception for the whole time we were in Tassie! (Only those who were with Telstra had coverage. It was sort of annoying while we were at the festival because if we lost anyone they'd have to wander around by themselves for ages or wait back at our campsite!) So we couldn't communicate at all. So it was a major shock when Daniel and I drove into Bicheno, the nearest town to where we were staying, and we randomly bumped into our friends who had gotten there that morning! Really fortunate and a major coincidence- so we spent the day with them at the beach :)
Our last night in Tasmania, we stayed in Narawntapu National Park. The beach was so empty, it was just kilometres of beautiful, isolated beach.
The tide was out so there were these tiny little crabs everywhere!!

My attempt at a Dragonball Z style Hadouken using sand... :P Dan and I literally took about 50 photos of ourselves doing this... lucky there was no one around watching us!
Playing in the sand dunes...
Going on a nature walk and about to hike up to Archer's Knob :P
View!

So that's it... hope you enjoyed looking at the pics! Can't wait to do it all over again some time! :) One of the best recent experiences of my life! More outfit photos to come soon dearies.

aaand i'm back!!

2011-03-18T01:49:00.004+11:00

Oh hello again!
Argh. I know I say this every time, but i'm sorry for my absence!!
I'm just settling into my FINAL semester of uni so things have been a bit stressful, but then again it's probably only going to get worse once the assignments start rolling in!

So anyway I guess i'll get to the point and post some outfit photos. I actually have a lot lined up, quite a few are from last year.
Summer is over yet it hardly felt like Summer to me!
This is an outfit from last year, actually I think it was what I wore for the AFL (Aussie Rules Football) Grand Final in September! Funny story actually, my friend Kate and I have zero interest in football, but on Grand Final day she suggested we go to a local pub to watch the game in order to be "more Australian." So we walked to a pub near her house, but me being me my outfit wasn't at all fitting for an afternoon at the pub spent drinking beer and watching footy, especially when everyone else was kitted up in their football shirts and wearing thongs while shouting at the television!
So we wandered into the pub feeling very skeptical, the bartender took one look at us and demanded to see some ID. Fair enough, neither of us look particularly old and we were dressed a bit out of place. We got some beers and found a place to sit down. We had only been sitting there for another 10 minutes (attempting to watch the game but not really caring) when yet another staff member walked by, looked at us and again immediately demanded to see some ID. Argh!! Really?? By that time we had had enough and so finished our beers (I don't even like beer!!) and left the pub to sit in a nearby playground and play on the swings for the next two hours. Whee!

Wearing: grey ASOS dress, ASOS heart tights, vintage grey leather shoes, vintage Faigen bag, grey hair clip which my friends bought for me from their trip to South East Asia!
I don't often wear grey..

Anyway, because I love you, my readers, I'm posting a sneak peek of some of the photos i'm going to put up in my next post, which are photos from my trip to Tasmania over New Years Eve!! Dan and I went for about 10 days, leaving Melbourne on the 26th Dec, and from 29 Dec- 1 Jan we were at Marion Bay with a bunch of our friends who also made the trip over, for Falls Festival! The first overnight music festival i've been to. It was excellent!
Looking out onto beautiful Wineglass Bay!!
This amazing waterhole in one of the national parks we stayed in.
The Klaxons playing on New Years Eve! Amazing!

So hope you enjoyed the pics, heaps more to come in my next post! xo

Gorgeous shoes :)

2011-03-02T22:31:00.006+11:00

Dear readers, i'm sorry if i'm spamming your blog post feed at the moment, just wanted to show you all the last pair of shoes for the Style Tread competition!
I know it must be a bit frustrating if you've been waiting for me to post something again and then I just start randomly posting a whole bunch of shoes, but I assure you i'll be posting a lot more very soon, you won't have to wait long, promise!

So these shoes are the amazing tapestry covered Officers, from Mollini. http://www.styletread.com.au/officers-black.html

These shoes seriously stand out. Love the contrast of the old fashioned floral tapestry fabric with the super high platform stiletto. :P (Although I honestly don't know if i'd be able to walk in them without tripping over haha!) I just love floral prints and tapestry- I think i'm a bit of a grandma! Anyway these are super sweet and sexy and I'd probably wear them with an LBD. $179.95

So there you have it, that's all of the shoes i'm going to spam you with. :P Check out the shoes at styletread.com.au, they have an amazing selection of shoes, wish I could afford them all!
Will be up and posting again shortly! xoxoxo

Shoes for the competition!

2011-03-02T22:23:00.003+11:00

This is another pair of my fave shoes from StyleTread- as this quick post is for their Shoe Cure competiton!

For this entry i've chosen the Dhala heels from RMK in the Mushroom colour. http://www.styletread.com.au/dhala-mushroom.html How cute are these shoes?

The colour is just perfect and the fringe and buckle just tie it all together. Even though it's like a loafer, the shape and style isn't dowdy at all. I can imagine wearing these with floral dresses and chunky cardigans! They look really comfy too. $139.95

Hello again! (and shoes!!)

2011-03-02T22:06:00.004+11:00

Hey everyone! I'm so sorry I haven't posted in about two months. Oh dear!
I want to say thanks to all the people who've read the blog or started following me since my last post.

I promise I'll update with a proper post soon, just wanted to post a couple of entries on here to the StyleTread $3000 Shoe Cure competition! It's the chance to win 12 pairs of shoes, one every month, from online retailer Style Tread. Amazing!! They stock heaps of well known brands like Windsor Smith, Mollini, RMK, I Love Billy, etc.
Anyway i'm always finding out about these competitions last minute! Anyone from Australia, hurry up and enter now! As it closes TONIGHT (2nd March)at 11.59pm. So there's less than two hours left. It's really easy to enter and you can get up to 10 entries. Haha, I really am cutting it close!!

So this is one of my favourite pairs of shoes from StyleTread, the Minka Black by EOS. http://www.styletread.com.au/minka-black.html Aren't they amazing?

Gorgeous smooth leather on a cute lace up ankle boot- two of my favourite things in shoes. Plus the heel isn't too high and is thick so it's easy to walk in. These would match with pretty much everything in my wardrobe... I'd love to wear these with tapered cuffed trousers and a striped shirt! $199.

I never win any competitions, but entering this was quite fun because I got to check out all the beautiful shoes. Anyway now I'm feeling a bit dejected as even though I am a crazy shoeaholic with I think over 70 pairs of (mostly secondhand!) shoes, I really cannot afford any of the shoes on the website! Haha! Which is why i'd love to win... :P
xoxo

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

2010-12-24T16:29:00.004+11:00

Hi everybody! Ohhh I feel so bad for not posting anything in so long!! You know how it is, stressing out with the end of the uni semester, and then stressing about my 21st birthday + party, and now it's almost Christmas!! But I really want to thank everybody for sticking with me this far, because i've just checked my dashboard and I now have 100 followers! Wow!! I really am so excited! Thank you all so much! I'm really surprised that people still decided to start following my blog even though i've been absent for so long!! :)
I've actually got sooo many outfit photos and things to talk about, it might be awhile until i'm truly up to date. I've got so much to share with you all! I'm so excited that it's the end of the year! I actually turned 21 a couple of weeks ago on the 6th of December. I had an awesome birthday party at my house, where I hired this gigantic jumping castle! Everyone loved it! It was great for taking photos too.
Wow, Christmas is tomorrow. I'm actually going to go to Daniel's house soon for his family's Christmas eve wigilia dinner, as he is half Polish. And tomorrow i'm just going to Dan's house again for lunch and then having dinner with my family. What are your plans??
And then, on the 26th... Dan and I are going to Tasmania! :) I've never been there before. We're going on the Spirit of Tasmania ship so Daniel can take his car. I hope I don't get seasick!! We're going to Falls Festival at Marion Bay with a whole bunch of friends from the 29th-1st, which is going to be great fun! One of my fave bands, Interpol, is headlining which is exciting. I've seen them play live once before and they are fantastic :) And it'll be fantastic with all my friends there with me! Just gotta think about ways to smuggle alcohol into the festival ;) haha! So until the festival starts we're going to be camping and bumming around Hobart. And we're not leaving Tasmania until the 5th January so we have a few days after the festival ends to continue camping and checking out the scenery! We haven't gone camping in ages, can't wait... :)

So this is an outfit I wore several months ago, I think it was when I went with my friend to see a band one of her friends was in. You can't beat a floral dress + patterned tights + lace up boots :D One of my favourite clothing combinations! I love the cut out back of the dress.
Wearing: Don't Ask Amanda dress from ebay, Bardot blazer, Kmart tights, ROC boots from ebay, thrifted leather bag, thrifted gold necklace and hair bow.

Okay well I'm in a bit of a rush so that's all from me for now... Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This will be the last post from me for the year, sorry it isn't very festive but I will definitely be posting a lot more after I come back from Tasmania!! :P Looking forward to your comments and thoughts!!xoxo!

,

It starts to feel like a barricade to keep us away... it kind of does

2010-10-04T21:55:00.007+11:00

Aaand the mid semester holidays are over :( On the plus side, only 4 more weeks of uni classes left!
The holidays went too quickly, but I did enjoy last week! Had a catch up with two of my best friends on Monday evening, eating pizza, gossiping, watching random stuff on Foxtel and watching the new Harry Potter trailer! I can't wait for it!! :D On Thursday I had a fun shopping day introducing one of the girls to the thrifty joys of Savers, and she actually enjoyed it! Went to a friend's 21st on Friday night and Saturday was the AFL grand final... which, although I have zero interest in football, lead to hilarious outcomes on my part. But more about that next time. I have so many outfit photos to catch up on!
I wore this to uni a few weeks ago. I do quite enjoy wearing all black, so chic. Wearing the hat that day wasn't such a good idea though, as it was windy and I had to keep holding onto it while I was walking around campus, it even blew off my head a couple of times and I had to run after it, I felt a bit of a fool haha! Everything i'm wearing here was such a bargain.
Black blazer from Savers (free- a present!), black skorts :P from Living Doll $4, velvet tshirt $6 from the Salvos, floral tights from Target $6, black hat from Dangerfield- the Clear it outlet- $2, red Doc Martens $25 from the Salvos, gold Nookart fan necklace, a present from Dan :) And this awesome Wittner bag from ebay which I got for $40 including postage. $40 is expensive for me but I wanted a good quality bag for uni. It's good quality leather too!

My favourite song at the moment is Barricade by Interpol. Interpol has been one of my favourite bands for years, they just released their new self titled album a month ago. Barricade is probably the best song on the album, which I have been listening to quite a bit recently as well... but I still think Antics from 2004 was their best album.
Paul Banks' voice is amazing, aargh.

I am so excited! A whole bunch of my friends and I are going to Falls Festival for New Years Eve! :D Granted, we are going to Marion bay in Tasmania (couldn't get tickets for Lorne :( )so it's not going to be that warm and there's going to be so many 15 year old who think they're the shit... but it's going to be super fun!!
There's a pretty good lineup, i'm looking most foward to Interpol (they are amazing live!), Klaxons, Cold War Kids, the Living End, Angus &Julia Stone and Paul Kelly :)
I've never been to Tasmania before either, and we're planning on going camping either before or after the festival. Nice to have something to look forward to! Now I just have to save money to pay my friend back for the ticket ($220) and we have to organise how to get there (either by the Spirit of Tasmania or by plane- probably costing up to $300 :( ) and also save money to buy food and souvenirs. Argh! XD

Looking forward to your comments! Thanks!

European Masters

2010-09-26T23:18:00.006+10:00

Hey everyone! Yay another post from me! Stuff has been sort of crazy lately. Well actually kind of boring since it's uni holidays, but also kind of hectic and crazy... hmm... only one more week of uni holidays to go! Of course, I should be studying at the moment but I felt so bad about not posting in awhile I thought I would :D
Last week my friend had a whole bunch of people stay at this place his family has up past Bendigo, we stayed for a couple of days. Was pretty fun being out in the bush, climbing on rocks and making bonfires and the like. Haha... might put some photos up some time. But Daniel and I both got really sick on like last day and we have been sick since, sore throat and coughing and seriously blocked ears. Eurgh. Went to the doc and got some antibiotics but they don't seem to be working much yet :(

Sooo... I wore this outfit a couple of Sundays ago when Dan and I went to the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) to see the Winter Masterpieces they have on at the moment, European Masters, 19th-20th century works from the Stadel Museum in Germany.
I am wearing a Sportsgirl dress, polka dot tights from Ebay, blazer from Savers, thrifted shoes, thrifted leather bag.
I bought the dress off ebay a little while ago. Seriously, I have seen that exact dress being sold on ebay around 5 separate times over the past few months! Is it really that unflattering or something? I definitely got it the cheapest though, the first few times I forgot to bid and missed out but one day I saw this and won it for about $7.50! The other times I've seen the dress won for over $15 :D I think I won it for cheap because the seller didn't upload a very flattering photo of the dress. Never underestimate the power of a clear photo :P

I am a huge fan of art and blockbuster exhibitions but I have to say that honestly the exhibition didn't impress me that much. I thought the exhibition was pretty sparse on the walls, and few paintings that really stood out to me. I don't know, the exhibition just didn't feel that cohesive to me, it sort of felt like I was just looking at a bunch of paintings in a row that didn't really tell a story of, for example the history of German painting or something. Even though I did have a good look at the works we went through the exhibition really quickly, probably around 1 and a half hours or less. Although to be fair I wasn't feeling 100% when I saw the exhibition, I was kind of tired and stressed out that day so maybe that had something to do with it. I did really like some of the paintings by Expressionist artist Max Beckmann, like this one- Die Synagogue, 1919.I did enjoy it as I love looking at all types of art but I wouldn't pay to see it again, not sure if it was worth the $18 (and that was concession price too!). Definitely not the best exhibition that the NGV has put on- and nothing compared to the Tim Burton exhibition on at ACMI right now! (but i'll save that for another post ;) ) Has anyone else seen the European Masters exhibition, if so what did you think?
The way they decorated the outside of the NGV for the exhibition:
Dan's eye through the paper bag... Thanks to him for taking my outfit pics.
Until next time,

A dedication

2010-09-26T22:34:00.005+10:00

I'd like to dedicate this short post to a friend of my younger sister, Glenn Bourke, who was killed in the sky diving plane crash in New Zealand a few weeks ago.
He was a really friendly guy, only 18, someone who had his whole life ahead of him. It was his first time overseas and it was such a tragic end to a life. While I wasn't friends with him, this has been playing on my mind the last few weeks. The only way I knew him was through my younger sister and also through the couple of Rock Eisteddfods I participated in in high school. I just remember him as being this young, happy guy who everyone genuinely liked. So this post isn't much but my deepest sympathies for all those feeling the loss.
I'd also like to show you guys a video of our school's Rock Eisteddfod from 2007 (this was after I had graduated) when they won the Premier division in Victoria. Don't know how to embed it but here's the link.http://www.rockchallenge.com.au/videos/grc_player_brunswick.php It really was an amazing performance. Glenn is one of the guys in blue on stilts. Rest in Peace.

polka dots and flowy skirts :)

2010-09-02T00:03:00.007+10:00

Why hello again... :) Hope you are all doing well!
So this is the 6th week of uni this semester. Which means there are 6 more weeks of classes until the semester is over. What?? It's just gone by so quickly. And being a slack Bachelor of Arts student, I haven't even had to hand in a single assignment so far. Well, I'm not doing a full load anyway but still!!
So, I think life is pretty good at the moment. My mood has been really up and down in the past couple of weeks but now that I think about things clearly, life is going quite well. I'm seeing my friends quite often now, I've been reading some good books recently and I think I will be able to get on top of uni stuff and actually hand things in on time :) Now just have to get a proper job!

I wore this outfit more than a few weeks ago for a friend's 21st birthday. The theme was that everyone had to wear something red. Very fun! My 21st birthday is coming up in December and I think I should start planning something! Everyone is planning their birthdays months in advance!! ahhh.
So I bought this skirt from Savers awhile ago for $8, thought it would be perfect to wear to the party! Love how flowy the material is. It's a nice full shape too. I'm wearing a dress underneath because i don't have any dressy black singlet tops!
Wearing: skirt from Savers, Princess Highway dress, polka dot tights from ebay, thrifted Target wedges, thrifted clutch, red hairbow.
A photo of me and three of my closest friends :D at the party:
So, one of the last books I read was The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. I Have to say that it is probably the most amazing book i've read in awhile! Can't believe I had only just gotten round to reading it recently. This was the cover of the copy I read.
You all probably know the story of Dorian Gray. As a young man, Dorian Gray becomes infatuated with a portrait of himself painted by his friend. Entranced by the words of the artist's friend Lord Henry Wotton, in a fit of impulsion he sells his soul by wishing out loud that the painting would grow old while he himself stays young and exactly the same. As the years pass, Dorian Gray's physical appearance remains unchanged as he delves into a world full of debauchery while the portrait of himself changes to reflect the age and the horrible disfigurement that each corruption has made on his soul.
I really did enjoy reading this, and was especially interested in the character of Lord Henry Wotton. His world view is very self indulgent and hedonistic, a critique of Victorian culture and high society at the turn of the century. He produces many memorable quotes including the famous line "there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Other interesting ones are "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it," "To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances" and "It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But it is better to be good than to be ugly."
It is easy to understand why the book caused a bit of an uproar at the time, with people believing that this distorted views of conventional morality showed Wilde's apparent hedonism. At the end of the book there were also a number of appendixes which had a number of reviews which were actually published in magazines/newspapers after the story was first published. Some of them, especially the ones which were negative towards the story, were quite amusing.
It's definitely a must read. I just adore this quote which was written by Wilde and put at the preface of the book: "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written."

Hope you're having a lovely week :)

gardens + becoming an australian citizen

2010-08-15T22:04:00.010+10:00

Hey everyone! Ok so I'm trying to get better at this whole posting thing. Can't believe it's the middle of August already! Crazy. So glad it's almost Spring. :)
Already 1/4 of the way through the Uni semester, even more craziness. I'm not even thinking about any assignments yet and I only just bought one of my books last week! (And I don't even think one of the readers for another subject is even available in the bookshop yet. Haha!) Not really enjoying a couple of my subjects so far, but hopefully they get better. I have actually been going out quite a bit recently, lots of birthdays and all that. But I never get round to taking outfit photos, especially because they're all at night. Sigh.

This is an outfit from over a month ago. Dan and I went to the DFO (Direct factory outlet) at South Wharf. I actually really enjoyed it there! There were heaps of sales on! :)
Dan said I looked French with the beret and striped top, but also like an elf with the green skirt and lace leggings :P This skirt is actually one of the few green things I own. Glassons striped top, H&M skirt via ebay, Sunny Girl lace leggings, Dangerfield over the knee socks, thrifted Novo black flats, thrifted gold bow brooch, and Dan bought me the white beret from a flea market in Krakow, Poland when we were there in January :)

Oh by the way I have a lookbook account now... not exactly sure how it works and haven't gotten any hypes yet but we'll see how we go :D
A couple of months ago, on the 24th of June, I became an Australian citizen! Even though I've been living in Australia for 20 years, pretty much my whole life, I never actually got Australian citizenship. This was because I was born in New Zealand so I basically had the same rights and everything! If you've been a reader of my blog since last year you might remember that in order to become an Aus citizen, I had to complete a test which tested my knowledge on Australian history, 'customs,' famous sporting people and so on. After I passed this I had to complete a separate process of filling out forms and sending forms to become a citizen. I sent in all my forms last year but didn't receive a letter until a few months ago, saying that everything had been approved but i'd only become an official citizen after I went to the ceremony on the 24th June.It was held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (the MCG), and was apparently the largest citizenship ceremony held in Australia ever, with around 3000 people becoming citizens. Dan and I arrived there in the morning to register, and it was horrible, we spent ages squashed up in lines, not knowing which line to wait in because there weren't any signs!! After that, the actual ceremony wasn't for another couple of hours so we just went back into the city and walked around for awhile.
On the letter it said you were only allowed to bring 2 guests (who wouldn't be seated with you) so my parents were going to watch me, but when we were actually going into the ceremony they weren't really checking anything.The actual ceremony was SO boring! All the new citizens were sitting in one section and the guests in another- so they obviously weren't able to take photos of your or anything. The whole thing only when for about 45 minutes. A few important people made speeches and then all the new citizens were asked to stand up together and recite an oath to Australia. We were then supposed to sing the national anthem, and there were a few more speeches... and that was it really! Quite impersonal really! It was absolutely cold and windy, and I was so tired that I kind of fell asleep during the speeches.. kind of embarrassing as there were random people sitting next to me!I was wearing a white lace bodysuit and bag from Dangerfield, Tokito skirt via ebay, Bardot drape blazer and thrifted white lace tights (very similar but different from the ones I was wearing in my last post, haha!) Took quite a few photos of this outfit but they didn't turn out right :/

Just to finish off... I went bowling quite a while ago. It was fun! I'm pretty crap at bowling though- so many gutter balls! You think that you'd improve as the night went on but for some reason I got wayy lower scores for my second game than my first! I guess i'm not cut out for anything that requires coordination!

Well hope to hear from ya!xoxo

on the beach

2010-08-01T20:47:00.008+10:00

Hello again! How has your week been? I am back at uni now, kind of depressing, I don't think I'm going to enjoy my subjects this semester :(
Haven't posted in a little while... so I've decided to put up a bunch of photos from a few weeks ago during the uni semester holidays. Please note: This is going to be a pretty picture-heavy post!!So Daniel and I went to his family's small holiday house near the beach on the Great Ocean Road, for about 5 days. We had a very relaxing time.
A couple of the days the weather was quite grey and gloomy, cold and it rained a lot too so we stayed inside most of the time, watching movies- we watched all the Harry Potter movies, the Shrek movies and Toy Story movies plus others! Good times! :D
However, one of the days was actually really sunny and warm so we went for a walk on the beach! I took this as a chance to dress up and wear my sailor dress for a photoshoot, which was pretty fun :) We were going to drive down to Apollo Bay the day after but by that time the weather had changed and it was cold and rainy again!
Grey weather, a view of the ocean from the balcony:I love the beach, and the area along the Great Ocean Road has some beautiful views, this is the view on the side of the house:Daniel cooking me a yummy breakfast, well it was lunch because we slept in every day :DThe same view from before from the balcony the next day... blue skies and sun!
I was so amazed at the weather that day! It's supposed to be Winter yet it was quite warm and very sunny. I had a coat on but I could actually take it off to take photos and not freeze without it :)
We walked along the beach taking photos and climbing the rocks along the cliff. My outfit is not the most practical for beach walking or rock climbing, but at least I looked cute right?An old man decided to come up to us and take a photo for us, very kind of him!Jumping on rocks! This was kind of dangerous as i'm a very clumsy person!I love that last photo. I need to go to the beach more often. I need to have relaxing getaways with Daniel more often.
I'm wearing a blue Chicstar sailor dress I got off ebay, white lace tights from an op shop, black over the knee socks from Dangerfield, a white hair bow and polka dot canvas flats from Target.

Thanks to all those who have commented and started following me! Just want to add that i'd love to personally thank everyone who has started following me but I can't get to some of your blogs through 'Google friend connect' as some people are following me privately and some people's blogs aren't listed on the page, so if you'd like me to check out your blog, you'll have to leave a comment so I can get there through your profile!
By the way, the lovely Maggie from Life Size Paperdoll is doing a super AMAZING giveaway where you could win some gorgeous dresses! Seriously, she is the sweetest! All you have to do is be a follower and leave a comment! Check it out and enter HERE!

Hopefully there'll be more posts from me soon :)

Breton stripe top outfit 3- Wardrobe remix!

2010-07-21T18:29:00.007+10:00

Hi again! How has your week been? Thanks for the comments, I'll be able to check out everyone's blogs real soon when my internet is fast again :P This is my last week of uni holidays! But gosh I have been so lazy, I have hardly left the house all week... D:

So this is the 3rd outfit I used for my entry to the TeenVOGUE wardrobe remix competition, again using my Breton stripe top. This is my favourite out of the three looks I posted! This time I went for an edgy rock/ grunge look. "Blue denim goes well with everything, especially stripes, so I wore my top tucked into some high waist denim cut-offs. To add a more rocker vibe I layered a black vest over it, and of course no grunge outfit is complete without ripped tights and some lace up combat boots. Top it all off with some heavy chains and a pork pie hat and there you have it, an outfit that would not look out of place at a music festival or a rock concert- or general lounging around and misbehaving with the boys!!"
Thanks to Dan for taking my photos. He liked the last two photos the best :)
I'm wearing: thrifted stripy top, thrifted black Target vest, second hand denim cutoff shorts, Jay Jays pork pie hat ($1!!!), ROC combat boots from ebay, ripped black tights, silver chains and black layered necklace both from Diva.

Ok, so I'm really stressing out at the moment. I've been shopping like crazzyy recently. It's really bad. :S I seriously have a shopping addiction. If everything I bought was from op shops it wouldn't be so bad but I've been buying too much stuff from ebay, which including postage is really adding up. Mega wardrobe clearance is needed! I;m in the process of putting heaps of stuff up on ebay, I need to earn my funds back. I have so many things which are new or almost new which I never wear. ughh!

So, back to what I have read. Awhile ago I read two graphic novels by Adrian Tomine, Sleepwalk and other stories, and Summer Blonde.

So both of these are graphic novels, each with different short stories. Sleepwalk and other stories has a lot of short narratives, most of them only 1 or a couple of pages long. Each of the stories are separate, showing events that are both mundane and bizarre. In Summer Blonde there are four longer but still separate narratives in the whole book, each with one main protagonist. Each of these main characters is somewhat disconnected from society, either socially awkward, lost in life with no purpose, almost outsiders. Because of the length we get to know these characters a lot better. I thought the way the characters were portrayed through the images and the dialogue was very effective, it was really easy to understand what they were feeling, pretty relatable in some ways I guess.
I was looking up stuff online and I came across a review of Sleepwalk that someone else had written, and I thought it was really good so i'm going to post it here. I didn't write any of this, it's from http://graphicneophyte.blogspot.com/2009/11/touching-fictional-nerve-adrian-tomines.html:
"This collection of stories follows various socially awkward guys and girls through relationships, beatings, voyeurism, and other assorted plot lines. What seems to connect Tomine's stories throughout is the way in which each story is unnerving, some more than others. The most overtly disturbing is "Pink Frosting". In twelve panels Tomine shows how one man's day goes from great to horrible, ending with the protagonist "biting the curb."
Others are more subtle, yet no less disturbing. Perhaps one that best typifies Tomine's incredible style of combining art and story in the most concentrated effective way is "Drop". In just four panels we learn of how a man accidentally dies by falling off the side of a reservoir while trying to change a tire. The darkly inked four panels only show the man in silhouette, we never get to see his face only his hand reaching towards nothingness as he falls "backwards through the darkness, filled with disbelief". Tomine's characters are quirky, some suffering from debilitating relationship issues as in "Sleepwalk" or the social awkwardness of being a teenager as in "Dylan & Donovan". Other than being quirky, all of his characters can be characterized as being "outsiders", people who by choice or no choice exist at the fringes of our society.
My personal favorite from this collection is "The Connecting Thread". More text heavy then most of the stories in "Sleepwalk", "The Connecting Thread" follows a woman as she slowly realizes that a series of "I Saw You..." ads in the paper are about her. In the first panel we see her seated by the door of a coffee shop. It becomes clear she desires attention. She is at first excited and nervous about the possibility that someone may be enamored of her. But when the person who is supposed to have written the ads never makes him/herself known, and the ads continue to be printed each week, each time more personal, increasingly more stalkerish, the woman becomes terrified. At the end Tomine writes "Finally, not knowing what else to do, Cheryl stopped looking at the personals, and that week, the ads about her stopped appearing". Were there really ever any ads about her, did she make them up, is it true, is it fake? In true Alfred Hitchcock style Tomine leaves us spooked and intrigued, our minds twisted up in the plausibility and implausibility of each situation. Each story, in some way, leaves you lingering (in a good way), mulling over the plot line and outcome of the story. I suppose what makes Tomine so intriguing is that each story is accessible to the reader, even the more extreme ones like "Pink Frosting" are, in reality, perfectly plausible in our reality."

Interesting huh? Well that's all from me for now,

Teen Vogue Wardrobe Remix Two!!

2010-07-18T22:58:00.006+10:00

Hello hello, how was your weekend? Mine was pretty good... :)
So this is the second part of the entry I posted on Chictopia for the TeenVOGUE Wardrobe Remix competition.

This time I decided to style my Breton stripe top in a sweet and feminine way. I also wanted to play with different patterns and textures. In this outfit, "I tried out something else that’s currently in vogue- mixing stripes and florals. I wore a yellow floral dress and wore the striped top over it. The striped top was quite long, so I tucked half of it up inside itself to create a sort of crop top, and put a waist belt over it to secure it. Sheer pink tights underneath floral lace tights add some colour and another layer of pattern to the outfit. I wanted to take a step further by experimenting with different materials and textures so I wore a black faux-fur stole over the top to complement the feminine elements of florals, bows and lace in the outfit. Sure, all the elements and colours may clash somewhat but that’s just the fun of dressing up! This outfit is very sweet and girly and would suit occasions like picnics, tea parties, or just hanging out with the girls."

Wearing: a thrifted yellow floral dress, thrifted Supre gold bow belt, thrifted Inniu flats, Dotti faux fur stole, pink tights, Kmart lace tights, my favourite and most dearest vintage bag :)

So I had a good weekend... Friday morning I caught up with bestie and one of our lovely friends T who we hadn't seen in a couple of months. We had morning tea in a little place on Centre Way in the city, however my eggs benedict was expensive and not very good :( haha! Then T and I walked to ACCA (Australian Centre of Contemporary Art) to have a quick look at the exhibition by Peter Cripps: "Towards an Elegant Solution." T told me that the three rooms of installations had changed twice over the exbition period.It was quite beautiful, there were some wooden sculptures and installations with boxes and large shapes. I need to visit art galleries more often! Sometimes for my art history subjects at uni we go on excursions to different galleries but I always end up skipping them! So bad.Image taken from the ACCA website.

On Friday night I watched my friends' soccer team play and then Dan and I watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at his house. :) Saturday we slept in, Dan cooked us a nice lunch and then we went to the Footscray Savers in the afternoon. I got a couple of nice things, a dark pink wool jacket/blazer, a small leather satchel bag and a red skirt. Saturday night we went out for dinner with some friends. So it was a pretty good weekend I guess! How was yours?
Ugh my internet is going sooo slow at the moment. I can barely load any pages :( Gotta wait until Friday until it's fast again and I can check out other people's blogs!
Well, the final set of photos from the Wardrobe Remix competition to come in the next entry. Seeya then!

Breton strip top-Teen Vogue Remix- One

2010-07-15T22:59:00.004+10:00

Hey again! So i've got a whole bunch of outfit photos to put up and i'm behind as usual :P Last week I went to the beach for 5 days with Dan, which was fun, relaxing. And I got to take some photos of me on the beach wearing my sailor dress! :P But those photos will come later.
Sooo, this is one the outfits I used for the Chictopia TeenVOGUE wardrobe remix competition. What you have to do is choose one item of clothing, and style it three different ways, offering tips on how to remix your wardrobe. I decided to choose this Breton stripe top I found in an op shop for $6.
I think remixing is an important part of everyone's wardrobe. Especially if you're a poor student like myself, it's good to have pieces that are not only stylish, but are able to be mixed and matched with lots of other things in your closet. I chose the Breton stripe top because in my opinion a striped top is an basic, essential part of everyone's wardrobe- male or female, young or old. They are so simple but chic and very versatile. Plus the Breton stripe design is a classic one and will never go out of style!

I'm just going to show one of the outfits in this post. This first outfit is kind of Nautical inspired/ Trendy/ Casual. It's kind of a whole lot of recent trends thrown together with my own personal twist. I tried doing the Alexander Wang side braid to match the nautical feel of the striped top and red high waist shorts. I felt that some light colours were needed to create a Spring/ Summery feel so I added a cream blazer, and also for some extra pizzazz wore white lacy socks with clog sandals- another popular trend. This outfit would be perfect for anything from lunch with the family to strolling along a pier on Summer days! (Unfortunately right now it’s Winter and it was cold, overcast and about to rain while I was taking these photos!)
I'm wearing a thrifted Breton stripe top $6, second hand red high waist shorts, thrifted cream blazer $2, Vintage leather bag $4, White ruffly socks from ASOS, second hand shoes from ebay. I was wearing pantyhose as well but this just made my legs look even more abnormally pale!

So, I'm really quite angry about those shoes I'm wearing in the photo. I won them off ebay for like $1. Fair enough, and postage was pretty cheap too. They were listed as only being worn a couple of times so still in great condition. I was really excited about receiving them because they look clog-like which of course, that trend is huge at the moment. But when I received them the seller hadn't bubblewrapped them when sending them and parts of the sole had chipped off. That was ok. But I wore them around the house for a couple of minutes, took them off and realised that they were not in good condition because sole was starting to get cracks in it!! I didn't say anything to the seller because after all, I had got them for $1 plus postage and I was stressed about uni stuff at the time. So I thought, even if I only wear them a couple of times it's worth it. So they other day I wore them- to take these competition photos only. That was about 20 minutes and it involved very minimal walking- mostly standing and posing. Nonetheless, when I took them off after the photos were done, the shoes were literally BROKEN IN HALF. And I am not kidding. I don't know what the material used for the sole was, but it was very crumbly. The shoes broke in half in my hands. Like, each shoe is now in two separate parts. So I am really quite annoyed about this... :( I can't really do much though, I guess i'll just write it off as a bad purchase! Really angry though because I think the shoes are really cool! :(

So anyway, onto my next thing. I'm so behind on this whole book review thing even though I have been reading lots I always forget about writing a review for it!
The book I read was "after the quake" again by Haruki Murakami. I’ve been reading his novels like crazy recently. As soon as I see them on the shelf at the library I borrow them! after the quake is a collection of short stories, which all have one thing in common- each story deals with certain characters' lives after the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan occurred. Although it doesn’t detail anyone whose life has been devastated by the earthquake, instead it references the earthquake in subtler ways- for example one character is estranged from his family who used to live in Kobe. The translator Jay Rubin has said that in the collection, "The central characters in after the quake live far from the physical devastation, which they witness only on TV or in the papers, but for each of them the massive destruction unleashed by the earth itself becomes a turning point in their lives. They are forced to confront an emptiness they have borne inside them for years." Overall I enjoyed this novel, but some of the stories were a lot better than other ones. Like Murakami’s other novels, this one deals with some slightly surreal or supernatural themes. My favourite story was probably “Super Frog Save Tokyo,” which is kind of exactly what the title is, a giant frog appears in Katagiri’s apartment and says that they have to battle a giant Earthworm who resides under Tokyo, who causes earthquakes when he is angry. However this story isn’t written in an over the top action superhero way, but is quite contemplative so that you immediately accept the surreal elements in the story and enjoy and go along with it. All of the stories are quite short so this book was easily readable in one sitting.

Well hope you had a lovely week and check back soon for my other two wardrobe remix posts with my stripy top!

exit through the gift shop

2010-07-05T22:36:00.008+10:00

Hey darlings, here's another post from me :D
I went op shopping today and made several lovely purchases! :)
Do you remember a few posts back I mentioned that I saw the film "Exit Through the Gift Shop" with a friend? Well this was my outfit. I bought these amazing combat boots off ebay a couple of weeks ago and wanted to wear them with something a bit more edgy and suited to the film!
I got this blue velvet dress from an op shop a year ago for $2.50 but this was the first time I wore it, typical me. Leggings were $5 from Cotton On DFO, as they had a hole in them (but not the holes that are already there lol!) I was really annoyed as I only wore them for that night and when I got home there were more huge RIPS everywhere in the fabric! So glad they were only $5 and I didn't buy them for the original price. ROC lace up combat boots- the most expensive shoes I have ever bought! They are real leather and even though they are a bit tight on my right foot hopefully they will stretch and last me years. Lace bow headband $5 from Sportsgirl, Slouch bag $5 from Dangerfield. Aaand a black blazer which was $6.99 from Savers but I got it for free courtesy of my besterest friend (well my besterest friend's mum!!)
Sorry about the blurriness of this photo, my camera battery died!
So anyway... Exit through the gift shop. I saw it a couple of Mondays ago with one of my friends, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in the city. If you haven't heard of it, it's the directorial debut of infamous graffiti/street artist Banksy. If you haven't heard of Banksy... well he is a British graffiti artist whose identity is unknown to the public. He is probably the most famous graffiti artist and he is known for his stencilled images which often include things like rats, policemen and children.
You can check out some of his artwork at http://www.banksy.co.uk/index.html
So onto Exit Through the Gift Shop. I have to say that it was close to being the best film i've seen all year. It's presented as a documentary, but a lot of people have been questioning it's authenticity. It follows the story of an American immigrant Thierry Guetta, who was obsessed with video taping his life. A chance encounter with his cousin, known as street artist Space Invader, turned his video taping focus to street and graffiti art, and changed his life- he took thousands of hours of footage of this developing art movement in the 1990s and 2000s, meeting dozens of artists and eventually Banksy. It's what happened when "this guy tried to make a documentary about me (Banksy) but he was actually more interesting than I am... so now the film is kind of about him."- Banksy.
Street art is one of my favourite types of art. The film was funny, thought provoking, bringing up some really interesting debate- What is art? What is modern art? Modern art is rubbish. Anyone can become famous... and so forth. The enigmatic character of "Mister Brainwash" and his art show/ success has lead people to ask whether the film is a hoax or not. Either way, it's a thoroughly good watch.
If you get the chance to see it, I definitely recommend it! Those of you from Melbourne- it's currently showing on a limited release at the Nova in Carlton, get on it!
If you're interested, here is a short 5 minute video taken from clips of the film. Enjoy!!

Hope you had a great Monday!

sweet sugary goodness

2010-07-04T23:18:00.003+10:00

Heya! Sooo here I am again. Thanks to new followers and those who have commented :) Ughh haven't commented anyone back in ages. Sorry! :S
This weekend has been pretty good. 3 more weeks of uni holidays left, it's gone by pretty fast.

So these are some photos from ages ago, I wore this to my friend's housewarming party. He lives above his work (a hairdresser's place) in an apartment right next to Melbourne Uni and the city! Such a convenient location :) and even though the bathroom and toilet are outside, and there's only a kitchenette behind the hairdressing section the apartment was larger than I expected. It was a really random night.. I guess the outfit isn't really suited to a housewarming party but ehh, sometimes I like looking cutesy. Besides, I need to wear this dress more often...
Wearing: Lollipop dress $5, a white slip dress underneath with ruffles on the bottom $1, white polka dot tights, vintage black shoes, which were all thrifted :D Random black sash and bow in my hair of course!

So here are the next set of travel photos, from Venice! We stayed there for about 3 days. It was incredibly cold after coming from Rome! On the last day we were there, it even snowed. Venice is beautiful, and it's really sad to think that one day the whole island is going to collapse back into the water. I'm really glad I got to see it, but i'm aware that it's tourists like ourselves which hasten Venice's eventual ruin...
We got to relax in Venice and had fun simply wandering around the laneways and getting completely lost! The streets are incredibly windy and it's hard to find the names of them. And our map wasn't very reliable either! It was great looking at all the beautiful masks and stores. Unfortunately we didn't go on a gondola ride because it was so, so expensive!!
St Mark's basilica
The main canal:
Piazza San Marco!
So many gondolas...
Venice at night :)
Have a lovely Monday,

well i just dance the way i feel

2010-07-02T16:13:00.007+10:00

Hey everyone :) Hope you're having a good day... This week has been SO LAZY for me! Ugh, I have literally left the house twice this week, yesterday night to watch Dan play soccer and Tuesday, when my best friend was house sitting, we went over there and ate gnocchi, baked cookie dough and watched tv. Good times. Yeah, it feels like i've wasted the holidays so far, right now i'm wearing trackies and eating mac and cheese... eep.
So this is what I wore to a friend's birthday party a couple of months ago. I got the floral Friends of Couture dress for $12 from Episode on Sydney Rd, because it had some seams that were unstitched but it was so easy to fix!
Velvet bolero $3 from the Salvos, Target Wedges $3 from a random op shop, and the clutch, hair bow and tights are all from op shops too!! :D

Anyway.. here are some more photos from my trip. These are from Rome and Vatican city :) We were there for about 5 days as well. Rome is amazing! So, so much history it was overwhelming. The Vatican museums are quite awesome! Not to mention amaaazing food. We went to the best pizza place ever, which was really homely and the pizzas were cooked in front of us by a guy who looked and sounded like one of those stereotypical Mafia guys. hehe! We had gelati every day as it wasn't that cold when we were there, around 10 - 15 degrees. I was rather overloaded with all the churches and basilicas, which was reallly tiring after awhile.. but thinking about all the beautiful art and sculptures in Italy makes me sigh!
The view down into the Roman Forum:
Inside the Colosseum:
Ruins in the Roman Forum
Night shot :)
St Peter's Square

Looking into Vatican City at night
The Mouth of Truth :P

I've been listening to "Dance the way I feel" by Ou Est Le Swimming Pool repeatedly for the past couple of days for some reason. Stop breathing, imagine none of this is real. Well I just dance the way I feel... I really need more music!

see, people they don't understand

2010-06-29T00:38:00.009+10:00

Hey again!
Oh.. I knew I said I was going to post more often but things have been kind of stressful and hectic these past few days. I'm behind on posting all my outfits on chictopia too. On Thursday night I went out with some friends and some people I only just met that night.. was kind of crazy... we went to Chapel St, the first time i've ever been there at night. Friday night I went to an End of Exams party at Billboards in the city, first time i've been there too surprisingly! Saturday and Sunday was just spent chilling at Dan's house. I was feeling so exhausted and kind of hung over and headachey for the whole weekend, and I feel like i'm getting tonsilitis again, boo. So anyway, will try to keep you up to date with everything.

This is an outfit from a couple of Thursdays ago. Me friend and I were planning on going to the see the movie by graffiti/street artist Banksy, 'Exit through the gift shop' but when we got there it was sold out! So we bought tickets for the next Monday.

Wearing: a floral dress from Savers $6, second hand belt, ribbed tights, vintage bag and boots from Savers. I'm kind of annoyed because I bought these boots from Savers for $10 which I though was good as they looked in pretty good condition and were comfy, however last week I was wearing them for the first time and I realised that half the heel was sort of breaking apart, so no wonder someone gave them away. I've just duct-taped it together for now :P

Anyway, I don't just want this blog to be about my outfits, so here are some photos from my Europe trip in December/January. It's been over 5 months since I got back, but i am so lazy in putting photos up!
The first stop was Paris, such a beautiful place! We were there for about 5 days and we were flat out every day, leaving at 9am and then sight seeing until dinner time.

Standard Eiffel Tower shot :)
gorgeous buildings...
We spent over 6 hours in the Louvre and didn't see everything! It was so amazing. Art is basically one of my most favourite things in the whole world. I don't know who painted this but look how MASSIVE it is!! :D

Huge room with statues in the Lourve.
The Centre Pompidou. Unfortunately this and the Musee D'Orsay were closed because of the museum strikes so we couldn't look in- but I guess I can do that next time :D
Amazing and immensely sized architecture at the Pantheon.
Dan and I in front of Notre Dame. Why is it that people insist on including your legs and feet in the photo instead of the actual monument you're standing in front of? :S
Sacre Coeur in Montmarte, where we went on our last day in Paris- and it was my 20th birthday too!!
So there are some photos from Paris... let me know would you be interested in seeing some of my other Europe pics from lots of different countries?? If no one is really interested in seeing them then I won't put many others up :P
Have a lovely night/day,

dance dance dance

2010-06-24T01:03:00.008+10:00

Hello, I'm back again :) and this time with a new layout! I was sick of the old one, it looked really messy. Still haven't really decided how I want this blog to be so i'm kind of just messing around with stuff right now! So this time, I really promise to be a better blogger! I already have lots of photos lined up :D So anyway sorry if the layout/photos are a bit screwy for a little while :)

Thanks so much to everyone who commented me and became my follower! It was a lovely surprise.
Lots of stuff has happened these past two months while I haven't posted anything. Well, I just finished uni for the semester so I feel like I have enough time to actually do what I want! A few semi- exciting things have happened recently too.
Ok so here's an outfit from a couple of months ago, wasn't for any special occasion, wore it when I was watching my friends' futsal soccer game and then out to the pub afterwards. I love purple! Was bored today so decided to edit them a bit.

Wearing: H&M skirt, Sonia Rykiel for H&M bow pin, thrifted lace top, thrifted FCUK bag, Kmart tights.
The skirt is my favourite. How I love H&M... I went crazy while I was in Europe, going into every single H&M store I could, though I didn't end up buying very much. This skirt was only 5 euros though, score!!
If you haven't checked my Chictopia in awhile, this is the last outfit I posted, I wore it a couple of months ago to watch Kick-Ass at Melbourne Central.

American Apparel shift dress from ebay, thrifted brogues, Kmart tights, Bardot jacket, thrifted belt and flower pin. Right now purple is my favourite colour to wear!

And by the way, ohhh gawd I just joined lookbook.nu... and I'm seriously freaking out. It just seems SO much more intimidating than Chictopia, everyone on the front page is just hideously beautiful and skinny and a model?! :S I just checked my profile and it shows every single look you hyped?! That's kind of scary that they track everything you do.. hmm... I dunno. I will post something there eventually, but I feel like I have to up the quality of my outfit photos first! Do you think that first outfit I posted would be ok and not totally embarrassing?

Ok onto my last section, which due to my lack of blog updating didn't really happen, my Book a Week review... I'm still going to stick with it though, and try and write as much as I can. So a few months ago I read Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami.

It\ was amazing. At the time it was only the second Murakami book I had read. I couldn't put it down. It follows an unnamed protagonist who is a travel writer. He feels compelled to visit a place called the Dolphin Hotel which he had once stayed in years ago with a woman who has since disappeared, and arrives to find it totally changed. He ends up meeting up with a whole cast of strange characters such as a psychic 11 year old girl who is a school drop out, an old friend who is a movie star doomed to playing stock characters, high class call girls, and a one armed poet. There is a bit of a murder mystery that needs solving but I wouldn't call the novel that, like all of Murakami's novels there is not only a sense of realism but also is a strong element of surrealism as well, such as the mysterious "Sheep Man" who lives in a place that is inside the Dolphin Hotel yet not exactly a part of it. It's described as being "part murder mystery, part metaphysical speculation." The way that the main character was portrayed as being alienated really fascinated me. Some parts were kind of eerie and I had a feeling of dread while I was reading it, but I couldn't put it down. Not that it was scary, it wasn't scary at all, but just the storyline and the way it was written made me feel rather melancholy. But in a good way, if that makes sense, because I loved reading it! I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't read any Murakami before though. Haha well it's almost 2am so sorry if that review doesn't make much sense, promise to write some better ones soon :)
Looking forward to your comments!!

melbourne city romp

2010-03-30T19:05:00.005+11:00

Hello again. So sorry I haven't been posting much recently!
I love and appreciate my readers so much, but I haven't taken many outfit pics recently. I guess this is partly because of Chictopia. Some days I feel like i'm getting a bit tired of it :( I haven't uploaded anything for awhile either and it seems like these days it's more of a popularity contest, rather than a celebration of individual styles. I think this is partly due to the fact that the rules have changed and now you need to get 7 votes to get into the style gallery. A few months ago it was 3 and a few weeks ago it was 5, now it's 7. I understand that there is a LOT of traffic on the site and lots of new users. But it seems like now there are a lot less photos in the style gallery, and a lot less variation... a lot of people don't bother to look at the new photos section, even fewer people bother to vote. I know votes are just numbers, and some people say that commenting means more than a vote. But if people comment and don't vote, it means that your pic may not even get into the style gallery and therefore you aren't able to showcase your style as much as you can. Hmm, anyway I don't want to be such a downer. I love the community there and I love seeing the outfits there!

Well this is an outfit from a couple of weeks ago, when I went out for dinner.

I'm wearing a floral dress, ruffly top underneath from Living Doll, both the tights and shoes are secondhand from charity stores.

Last Sunday, a few of my friends and I participated in the Melbourne City Romp! You register to be in teams of 2-6 people and you spend the day gallivanting around the city- it's a bit like the Amazing Race. You get a list of clues that tell you where each checkpoint is, there were dozens of checkpoints all around the city. (But they also give you a map coordinate so if you don't know the exact landmark or building then you can look around the area.) At the checkpoint you get a multiple choice question about the landmark/location you're at and you sms your answer. The questions aren't about general knowledge, you just need to keep your ears and eyes open to count how many stones are in this certain section of the building, read the tourist brochure to find the correct answer, see what items are in an art display, and stuff like that.
The point of the Romp was to raise money a for charity, the Burnet Institue, through the participation fee and also fundraising (although my team didn't fundraise anything because we registered a few days before the day!)

Anyway it was pretty fun. Our team was called "Team Ahoyhoy!" and we dressed up like sailors :P It's not compulsory to dress up, but a lot of teams did. In our final results our team came 594th in our category (Family & Friends) and 684th overall. Which is not too bad, considering the total number of teams was 2037!!! Hehe. I wouldn't mind doing it again next year- next time we will have a better strategy, maybe go to all the outer checkpoints first as they give you more points!

Photo posing in Union Lane :)
One of the compulsory questions was: How many red dots are there on the advertisement next to Flinders St Station?? The screen was constantly switching ads, the only way you'd be able to count properly is if you took a photo of it! :P As you can see there are big red dots... and even smaller red dots within them! Hehe. Can you count them all?

Something very sad happened on the weekend :( But I will go into more detail about that in another post.
It was my best friend's 21st birthday on the weekend. She had a "superheroes and supervillians" themed party :P Needless to say I went all out with my costume... Just a hint- think Watchmen! photos to come! :P

Btw: i'm now contributing to another blog, called "I op therefore I am," it's a communal blog about op-shopping and thrifting in Melbourne! Check it out!

neglect, fiasco.

2010-03-15T22:43:00.009+11:00

Hey hey everyone! Sorry about the lack of posts recently... I have to say I have been rather neglectful about everything in my life recently.
I signed up for an ebay account a couple of weeks ago... it's kind of taking over my life!! I keep searching for random items... even though I don't have much intention to buy anything because I can't afford spending over $10 on anything at the moment D: From what i've been looking at on Ebay, it's not even that cheap- with the cost of the clothes and the cost of the postage (some people even put regular postage within Australia at $10- wtf??) it's better for me to just buy stuff from charity stores... :( I haven't actually started to sell anything yet, i'm still trying to figure out what postage would be the most cost-efficient, and i'm worried that no one will want to buy from me because I have a 0 rating so far.

Anyway, here are some old outfits.
I got this cardigan a few weeks ago at the Episode/Friends of Couture Garage Sale. I got some great stuff from the sale, but I spent a lot. This cardi was $20, and it's exactly the same to one I bought from Episode last year, but a different colour and actually my right size. The other one is cream and 2 sizes too big for me- but I got it for $12 as some stitching had come off :P
Wearing with: thrifted Valleygirl shorts- these are a bit small... :( white tights from Savers- love the star print on them, and thrifted shoes.

I put this up on Chictopia a little while ago but didn't put it on my blog. Wearing: IDS jacket from a charity store, Topshop tshirt secondhand from charity store, Living Doll skirt, Oxfords secondhand from the Salvation army, cotton on belt, handmade bows and tights I've had forever.

Ok, so here's another A Book A Week post. I actually have been reading lots of books, even if I haven't reviewed them here yet!!
One book I read recently was "The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco," by John Birmingham.
It's the sequel to the Australian cult novel "He Died With a Felafel in His Hand," which was basically a whole bunch of crazy and hilarious anecdotes about living in share households all over Australia in the 80s, and was made into a film in 2001.
Anyway this novel features some of the characters from the first book- but instead of just being a collection of stories, the stories are linked together into a narrative. I won't write out the storyline of the book myself, so this is copied from the blurb on the back of the book:
"The flatmates at York street are broke and desperate, so they take in a new guy despite the Celine Dion albums and the hordes of fluffy stuffed animals. Soon he goes missing, with half the household possessions and all the rent. The flatmates have one week to sober up, find two thousand dollars and catch the runaway before Pauline Hanson, the federal government, assorted cops and crims, their landlord and some very angry lesbians tear their house down and stomp them to jelly."
Hehe. So as you can see, this isn't a piece of literature or a serious novel. It's pretty outrageous- everyone drinks too much, takes too many drugs, and totally abuses the student/government welfare system- but it's a very amusing book. And it's even more entertaining as I think a lot of the stories in the novel (while may not have happened to each of the characters personally) are based on real events that happened to the author, people he knew, or they were true stories of people he spoke to.
I think it will appeal to those who have experienced share-household hell in their student days. It's definitely not for those who are offended easily! The characters are over the top and the stories really are bizarre and crazy- eg. motorcycle riding lesbians who attend a protest rally in cockroach suits, hippies who live in a house with a tree growing in the middle of it, goths who congregate in the backyard practicing swordfighting and shooting bows and arrows... I've never lived in a share house so I can't imagine stuff like this ever happening to me! Though it was back in the 80s, so maybe things were just crazier back then! :P

I'm so tired!! Uni tomorrow- ugh. But i've got plenty of books, including one by Murakami which i'm looking forward to reading. Now if only I can get past all my assigned Uni readings!!

sydney rd street party

2010-03-03T22:07:00.004+11:00

Hey hey!
How is everyone? :) I've been back at uni for two days now... and both days i've had to take No-Doz because i've been so tired, otherwise I would fall asleep during my class! Haha. So bad.

Anyway last Sunday I went to the Sydney Rd Festival street party. It's part of the Brunswick Music Festival, once a year and they close off part of Sydney Rd and put up market stalls, food stalls, entertainment and live music. It was fun walking around looking at everything being sold at the different stalls, and watching some of the performances happening. Every year that i've gone to the festival it has always been really hot and sunny... this year it wasn't as hot and sweaty, and kind of windy too! Got a couple of pics, taken (unwillingly) by Dan so not many to choose from. Ha!

I tried using Picnik.com for the first time :P It's pretty easy to use and you can get some nice looking effects.
I'm wearing a thrifted ruffly Dotti blouse, Silence + Noise shorts, thrifted Esprit cardigan, Sportsgirl tights, thrifted Target shoes, my awesome bag which i got from a flea market in Poland :) and a necklace given to me from my lovely friends for my birthday!!

I took a few photos on the day... they aren't that great but the stalls are pretty! :)

lovely market stalls

some poor dude getting harassed by a seagull.. hehe

fairy floss! + nick!

Bollywood dance workshop.

Whew. I hope i'm able to keep up with posting stuff as uni is going to make everything really busy and stressful. It already kinda is!

Well hope you have a wonderfullll week!

Vindaloo Against Violence

2010-03-01T22:34:00.005+11:00

Hello again!
I'm so glad to know that some people took the time to read my book review and comment :D That made my day!!
and yes I know I have to get round to replying to people... :S Unfortunately Uni starts again tomorrow so there might be a bit of a delay :P

Ok soooo last Wednesday I went out for dinner. It was for an event called Vindaloo Against Violence. If you don't live in Australia you might not have heard, but recently, in the past few months, there have been several racially motivated attacks against Indians in Melbourne and around Australia. Many have said that the violence has been overstated and exaggerated by the media, (and i'm sure this has happened to some extent) yet the fact still stands that some people have been attacked simply because of their appearance, and there are some who are now afraid of going out and catching public transport at night. :(
So anyway the event was created by one woman in Melbourne who wanted to show her concern. What the event was, on Wednesday February 24, ordinary Melburnians (and anyone else around the country who wanted to join in) were encouraged to show support for the Indian community, and to stand against violence by eating out at their local Indian restaurant. Here is the link to the Vindaloo against violence web page and the Facebook event which got over 9000 attendees.
I though it sounded really interesting and worthwhile, (and I looove Indian food) so we registered by filling in a form on the website saying where we were eating and how many people we were going with. I had the dinner at a restaurant near my house with my bf and two of our friends who we hadn't seen since last year! It was really yummy and we had a good talk and catch up. :)
The event was covered by the media, and apparently, over 17,000 people attended by eating out!! People might say that the event was largely pointless as it is only a small number of people who are causing the violence and they are definitely not going to show their support, but I think that it is worthwhile if the community sees that there are thousands and thousands of normal people who do stand against racism and violence and believe it is wrong. Unfortunately it's going to be a lot harder to convince those who are perpetuating ignorant attitudes otherwise!

I wore: thrifted Dangerfield dress, thrifted black lace top underneath, second hand belt, thrifted navy blue tights with dots on them, black lace up boots which were secondhand from Savers. Oh my, my whole outfit is second hand! :P Hehe.

I have been crazily shopping recently... Very bad of me I know, since I told myself I was going to try and mostly buy things that were second hand... but I have been to too many good sales recently!! :O

Btw, I want to start selling some of my clothes, most of which are in very good condition or never been worn, or are the wrong size for me... :S Anyway would anyone be interested in buying things off me? I could make another blog where I can sell things directly, ask to be put up as a seller on chictopia, or otherwise I will just put them on my new ebay account! What do you think?

Looking forward to hearing from you! :)

blind faith

2010-02-24T00:49:00.010+11:00

Heya everyone.
I've been so lazy recently! Have hardly left the house in the past week or so. Disgraceful!
Uni starts next week. :S This week is O-week. So there'll be lots of newbies around. I need to go on tomorrow to get a new student card! I might also check out some clubs and societies stalls on Thursday :)

On Saturday night I went to my theatre company's 21st birthday party :P It was pretty fun, but it was so hot and humid inside the hall. The band playing there (consisting of old men doing old cover songs) weren't that great though! Me and some of the other people from the play dressed up like pirates! :) I love dressing up, I shall have to do a post on all the past costumes i've worn. :P However I didn't take any photos. We had a few rounds of trivia and my table won! Unfortunately I didn't actually contribute to any answers since they were all quite difficult, but nevertheless I walked out with a mini candle as a prize :)

Sunday night was dinner at a restaurant with my family and *gasp* my boyfriend and his parents. It was the first time our two families have done something together, even though Dan and I have been together over two years!! We just ate at a Chinese restaurant, and luckily it all went well. Not too many awkward silences, and no embarrassing stories or anything so it was all good!

Outfit: Sunny Girl dress, black faux velvet cropped blazer from Nookie, Coo ca choo over the knee floral lace tights, Diva necklace (birthday present from lovely friend!), second hand shoes, and belt which used to belong to my mum.

And now for a whole new section... A Book a Week! I mentioned something about it in a previous post. I'm trying to read at least one new book a week! :) Shouldn't be too difficult as I've already read a few and i've got some more books lined up. And I have to read a different work of Literature a week for a subject in Uni!
The first book I read in the past couple of weeks was Blind Faith by Ben Elton. I have read one other Ben Elton book before, Dead Famous which I really enjoyed- it was a murder mystery where a contestant on a show similar to Big Brother was murdered during the show.
Anyway, about Blind Faith. It pictures a dystopian future after the world is flooded by Global Warming, and is set in London. The population now believes that privacy is the ultimate sin. They constantly blog about their lives, and have video cameras trained on them at all hours, so that anyone can view what they are doing at any time. Science is condemned as lies, and instead society is founded upon compulsory fanatical religious faith, the "Love." The population is constantly told to celebrate themselves and their bodies by having numerous sexual partners, eating junk food and wearing ultra-revealing clothing. The norm for women is to have breast implants. There is massive overcrowding, heat, and babies rarely survive their first few years.
The main character of the novel is Trafford Sewell, who seems to be the only person who (silently) disagrees with the society he is living in. By meeting a group of people with similar thinking to him, he begins to push against the system while trying to stay undetected by the authorities.

I enjoyed this book, although the concept of a dystopian society -where all of modern day society's luxuries have turned into something more sinister- is not new. Much like Elton's other novels, it is comically cynical and it is quite obvious what he is targeting with the book, I found it a bit moralising, although I agree with lots of it. For example, the whole Big-Brother/Blogging phenomenon is evident through the constant voluntary surveillance of the citizens- I think today people want to be famous, they want to be surveyed and to have people looking at them. In the novel people can be 'Goog'd' and are required to post all sorts of intimate video 'Tubes' on their blog. Sugar and junk food is everywhere, so much that McDonalds is seen as a classy restaurant. It's definitely an exaggeration of today where nothing is sacred, but I think there's some truth in there- today we have people posting photos of their baby's birth on Facebook, writing break up messages for the whole world to see, posting videos of themselves doing dumb things of Youtube. The number of people who are obese is rising, and some might say so is the sexualisation of society and children.
It's a funny novel in parts- and other parts are rather disturbing, and although it may point to something darker about society, it's still an entertaining book, I wouldn't take it too seriously. However I would probably recommend Elton's Dead Famous over Blind Faith!
Ok so that's my review for now, sorry if it doesn't make sense.. it's about 2 o'clock in the morning.. XD

Have you read the book before? Have any other books you'd recommend to me? Looking forward to your comments!

Happy Chinese New Year :)

2010-02-16T18:48:00.006+11:00

Hello! Happy Chinese New Year everyone :)

Sunday was Valentine's Day, however it was also the first day of Chinese New Year. Since Daniel really isn't into Valentine's Day at all :P we decided to go to the city to check out the celebrations. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I didn't get to take any photos which was irritating as everything in Chinatown was full of life and bright decorations. First we went to Chinatown on Little Bourke and Russel St, and checked out the stalls, saw some lion dances and heard the firecrackers. After awhile we walked towards Southbank. We checked out the Sunday Market and also went into this multimedia exhibition at the Arts Centre that was on for the weekend only. It was called "Experimenta Utopia Now," part of the International Biennial of Media Art and showcased media works from artists all over the world, and a lot of the works were interactive. It was really amazing! And again I kicked myself for not bringing my camera!
We then walked down to the Casino where there was another Chinese New Year Festival with lots of food and merchandise stalls. We bought some honey pork and chili beef jerky, and chicken satay sticks to eat. Although my mum says traditionally i'm not supposed to eat meat on the first day of CNY. Oopsies! :S

Anyway this is what I wore on the day. Again I turned out to be a bad judge of weather, I had to take the stockings and bolero off after awhile cos it was way too hot! Haha.
And argh i've been having so much trouble taking photos recently. I find that if it's really sunny out (and it's like that every day), it's difficult to take good photos because the sun can wash the colour out, plus I'm all squinty in the photos. But I tried taking these photos in the shade (and not even in the house or anything- outside in front of a garage door, about 2 metres away from direct sunlight) and they still end up really, really dark and I have to edit them heaps to make them decent. :S Then I tried using the manual setting on the DSLR to take lighter photos, and on the screen the light looked really good, perfect even. But when I did upload them to the computer they were still really dark! wtf?!??? I seriously took about 80 photos all a few different locations and they were all horrible. Argh. So this is the best I can do, and hope it is good enough for the style gallery on Chictopia- I really love this outfit. My last outfit photo got deleted from the Style Gallery again. Poo. I thought it was good enough as well, so doubly disappointing!
I'm wearing: Denim floral zip up dress from Bardot, $20- a recent splurge of mine. Can you believe $20 is a splurge for me?? :S Purple bolero, cream floral stockings and cream shoes all secondhand from Savers. :)

Attempted pics from in front of my garage door, and also neighbour's garage door.

Photos from inside the house and one from outside, in the sun.

Closeup of my tights. Love them!

Anyway, we had a nice dinner at my house on Saturday night for Chinese New Years Eve. It was just my family and Daniel. My mum cooked lots of nice food! I love the decorations we have for the occasion, and also the special packages of sticky cake, biscuits, nuts, sweets, etc that we have for new years. I also made some jelly using some moulds I got in Stockholm :)

haircut + polka dots + rain!

2010-02-12T20:42:00.008+11:00

Hey hey!~
Yeah.. i'm kind of awesome staying home on a Friday night... o_0

I got a haircut this morning! First proper haircut in about a year. Lol! I guess it looks the same, only shorter. But i'm so glad to be rid of those split ends! So the day started off well, but when I got home I started taking out the washing and then realised this yellow tshirt had completely stained a beige skirt I have. Argh! It was the only thing in the whole wash that had gotten stained D: grr. So I spent ages trying to get the stain out. Got a lot out but it's still quite obvious... and then when I was finishing hanging out the washing I accidentally cut my ankle on a bike and it bled quite a bit. Haha.

By the way, my younger sister (but not the youngest one who usually takes my photos) is freaking lazy. I ask her to help me take a couple of outfit pics and I have to ask about 20 times before she says yes, and then makes me wait for an hour while she watches damn anime. And then when she finished she tries to put it off for another 15 mins. I'm like, "wtf it will only take 5 minutes or less!" Ack. I guess the photos are alright though. tried editing them a bit but i'm not too happy with the results. Oh well.

You know I love bows and polka dots. Wearing: CKM red skirt, about 3 years old. Black boob tube with white polka dots, from Valleygirl, about 4 years old. :P Living Doll white bolero, about 3 years old as well! belt, from op shop. Novo shoes from op shop. and white tights with black polka dots from an op shop! they were 20c! I love op shops run by little old ladies :)
btw, chictopia won't let me upload outfit pics at the moment. argh!

So yesterday there was this crazy huge thunderstorm in Melbourne. (and yes February is supposed to be the hottest month of the year.) I was out in the city and I knew it was gonna rain... but whoa I didn't think there was going to be flash floods and lighting strike! Was pretty crazy going home on the bus and it took twice as long. It seemed pretty freakish to me. I don't think I remember another storm this bad at this time of year before!
Anyway yes it was crazy. Check out these pics, found on The Age website!

So much rain some people were even swimming down Flinders St in the city. :O There's even a video of it- check the link.

Pic from Footscray: would suck to be the owner of that car.

In the CBD. Lol at the random thong floating away!

I guess even those with umbrellas got soaked :P

Pic from Sunshine. That looks like fun! wish it was flooded where I live :P

Anyway that's just a quick look at the worst (best?? :P) of Melbourne weather :D Hopefully in a few day's time it'll be back to being hot and sweaty and over 30 degrees c!
The thunderstorm in Melbourne caused a facebook fan page to start, "That thunderstorm was crazy Melbourne" and it got 25,000 members in the first 6 hours of the page being created!!! Currently it's got over 32,000 fans and it's only been just over 24 hrs since the storm.
It's an amusing page, but if only other Facebook groups such as "1,000,000 Aussies Against Racism" could get that many members in that space of time. Maybe because it's a 'serious issue' that it doesn't get the members and recognition it deserves, compared to all the lighthearted groups there are. It doesn't even have 28,000 members yet when it is aimed at the whole of Australia!(and beyond I guess) compared to the other page where i'm assuming it is mostly Melburnians who are joining it. Hmm.

Anyway don't want to get too serious. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend! One of my best friends is arriving back home tomorrow after spending 6 months in China for uni. Can't wait to see her!! It's also my mum's birthday tomorrow and Chinese New Years Eve so there's lots of stuff to be done. :)

some people

2010-02-10T23:17:00.009+11:00

Hey again :)
How's everybody?

I'm really enjoying the holidays at the moment. But it's only a couple more weeks until uni starts again!! Actually, I've been pretty lazy recently. Though I did clean out my closet/drawers today in preparation for Chinese New Year :P (and damn I have a lot of clothes! :S I really need to get rid of stuff, but somehow I can't bear to even give away stuff I haven't worn in a couple of years. I'm a serial hoarder. Anyone else have this problem??)

Anyway I'd like to share this story with you which happened while I was wearing this outfit.
My two best friends were going to a Lily Allen concert a couple of weeks ago, and it was the day after I got back from overseas- I thought I was getting back that night so I didn't have a ticket. But I actually got back the day before, and because I love Lily Allen (have seen her perform once before!) I checked a website called Gumtree (a site where you can place ads to sell/buy stuff) on the off chance that anyone was selling a spare ticket. I found an ad from a girl who said she was selling two tickets for $50 each which is a lot cheaper than the original $95 a ticket, so I called her up and we arranged to meet near the venue that evening.
So I rocked up with a friend that I had invited as well... and guess what, the damn biatch never turned up to sell us the tickets. We were so angry! We had gotten there at the time we were supposed to meet, and we waited for an hour. The girl selling the tickets told me to call her when I got there, so I tried calling her several times, but her phone wasn't even on. And then when it did go through, she hung up on me. Argh!! I seriously don't understand why she would go through the hassle of putting up an ad and arranging to meet me... and then not bother showing up. Freaking irritating. Oh well, somebody would have originally bought the two tickets for $95 each so that's just a huge loss of money for them. Ended up having a good night catching up with my friend anyway, we had dinner and went to a bar.

Wearing: Black and white stripy tshirt from an op shop, Black high waisted shorts from Living Doll, Secondhand belt, Black brogues from an op shop. I love these shoes so much! I had been looking for ones like them in op shops for probably over a year. And then I finally found them, and they were $4!! Yay!

I have a new resolution; that i'm going to read at least one new book a week for the rest of the year! Reading is one of my favourite things to do, however I haven't read that widely, especially in terms of classic novels and literature. (I'm more into fantasy. Ha!) So I'm going to try to read all those books by great authors that i've always wanted to, but also read popular fiction as well :P and then I guess i'll write a short review of it after I finish.

Love you guys and my new followers :)

one day

2010-02-08T00:02:00.004+11:00

Ahoy hoy :)
How is everyone going? I'm definitely getting back into the routine of taking pics for chictopia and blogging :) now to get more people reading, commenting and following my blog!

Melbourne weather is super crazy. One day it's almost unbearably hot... and then on Friday it's grey and humid and raining for the whole day?? haha. But I got some nice photos :P

I had a good weekend. What did you guys get up to??
On Saturday Dan and I went to Savers. I got a Dangerfield dress that I saw in stores last year but I didn't buy because it was $100. It's got the Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup can printed all over it, I love Andy Warhol but Dan hates his artwork :P Anyway i'm so happy I found the dress, even though it's a different colour to the one that I originally liked, but it was $20 so yay! You won't see it for awhile though because I have to sew the sides because it's a tiny bit big. I also ended up finding 4 pairs of stockings- black stripy ones, two black ones with a seam up the back and cream floral ones. There were more lovely pairs there but I didn't have enough money :(
That evening we had some of our friends over at Dan's house and we watched tv and had ice cream :D
Today Daniel and I lazed around the house :)

I swear... 2012 (the movie) does not want us to watch it!! Daniel downloaded the (supposed) movie and we watched it last weekend. We had heard that it was really good and had fantastic special effects. So, we were watching the movie and we were thinking... "this movie is kind of lame... and the plotline and the special effects are really terrible!" I kind of kept waiting for the movie to get better. But we finished watching it and we were thinking that it definitely wasn't the same movie that came out recently, so we looked it up on Wikipedia (how I love Wikipedia) and it turns out the movie we watched was actually "2012 Doomsday", by the company The Asylum, which produces "mockbusters," which capitalise on big blockbuster/hollywood releases by making movies with a similar plotline/title.
The movie we watched was about 2012 of course, but it was really religious. :S the Apocalypse begins to happen and some American individuals suddenly have this crazy urge to travel immediately to a temple in Mexico. Their friends or family members who believe in God suddenly disappear and are supposedly transported into heaven, and the ones who don't believe in God are left behind. The film ends with a woman giving birth at the temple and this is like the second coming of Christ or something, as this amazingly stops the Apocalypse disasters. Hmm... sorry if you wanted to see this movie and I spoiled it for you! So yes... we didn't really enjoy the film so much, especially as we had been looking forward to watching the real 2012!
So as we hadn't had much luck getting the movie the first time, we again downloaded what we thought was the correct version and settled down to watch it last night after our friends had left. Turns out, the movie was right but everything was dubbed in French!! So we didn't end up watching it. Haha. Maybe it's a sign telling us that we aren't supposed to watch it.... or maybe just karma saying that we should buy or rent the movie instead of downloading it!! :P

Anyway my last outfit photo (from my previous post) got taken out of the style gallery on Chictopia. I'm a little sad about it because it's the first time it's happened to me, and I thought the photo was good enough quality. (and obviously lots of people liked it as I had dozens of comments and votes before it got taken out!) Heh. Gotta start putting more effort into my composition and photos then I guess.

Wearing: Living Doll ruffly blouse, Navy skirt which used to be my mums, Vintage belt, Vintage heels.
And omg. I'm not wearing any stockings here. My legs are so damn pale!! Gotta get some sunlight :D

Hope you had a great weekend and looking forward to your comments :)

i hear noises in the darkness

2010-02-05T10:16:00.005+11:00

Hi again :)
Eep, I've noticed that on Chictopia that the rules have changed and you now have to get 5 votes from the style council to get into the Style Gallery, not 3!! So i'm going to have to start taking better quality pics and putting more effort into my outfits.. XD haha.

Anyway... I would love to put up some pics from the trip, but i'm waiting until I can get a copy of Dan's photos as he has a better camera and is a better photographer than me! :P
I've been trying to edit some of my photos using GIMP (haven't got Photoshop installed on here yet). I've looked up a few tutorials on how to give your pics a Lomo effect... but I don't really understand them so they're not working out very well! :(

The weather here is crazy. It was raining today! Strange Summer it's turning out to be...

Don't you love low backed clothes? :D My hair is getting quite long... need to get it trimmed very soon because of the split ends!
I'm wearing a grey/white striped bodysuit from Cotton On. It was $5 cos there was a ripped seam in the shoulder but I fixed it :) The skirt isn't actually that puffy- I just put two ruffly skirts under it to make it stick out :D Also wearing a huge random lace flower brooch I found in an op shop for $1, grey stockings and black I Love Billy wedges (from op shop.)

Have a brilliant weekend lovelies! Comments will be replied to, promise :)

I'm back! / yay Summer!

2010-02-04T00:36:00.006+11:00

Hello again!! Did you miss me? I am so glad to be back home after my 2 month trip to Europe :) I have been back home for a week now. This is just a quickish post before I go to bed!
I had such an amazing time with Dan, we saw 12 very different and very beautiful cities in 11 countries: we went to Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Krakow, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Sweden (that's the order we went in.) The trip was just wonderful. So very tiring being on the go pretty much every single day, but it was so rewarding. I celebrated my 20th birthday in Paris, Christmas in Prague, New Years Eve in Krakow and my 2nd year anniversary with Dan in Berlin... there is just so much to say! I hope I will be able to show you guys some photos and share some stories in future posts.
I don't have a favourite place in Europe, every place is unique and has its own culture. What I just Had to do in each place was see the art galleries, two of my favourites are the Louvre in Paris and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. What Dan was interested in was mainly the architecture.
I have only been back a week but somehow the trip feels so far behind me already. Maybe it's because of the weather- i've never experienced living in -0 and below temperatures (other than going on a day trip to the snow during winter) and walking around cities when it's -6 degrees Celcius and you have to wear thermal pants and layers and layers of clothing. I got used to it and now i've come back to Melbourne Summer where it's now over 30 degrees Celcius (86 degrees fahrenheit) every day! I love Summer!! What have you guys been up to during the holidays? (or are you not on holidays any longer?) I still have one more month of holidays until uni starts again!

This is what I wore on the weekend to Saturday night dinner at a restaurant with Dan's family and some of his extended family. I wore it again the next day when I finally saw Avatar with Dan and my two younger sisters. The tickets were expensive though- $19 because it was 3D and an extra $1 for the 3D glasses. But I loved the movie! The scenery of Pandora is just so beautiful! What were your thoughts on the movie?

I bought this Mermaid Sister dress from Myer for my 18th birthday party (2 years ago wow!) I love it and I really should wear it more often during Summer. The sandals are just as old and from Kmart :D A pretty casual outfit but it's just too hot to wear many layers! It was so fun taking these photos :)

I'm thinking of changing the layout of my blog soon :)
Keep on checking this space because I've got lots more outfit photos to put up soon! (and stuff about my trip!)
Looking forward to reading your lovely comments,

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! More travel updates!

2010-01-08T08:44:00.004+11:00

Hi again everyone! Sorry for not updating, traveling is pretty hectic, luckily some of the hotels/hostels we´ve been staying in have had free internet access so i´ve been able to upload some photos, send emails to my friends and family and check chictopia of course. hee hee!

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a super fantastic New Years Eve celebration! What did you end up doing for both?
I guess i´ll give a bit of an overview of what we´ve been up to since I updated last. After we left Vienna Dan and I went to Budapest to stay with one of his family friends John. We stayed there about 5 days. We did´t see too much during that time but it was nice to have a relaxing rest. Plus it was snowing a lot and got down to -10 a couple of days... eep, not that cold compared to some places but probably the coldest i´ve ever experienced! We went to some wonderful resturants in Budapest.
We got to Prague on the evening of the 23rd December and stayed there for Christmas. I thought Prague was really amazing, with the most beautiful Art Nouveau buildings. We were near to the old market square and we went there every day. We had a relaxing Christmas day when we went to the National Museum. We spent about 2 days exploring the Prague Castle Complex as well.
We spent about 6 days, including New Years Eve in Krakow. Ohh I thought Krakow was brilliant too :) We went to many beautiful churches and lots and lots of museums. The food there was really delicious and oh so cheaply wonderful! I think we could have spent many more days there, but i think that about all the places we´ve visited :P New Years Eve was fun! We went to the main square to celebrate as they have a big concert with thousands of people attending. The fireworks and ceonfetti and streamers at 12am was very exciting, although I didn´t really enjoy waiting for 12am as it was freezing, I didn´t particularly like the music they were playing and tall people kept standing in front of me! :P but I think the celebrations were worht it. On our last day in Poland we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was a very interesting but very sad and sombre experience.

So on the 5th of Jan we spent the whole day traveling to Berlin. We spent all of yesterday and today exploring the Museumsinsel, (Museums Island.) I loved all the different galleries! Gallery visiting gets really exhausting after awhile, especially if you´ve been looking at art and artefacts from 11am to 8pm like we did today! :D Tomorrow we will be visiting some more galleries and the Jewish museum too I think.
Oh, and tomorrow (the 8th of Jan) is Daniel and my 2 years anniversary of being together. Yay! It´s gone by really quick :) We won´t be doing anything special though, we already went out for a nice and expensive dinner in Krakow :P

Thanks for all the comments and new followers! Sorry I won´t be able to reply to your comments for now, but I will when I get back to Australia after the 27th Jan :P And no photos of me stylishly dressed until I get back either! Ahh I am so tired of wearing the same jacket and shoes every day!!! But because I love you guys, here are some photos of us from the first 1/2 weeks of our trip :)
me in front of the trevi fountain!
venice along the grand canal at night :)

daniel and i in front of the colosseum!
the arc de triomphe
us in front of the louvre, the most wonderful of art galleries :)

hope to hear from you soon!!

Traveling!!

2009-12-18T03:37:00.004+11:00

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't updated in several weeks!! :P i've been awfully busy.
This is such exciting news: right now I am typing this from our hotel in Vienna.
Daniel and I have been overseas in Europe for just over two weeks now. We caught a plane to Paris (stopped Bangkok for 3 hours on the way) on the 1st of December and stayed there for about 5 days. Paris is so beautiful, with lovely buildings! The Lourve was definitely my favourite thing as I really love art- we ended up staying there for 6 hours!
After Paris we caught an overnight train to Rome, and stayed there for about 5 days too. All the monuments there are so huge and grand and amaying :) I loved the Trevi Fountain and the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel is wonderful.
Then we caught a train to Venice and stayed there about 3 days. Venice is kind of surreal with its tiny alleyways and canals and hundreds of tiny bridges over them. Unfortunately we didn't go on a gondola ride because it was so expensive! I bought a Venetian mask though :)
So after that we again caught an overnight train to Vienna, and this is our 3rd day here. I've actually had time to do a bit of window shopping here! :P The city is fun to stroll around, though it is just SO cold!! I think it was about -3 degrees celcius today, many many degrees colder than what it ever gets to in Melbourne. It has been snowing here the past couple of days, which is so surreal as well as i've never seen real snow (in a city), other than snow high up in the mountains when i've gone skiing when I was a kid. We've visited the old imperial apartments, such grandeur and decadence all in the Rococo style! I really loved looking at it all.
In a couple of hours we are off to Budapest to stay with one of Dan's family friends, and we will be there hopefully until just before Christmas or even a bit after. So exciting and will be good to have a bit of a rest (and also wash my clothes cos i've been wearing 2 sets of clothes for the last 2 weeks.. haha!!)
Ok there is someone waiting to go on the computer, so that's all from me for now.
Here's one photo of Daniel and I in front of Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Thanks for reading and thanks to new followers! Hopefully i'll be able to update a bit more but unfortunately there won't be many photos for the next few weeks! (and definitely no photos of me fashionably dressed!) :P
I'd love to hear from you, and hope you keep reading :)

we make plans

2009-11-26T21:34:00.019+11:00

Heya! I haven't updated in a couple of weeks... sorry! I've been quite busy with lots of things- from last Tuesday to this Wednesday I was house sitting for my neighbour. It was very relaxing and easy, all I had to do was feed her dogs!
The thing that's been taking up most of my attention is my trip to Europe with my boyfriend! We are actually leaving next week, next Tuesday to be precise which is the 1st of December, and we will be travelling all around Europe for two months, we will be coming back on January 27th. So soon I won't be posting very often.. But I am going to write some extra long posts in the next couple of days to make up for it!

I am really very excited!! It's going to be lots of fun. I just got my renewed passport last week, because my old one was going to expire in April next year. It's a much better photo of me, yay! I'm sad because we will miss 2 months of Summer which is my favourite season. However I get to be in Paris for my 20th birthday!! And I'm going to hopefully see my first white Christmas :D And Daniel and I will probably be in Berlin for our 2 year anniversary. woo!
We are going to the capital cities of lots of countries, but only staying several days in each. So much to see! Here is our itinerary, which isn't finalised yet: Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm.
Can't wait to see all the museums and art galleries!! Haha I'm such a nerd...
It's going to be so cold... ack... i;m not a Winter person at all! We only have small suitcases cos we're going to be traveling by train, so we're only taking a couple of changes of clothes. Anyone who lives in Europe or has traveled there during Winter please tell me... should I not bother bringing a dress for normal day wear because it will be too cold even if I wear woolen tights?? I'm bringing one pair of outdoor/hiking type boots for daily sightseeing cos they're the only ones I have with a good tread, and another pair of shoes to wear if we want to go to a nice restaurant or bar, along with one nice dress. I'm going to be wearing jeans or pants every day, with thermal pants and thermal top, and a cardigan. I've also borrowed a warm jacket from Dan's sis, which they got when they lived in Sweden for a bit a couple of years ago, I'm going to be wearing the jacket every day.
I'm kind of stressing about the lack of variety of clothing I'm going to have for 2 months... somehow I don't think it's possible for me to stay warm and look fashionable at the same time as I'm not very used to cold weather, and also because I'll only have about 3 changes of clothes for 2 months XD haha... I'm going to look like a walking jacket with hiking boots... :P But the sightseeing will be worth looking bad, of course!!

Ok... Onto some outfits! This is what I wore a couple of Sundays ago, when Daniel and I went to the Polish Festival at Federation Square in the city. (Dan is half Polish.) It was pretty interesting but I forgot to bring my camera that day :( There were stalls there, and they had things like Polish dancing on the stage. There were also food stalls :D It was a very hot day. We didn't stay very long though although I would have liked to stay longer and have a closer look at things :(
In the pics I am wearing a thrifted leaopard print singlet from Temt $3, high waisted Silence + Noise shorts $2, thrifted lace bolero $3, and necklaces from Diva. I got these shoes from an op shop for 50c! I love the zippers!

Yay!
And because I love you guys... I'm also putting up some oldish photos from a couple of weeks ago. This is what I wore several weeks ago for a friend's birthday party at a pub. I seriously love these new high heel shoes/booties! $5.06 on clearance from Target :P Would have preferred them in black.. but with a price like that you can't argue. :) I'm also wearing my mum's old blouse- I absolutely love the details and the sleeves on it, the shoulders are a bit puffy and the edges of the sleeves are really cool! oops you can see my bra in the pics.. haha. Black high waisted shorts from Living Doll $2 and thrifted belt $4, and thrifted maroon tights. Layered gold necklaces again! :)
I'm not putting these pics up on Chictopia cos they turned out rather terrible :( Couldn't get good lighting even with the blinds and windows open!! Edited them quickly but they're still bad quality :P And for some reason I look kind of different in these photos.... :D

Tungsten lighting flash made the pic blue!! :P

Love those shoes!

A big Thank You to my followers! Will reply to comments soon! I've got more photos and news, will tell you all about it in future posts!! I was tagged for the "Beautiful Blogger Award" on Chictopia, was going to do that in this post but got a bit carried away, so i'll do it in my next post! :P I'm having my early birthday party tomorrow night so more news about that soon!

Melbourne Cup Day Barbecue

2009-11-12T21:28:00.007+11:00

Hi again!
I've got some photos to put up from last Tuesday, the 3rd of November which was Melbourne Cup Day. It's 'the race that stops the nation' and here in Victoria we get a public holiday for it :D
My friend A's family has an annual cup day BBQ which Dan and I went to that day. It's not formal or anything but I decided to dress up anyway! If I actually went to the races, I wouldn't wear anything like what I was wearing on that day, but it's still fun to dress up :)

More details on my outfit in a bit!
The barbecue was really fun. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great as it was really windy and not particularly sunny. But the food that A's family prepared for the day was sooo yummy and there was so much of it :D
There are a number of different races that occur during the day other than the main race for the Cup. Before each race occurred, we would have a 'sweep'. That's where you give $1 or $2, and you draw out a random number, and whatever number you get is the horse that you are backing for that race. Whoever wins the race gets almost all of the money collected from that sweep.
Daniel and I put in a few dollars each for almost every race that was on for the whole day, but we didn't win anything back at all! We put in for 2- 4 horses almost every race but none of our horses ever came 1st, 2nd or 3rd!! We didn't even earn anything back (if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd you get $1 or $2 :P )We are so unlucky! :P

After the main Melbourne Cup Race we had a Snail Race!! I'd never participated in one before so it was very exciting. And yes, actual snails were used!
First you draw a big circle on the ground and draw numbers all around the sides. Like the sweeps you pay $1 and you get randomly draw out a number. Then you put a whole bunch of snails into the middle of the circle.

You spray water all over the snails and circle to encourage them to start moving. Any snail that is over the line first wins!! (Whoever has the number of the line that the snail crosses over wins all the money!!)

Decorations :)

A + A's cute dog Ben :)

After most of the races were over the boys just hung around thinking of random backyard games to play. Such as using golf clubs to hit plastic golf balls into a net, as well as backyard cricket, bocce, quoits, or random mergings of both bocce and quoits, hehe. Mojitos are yummy!!

Back to what I was wearing. The night before I tied my hair up into 2 small buns and slept on it. In the morning I just took my hair out and it was all curly! I think it looks nice cos it's different to the way my hair is normally :D
My hair after my lame budget curling :P

After I tied the material around my head into a bow!

The red ruffly dress i'm wearing is actually my sister's, which she got as a present. It is incredibly short so I wore some red shorts underneath too.
I wore my op shopped $3.50 Dotti blouse over it because I didn't want to bare my shoulders at the BBQ and besides it was coldish... And I wore a cardi on the day as well but I didn't end up taking that off at all. :P

Don't you just love extra, overboard rufflyness??

I also wore thrifted lace gloves (didn't even up wearing them for very long as it was difficult to eat! :P), my $4 grandma shoes I got from Savers, hehe and some tights I got for 20c from an op shop, which has a cute little printed bit at the ankle.
If you know anything about racing fashion then you'll know it's completely wrong to go to a race without a hat, headpiece or a fascinator. Not that anyone was overly dressing up for the BBQ but I tied a simple red piece of fabric around my head into a bow anyway. I think it looked interesting and it's pretty striking so I think i'll be doing this more often! I just pinned my curly hair up using a big clip.

So there you go lovelies, what happened that day and my outfit for that day!
Hope you had fun looking at my multiloads of photos! :D
If I haven't commented back on your page I will do so soon :) Thanks to all my new followers, love you guys :)

dark side

2009-11-11T16:50:00.007+11:00

Hi again :)
About my last blog post, everything has been sorted out (I hope). The blog owner has removed all the posts that were written by me and my photos, which I'm thankful for. I've decided not to disable right-click on my page, mostly because it's annoying for me when i'm viewing my page so i'm sure it would be more annoying when you're browsing. Besides, if someone truly wants to take my photos then disabling right click isn't gonna stop them cos there are plenty of other ways!!
I'm thinking of maybe starting to watermark the photos I put up, but I don't really want to do this either because 1- It already takes awhile for me to retouch my photos and resize them, watermarking them will be even more of a hassle. Especially if i've gone to a fun event and i've taken dozens of photos I want to put up. 2- Even though i'd try and put the watermarks in non-conspicuous places and i'd try to make them not as noticeable, ultimately you'll still be able to see it. And on an aesthetic level the photos won't look as good and it might be kind of distracting. And 3- It seems a little overboard. Because if you don't want your photos to be taken, don't put them on the internet right? But I do want to share my photos/style with everyone, and also the things that are happening in my life, without the fear that someone might be stealing my photos and using them without my knowledge! And seriously, i'm pretty sure what happened was a one off. This blog is mainly for fun and I don't think that my entries/photos are so fantastic that lots of people would want to copy my stuff anyway!!
Hm... so I haven't decided what to do yet, does anyone have any suggestions?? What do you do on your own blogs? Do you worry at all about this kind of stuff!

Onto something else...
General Pants Co. is one of my favourite stores. They're an Australian retailer and they sell a lot of Australian brands as well as international ones. The clothes they sell are really influenced by streetwear and i'd say most of it is geared towards younger people. They're really up to date with trends and the brands are quite expensive so the clothes are pretty good quality and aren't just throwaway fashions/trends.
But unfortunately being the poor student I am, I really can't afford much from there. Everything i've bought from there has been majorly on sale, though I haven't bought anything from there this whole year because the sales haven't been as good and right now i'm so conscious of what I spend! Sigh... I seriously want everything they sell there!! :P If only I was rich... :)
This is their latest fashion spread/lookbook, which is featured on their website. I love it!! It's called "Bring your Dark Side to Light."

Sequin top and blue skirt!! :D

I love everything! I would definitely wear these outfits. Denim biker jacket, black lace, floral leggings, tutu dress and tulle skirt... i die :)

I think more guys should dress like this, with vests, converses and hats! :P
Love the feathers and the leopard print bow. I desperately need a black blazer...
I wish I could have these outfits! Feminine but with a rock-y edge.

I had to fn+prt sc all these images :P They're all from the General Pants Website.
Photos of the Melbourne Cup Day party I went to coming soon! :)

upset because of plagiarism.

2009-11-10T18:30:00.005+11:00

Hi dear readers.
I'm very sorry to tell you this but today I came across something which has upset me a bit.
A few months ago I was very bored, so I randomly started searching on Google ways to wear different coloured tights. I came across a Vogue forum topic where a user posted a link to a Flickr group called "Fashion my legs." The group was private but it linked to a blog run by the admin also called Fashion my legs.
There were lots of photos on the site of people wearing tights, a few of them outfits that I had seen on Chictopia. I was very surprised to find a photo from my chictopia blog on there, as this was completely random. Nevertheless, I was very flattered. However I didn't post a comment but bookmarked the blog to I could view it later.
Just recently a girl posted a few comments on this blog, and also added me as a favourite on Chictopia. I realised it was the same person who owned the fashion my legs blog and I still felt flattered. I was thinking of posting a comment asking that if she wanted to use my photos, could she please link to my blog. But I never got around to it. I regret it now.
A few hours ago, I randomly decided to check 'Fashion my Legs' again to see whether new photos had been put up.

To my complete shock and anger, I realised that ALL my blog postings, both the writing and the photos, had been copied and reposted word-for-word, photo-for-photo, into the 'fashion my legs' blog. Not only this, the header for the blog is one of my photos.... and the owner of the blog is PRETENDING TO BE ME.
I know this because in the 'about me' section on the blog, the owner has written "The lastest legwear looks, tips and fashion , oooh and the odd outfit from me a girl living in Melbourne studying Arts and dressing myself on a minimal budget..." Does that sound familiar to you? It should, because in MY about me section I have written "I'm a 19 year old girl living in suburban Melbourne, studying a Bachelor of Arts Degree and dressing myself on a very minimal budget."
And the screen name used? "Prettylight." Is that close to "coldlight" or what??

Furthermore, she has blatantly plagiarised every single one of my photos, and every single thing I have written ever since I started this blog. Even the writing and photos from 2008, when this blog was mainly for myself and I hadn't promoted it to anyone yet.
She has even included photos that I have put up of my FRIENDS. This makes me incredibly angry. If hers is a blog about fashion, why post photos of MY FRIENDS that aren't related to outfits at all? It's one thing to steal photos of me, but copying photos of my friends who aren't related to fashion at all, and then posting them up anyway is just plain wrong.

Now, if you have a blog and would like to use some of my photos, that's fine with me. Just ASK me first, and I will be glad to let you use the photos as long as you credit me and link back to this blog. It's a completely different and horrible thing to steal what I have written and reproduce it without asking me, as well as PRETENDING what is written on her blog is about her life when in fact it is WRITTEN BY ME and about MY PERSONAL LIFE. It's blatant identity theft and plain wrong.

There is NO integrity in stealing someone's photos and claiming they are yours. If you get readers or people liking something that isn't yours, would it still make you feel good? Like you deserved the recognition? I'd prefer to post pictures about myself and write about my life, and get NO readers, than pretend to be someone I'm not and get A THOUSAND readers.

So i'm sorry to say that I will be changing all my photos so that you won't be able to copy/save them or enlarge them. I am really sorry to do this, but I don't know what else to do. I know most of you are honest and like to read my blog for fun, but it's always one person who spoils everything for everyone else.
I may not even continue posting often now, for fear of people stealing my photos and wrongly using them. Which is upsetting because I love sharing my outfits and I love fashion.

To the owner of the blog in question, if you are reading this, PLEASE delete all the photos that are used on my blog from your blog. PLEASE delete all the blog posts I have written that you have copied from my blog. PLEASE especially delete all the photos that are not of me, the ones that are of my friends.
I am willing to let you keep photos of me on your blog, as long as you credit them to me and link back to my blog. PLEASE stop pretending the photos and blog posts are yours. PLEASE do not use my photos or writing without permission from me.

To my readers, if you agree with me, please go to Fashion my legs and ask the owner to delete all my blog posts and photos. I am truly upset about this and don't know what to do. :(
To other bloggers out there, be careful of what you put up on your blogs.
I am expecting a sincere apology, however I don't know whether I will get anything.

stalls and bows

2009-11-08T11:19:00.017+11:00

:D Hi and thanks for all the comments on my last post! Will get round to replying to everyone soon.

A couple of weekends ago I booked a stall/car boot space at a local church's annual fete. It was $15 and the church is on a main road so I thought it would be a good chance for me to sell some of my old clothes and raise a bit of money.

It turned out to be a bit of a failure. :(
It was supposed to start at 10am on a Saturday, so I got there half an hour early to set up. It was in a carpark right next to the church, and the church hall was also open with other stalls/ food/ second hand book sales etc inside it. There were a few other car boot sales other than myself.
I had a few small tables, and several cardboard boxes on the ground. I was mainly selling my old clothes, most of which are still in very good condition and some haven't even been worn before and still have the tags on. My sisters and mum also gave me old clothes to sell, and lots of these were still in good nick as well, and only been worn a couple of times. I also had 2 boxes of shoes and boots, most of them good quality/leather and in good shape. I even had a couple of boxes that were labeled $1, $2 or 3 items for $5.

So I had set up my stall and Dan and I were sitting there chilling... it was still early in the morning so we didn't expect many people to be there yet. But a few hours passed and hardly anyone arrived! Or if people did pass through, they had a quick look and then left. Most people didn't even glance at what I had on my tables :(

Some of the people from the church, who were organising the fete told me that in previous years, they had at least 500 people come to the fete in one day. This year, it seemed to me that only about 100 people came to the fete for the entire day. I don't even know why, since the weather was absolutely lovely and sunny. So sunny that I got sunburnt, as I was sitting in the sun for several hours... So it was very disappointing. I only ended up making $25! The fete was supposed to run until 2pm, but after 1pm the fete was practically dead... The church was running a barbecue there and I guess they were expecting more people as they had lots of sausages left over and they were trying to give them away for free. The church kitchen also had plenty of scones and cream left over which they kept giving me to eat. Hehe.

The main thing that disappointed me was that I had planned to sell these homemade bows I had made. After I booked the stall I had started making some little fabric hair bows to sell, in different sizes, some with bobby pins attached and some glued to metal hair clips. And let me tell you this wasn't done in a flash, I spent a few hours each day making them. I was kind of aiming to sell them to little girls and their mums, because I knew there would be many at the fete.
This is about how many I made, and what they looked like:

The big ones with metal clips on the left, the smaller ones with bobby pins on the right.

I ended up selling only 2, to a teenage girl. The mums with little girls didn't even look twice at my stall. :(
I didn't expect to make hundreds of dollars that day, but it's incredibly disappointing when you spend hours and hours doing something (like making those darn hair bows)and then you don't get any recognition or anything positive out of it. :( Okay I know the bows aren't the highest quality ever, and you can definitely tell they're home made, but I still think they are really cute! I wasn't selling them at a ridiculous price, but nobody even stopped to look at them! :(

Sigh. Anyway, this is what I wore on the day.
A purple dress from General Pants Co, the brand is the limited edition 'Gracie' by designer Alice McCall. I got it a couple of years ago for $15 on sale which was very exciting, the original price was about $150. A white bolero from Living Doll, $2. White shoes from Novo, from an op shop, $8. And bows made by me! :)

Oh well... If I ever have another stall, I hope it goes better than this one did :)
What do you think of my bows? Would you wear them? Have you ever held a stall or a car boot space somewhere? :)

oh fascination

2009-11-03T23:25:00.017+11:00

Hello again dear readers! Thanks for visiting my blog! :)

Hopefully I will be able to update pretty often in the next few weeks before I go away to Europe for two months! It's all very exciting... :D

This is what I wore on Sunday night for one of my friend's 20th birthday. Weird, a Sunday right? (I'm not really one to go out at night on any day other than Friday or Saturday!) He organised to meet at this pub type place, The Anglers Tavern, on the river side. I'd never been inside there but i've gone past it literally hundreds of times in my lifetime!! It's also a restaurant, but it gets pretty busy on weekend nights- and it's got a pretty bad reputation for having lots of massive fights and stuff :S
Dan and I got there about 7:00ish and the place was already really packed. Because of the fights that have occurred there before, entry is realllly strict. When you show your license to get in they scan it in a machine, and most people (all of the guys but not all the gals) get their whole bodies scanned with metal detectors :O
I didn't really like the place that much... not because it was really crowded, but the place was seriously Bogan/Muzza Central... :P These are Aussie terms so if you don't know what they mean check out the definitions here at urbandictionary.com!! Bogan and Muzza.... hehe :P
So much bleached hair, high heels, too tight skirts and dresses, and plenty of fake designer handbags. Haha!
We only stayed a couple of hours (although the place closes about 11ish) and Dan and I walked home.

Anyway... This is what I wore that night!!
I've been loving lace looking dresses for awhile, and I found this huge size 18 t-shirt in an op shop, but it had the loveliest laceish pattern on it. It was $5 so I bought it. I reconstructed it myself so it looks like a tshirt dress on me. I'll do a DIY post on how to do this some day! (Btw.. I know it's very short but I am wearing shorts underneath! :P )
I'm also wearing black opaque tights, my trusty but falling apart bow shoes from Big W, Glomesh bag I got from an op shop on the coast for $6 and layered vintage gold / pearl necklaces! :)

Details of my layered necklace, also a black sash that I tied in a bow and secured with a bow brooch :)

I'm currently listening to La Roux :)

Have you ever found something secondhand which was ugly, but had potential... which you altered yourself to make it look better??

featured! :)

2009-11-02T13:26:00.013+11:00

Hiii again everyone!
This is another casual outfit from last week. I am really loving the warm weather right now. Except i'm not used to the hot weather yet, cos it seems like it was Winter and I was wearing jumpers and jeans only a few weeks ago. The other day it was about 28 degrees Celcius and I was sweating like crazy. Haha...
Ok i'm trying out different ways of putting up my images... Still testing it out so bear with me for the next few posts!!

I'm wearing a half denim half cotton pinafore dress which I got from an op shop for 50c! Also, a black singlet, Novo shoes from an op shop, red and white rings from Sportsgirl and Diva, Heart necklace from Diva and red bow in my hair!

I really wish we celebrated Halloween in Australia! Well actually.... I don't really know much about Halloween at all, but I wish we had some random day where it was acceptable to walk around all dressed up! I love dressing up and costumes so much. Whenever one of my friends has a dress up party, or I go to a uni function (they always have themes) I always put a lot of effort into my costumes. I think that's going to be a post for another time: lots of different photos of some of the costumes i've made/dressed up in! :)

By the way... guess what?? This is really awesome: Corinna aka Cocosnuss from Chictopia has been so kind to feature me as a 'Recommended blog' on her lovely blog Feathers and Air!! I'm really excited about it!! She's written a bit about me and asked a few questions to me in a little interview. Please check it out here!

it's easy being green

2009-10-29T23:25:00.006+11:00

Hellooo,
Just a casual outfit from last week.
I'm wearing a secondhand sequin bolero, originally from H&M, $2. Secondhand Sass cardigan, $2. Black shorts, white singlet and black flats, all of which are very old! I got these white polka dot tights from an op shop as well :) I super love polka dot tights! I think I have about 5 pairs :P

I don't own many items that are green, and amazingly I found the bolero and cardigan on the same day at the same op shop, and they are the same colour! So i'm guessing someone decided to give them away at the same time! The sequins on the bolero are bronzey/brown, and the cardigan has some nice embroidery on it.

In the last pic you can see a hair bow that I made myself. I made a whole bunch last week to sell at a church fete, but i'll give details on that in another post!!
Much Love,

night

2009-10-28T23:17:00.007+11:00

Hello, i've been pretty busy lately. and i'm going to be busy for the next couple of weeks! :(

This is what I wore quite a few weeks ago, just went out for dinner and then a bar for a bit of dancing with some friends :P
Lately i've been feeling like wearing a lot of black whenever I go out at night. I've been having trouble deciding what to wear, and wearing all black is very easy :)
Took these photos quite a while ago but they didn't turn out very well :( Pretty blurry and dark, had to edit them a bit!!

I'm wearing: A secondhand dress originally from Supre, $8. A cameo necklace from Diva that was given to me as a birthday present from a friend. Nine West heels that I got from an op shop, $8. A black clutch from an op shop. And floral stockings which I got in a pack of two, about $5 (on sale!!)from Kmart. I love those stockings!!!!

I had fun catching up with some friends that night, although it ended early :( We went to an Indonesian place for dinner, which was pretty average I suppose :P and then we went to a bar for a couple of drinks.
I always feel really awkward when we go some place where everyone is a lot older than me, like late 20s and older, cos i'm only 19!! :P I'd like to go to more places with people my own age, but I really don't go out that much!! :P Hopefully in the holidays i'll be able to!!

Hope everyone's having a great week :) Please comment, i'll always comment back :D

no bright lights, no big city went to my head

2009-10-20T23:11:00.006+11:00

Hello!
It's getting closer and closer to Summer! I am so happy!! :D
Today was 28 degrees celsius!! The first time i've bared my legs during the day for many months!! :D

This is yesterday's outfit. It is impossible to get good detailed photos in the glaring sunlight! And in the shade the photos are a bit dark... If anyone has any tips, that would be great :D I think my sister is getting tired of taking photos of me all the time... :P We took these (except 1st pic) in front of a nearby house. The last two photos were taken by Dan when we were in the city.
I'm wearing a Friends of Couture top from Episode on Sydney Rd, I got it when they were having a clearance sale for only $5! The bow in my hair is actually a bow tie, and I tied a black sash around my waist.
Shoes are from Target, and Lace knee high socks are from Living Doll. 2 pairs for $5! :D

I really like this photo of me! :P

Hehe in this photo you can see my sister posing because you could see her shadow in the shot!

Exciting news: I've booked a stall at a local church fete on Saturday. I'm mostly selling my old clothes. It's going to be $15 so hopefully I can make a profit and get rid of stuff! :P
I'm also hand making some hair bows to sell there too. They are really cute and quite easy to make! I'll post some piccies when i'm done with them. I'm a bit obsessed at the moment and neglecting my study!

Enjoy the sunshine :)

Party Stripes

2009-10-18T22:32:00.007+11:00

Hiya everyone, tonight I'm posting photos from last Saturday, which was one of my best friend's 21st birthday party.
She had hired a room in a bar for her birthday, but for some reason the staff there kicked everyone else out of the club and the people who came for her birthday were pretty much the only people who were there for the whole night!! This was good because... well we got the whole place to ourselves, so I knew most of the people there, and we didn't have to dance next to annoying people, or wait in a line for the toilet and didn't get ignored by the bar staff when trying to buy a drink :P But I guess it was also a bit strange because the place (although it was a pretty small venue) seemed kind of oddly empty. And we'd be dancing and the bar staff would just be staring at you. Awkward... :P I did see a couple of people who I didn't think were there for the party, so maybe it just wasn't a very popular bar. (none of us had been there before.)
Anyway it was a fun night. Although to get home Dan and I had to catch the NightRider bus as close to his house as possible, and it was still half an hour walk back to his house from the bus stop... so cold! Luckily I brought flats in my bag.

This is what I wore: A Bauhaus dress I bought from Myer last year, I love the bow on it! That was only the second time I have worn it though :P I also wore black stockings and black t-bar heels from Kmart. People say you shouldn't wear horizontal stripes... but... meh... I don't care about fashion rules!! :D

Not as many photos this time! :P
In these pics you can see the birthday girl L, and M aka FrockandRollDoll from chictopia.

This weekend has been pretty good... Dammit, throughout the week i'm always looking forward to the weekend.... and then it comes and goes too soon :(
I've got a couple of more outfits and pics to put up in the next week, so until next time!!

Park Picnic and Birthdays

2009-10-13T21:51:00.008+11:00

Heya! Tonight I am putting up my very wonderful and lovely photos from last Friday!!

It was one of my besterest friend's 21st birthday. (So old!! :P compared to me cos i'm still 19!) To celebrate this auspicious occasion we decided to have a picnic in the city; it was me, birthday girl L, my other besterest friend M and my lovely bf Daniel. We met up at 12, and apparently L didn't tell M that we were having a picnic, and she hadn't brought any food so we went to Coles and bought some more food! Then we walked to Flagstaff Gardens (It's above a train station still in the city, but it's very pretty). It was a really lovely, sunshiny day, great picnic weather! We found a lovely spot on the green grass and stuffed ourselves.

L has been completing a Patisserie course this year and she brought along a birthday cake which she made herself, we all thought it looked (and tasted) amazing :)

Cutting the cake after singing Happy Birthday and making some speeches! :P

I had gone present shopping with Daniel, for L's birthday we ended up buying her: 2 mini boxes of chrysanthemum and some other tea plant blooms (they look like buds, you put them in a tea pot filled with hot water and they bloom!!)and a pretty tea pot stand from T2, a little frog ornament and a cute bear mug :P hehe. M and I have a super fantastic birthday present planned for L, but we haven't finished yet and have to give it to her late- because there is SOO much to do for it!!

Photos of friendship...We ended up taking lots of shots with the pretty park background and green grass. Dan brought a frisbee and a Vortex but i'm no good at throwing stuff. Also, is it illegal to drink alcohol during the day in a public park? Oh well :P

Linh looked lovely as always.

I wore a beautiful floral dress, handmade by my one of my neighbours, it either didn't fit her or she didn't want it anymore so she gave it to me!! and it fits me almost perfectly!! :) Matched it with rose coloured tights (secondhand for about $3) and shoes from Savers ($4). I wore these beige gloves (secondhand, $2) and a pearl necklace, which isn't actually a neckace- It's just bead trim which i tied together to make a really long necklace!

Okay, that's a HECK of a lot of photos!! :P I couldn't resist because we took so many and they were all really pretty! haha. On Saturday night, it was L's 'going-out' part of her 21st, we went to a bar... but that's a post for another day.

Hope you enjoyed reading/looking at the pics in this massive post, please leave a comment!!Thanks!

Musings and still updating

2009-10-12T18:50:00.007+11:00

Hello.... still updating my photos :)
Love this skirt... $5 because of the broken zipper, but it was easy to fix :)

This is what I wore when I sat the Australian Citizenship Test a couple of weekends ago. Check out my chictopia post here!
Love my cute umbrella! :D I always get lots of weird looks whenever I use it! :D

What I have noticed from my Chictopia outfit postings.... It's not always my preferred outfits that get the most notice and comments! In my last few postings, the outfit with the frog umbrella and another outfit which was relatively plain (except I was wearing bright blue stockings and belt) have gotten a really great response, over 30 comments each. Whereas the outfits I personally like a lot more- the one in this post with the denim skirt+ white blouse, and the one in one of my previous entries, with the black jacket+dress+docs, have only gotten about half as many comments. Has this happened to anyone else, where your favourite outfit pics have gotten a better response than outfits you didn't think were that great??

Well I guess people have different tastes, but even though the quality of the more popular pics were definitely not as good as the ones I liked, they still got more comments. I think it;s something to do with those particular photos standing out more- in one of them the green frog umbrella is definitely something a bit strange and different, and in my most recent post on Chictopia, the bright blue stockings against the white background really stood out amongst other photos. Or maybe my personal preference is just very different to a lot of people's! :P

Photos you may have seen before...

2009-10-12T02:38:00.007+11:00

I really have to get organised with this blog... :P
I'm going to post a few of my old outfits which I really like :) Sorry if you've seen them before!
Lately I really like beige and cream colours! :D You can tell with these outfits:
I'm wearing a coat from Review, Kmart dress, stockings from Malaysia.

Tried out a double-belt in this outfit. I think it looks okay... :) Love my $3.50 boots as well! I had been looking for ones like them for ages.

:D i've actually got lots of new pics to put up but I wanted to put some of these old ones up as well... :) (might do that every so often) and I want my new photos to be put up in order... does that make sense? I'm kinda rambling. I'm not going to uni tomorrow (I only have 1 class tomorrow and it's a screening, I think we are going to watch some of Brideshead Revisited [tv series not the recent movie]) I should be going to bed after this... I've been going to sleep so late recently, it's terrible for my body clock....
<3

I woke with wings, from lucid dreams

2009-10-11T23:44:00.008+11:00

Hey everyone... I still haven't made a nice header for my blog yet... despite the fact that I haven't been that busy lately :S

Anyway, that means i'm a little slow on posting new photos. I like my more recent outfits so I'll put some of them up :)
This outfit is up on my Chictopia. I won't repeat everything that I wrote there...

I wore this outfit to a friend's housemate's housewarming party. I miss house parties, they are so much fun. You can do all sorts of crazy stuff and you can always find somewhere where the music isn't so loud that you can't chat to someone! Also, I really like campfires!

Oh man i love taking photos. I guess I won't put up this many photos in further posts, but I thought my sister took some really nice shots here!! :D

I'm wearing a dress from Dangerfield, secondhand (and and quite a few years old!)jacket from Bardot, Cherry red doc martens and Black satchel bag. :D

As I said in my chictopia post (click on the title of this post for the link) the party was fun and the weather was SO strange for this time of year... it was just the beginning of Spring and I didn't even have to wear a cardigan for the night. Walking back to my bestie's house afterwards was fun too and it wasn't cold. Oh how I hate walking in the cold...
More outfit photos + fun stuff coming in future posts!! <3

Starting all over again

2009-09-14T20:18:00.010+10:00

Hi everyone...
After a very long absence I am back! I haven't posted anything since last year. Not that many people read this so no one has missed me but oh well. :P
Except this time i'm actually going to work hard on this blog and maybe i'll even get a few followers :D

I finally decided on a URL for this blog, which is http://sweetheartsandcelebrations.blogspot.com
It really isn't very fashion-y... do you think it sounds nice though... i'm really very worried about starting this blog because i'm rather a fickle person and i'm thinking that I might be bored of this name in a couple of months XD but we'll see how it goes!!

ok ok...
Hooray for Spring! Can't wait for warm weather :)
On Saturday Dan and I went to my uni to do some research and borrow some books. It was an amazingly warm day, it was 29 degrees celsius and it's only 2 weeks into Spring! As usual I wasn't really dressed for the weather :S I was wearing black boots and tights and I was really sweating. Ha! Dan took some photos of me in the library. I decided not to put them up on chictopia because unfortunately the lighting wasn't very good (although the book background looks cool) and also the photos were a bit blurry. Dan is actually a very good photographer but I don't think he likes taking pics of my outfit :P I also think the outfit would have looked better with a belt!

Blouse from an op shop, black skirt from CKM, patterned tights from Target (though you can't see the pattern very well), bag from Revival.

After we were at the library, Dan took some photos of a couple of uni buildings for an assignment :)
That night we went to a friend's party. It was a good day and a good night :)
<3
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where has the sunshine gone??

2008-10-07T22:01:00.007+11:00

It was soooo nice and sunny and beautiful during the holidays and the weekend. And now it's all dreary gray, and raining. That just goes to show, return to school and uni really does make the world gray!!
I'm definitely a bit slow on updating this blog. Also I'm not taking photos every day, just on days when I think I look nice. :P Because of course, I usually look pretty blah. Unless I can actually be bothered making an effort... which isn't very often I guess!! Also, I'm trying to use correct grammar and everything on this. Does it look nicer if there are all capital letters in the right place and everything? Hehe.

Okay, ummm last week it was a really lovely day so I went over to M's house because she was looking after her cousin. Kids are soooo cute don't you think?? In my case I have that opinion simply because I am so used to children, I am around them every (week) day because of my mum's job. Anyway: despite the nice spring-y weather i decided to dress in monochrome... and I wanted to wear my new polka dot stockings!!

Bauhaus dress * Stockings from Dangerfield * Living Doll bolero
Acessories- I decided to go overboard and wear lots. Sorry there aren't close up photos...
Kmart sunglasses (I love these, they're so huge and I can wear them over my regular glasses!!I have not found another pair that can do this comfortably!!) * white bow hairclip * white bead necklace- second hand * pearly necklace- second hand * white bow ring & black ring- diva.

On Saturday night I went to a friend's 18th birthday party which was fun :) I really miss house parties! People over the age of 18 rarely have them anymore!! It's like going out clubbing or to bars is more fun. But personally, I actually don't think it is because the drinks are too expensive, it's usually loud and you can't talk to anyone properly, and you can't just muck around like you do at house parties. Like jump into people's pools or crowd around the snack table and eat all the dip and crackers (free food- that's another perk of house parties!!) :P
Outfit: black lace skirt from some shop at Highpoint * leopard print singlet- temt (but got it from op shop) * Agent 99 cardigan * Supre belt * cream stockings- op shop * Target shoes * bag is secondhand too.
What do you think of the outfit? I bought the skirt years ago but that was the first time i have worn it, because I couldn't work out exactly how to. It looked too frumpy worn long on the hips, high waisted looks better but i had to wear black shorts underneath because the underlayer of the skirt was way shorter than the hem line and so when I wore it high you could see through the lace.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, hump day :( sooo it's allllmosstttt the end of the week!! <3

manifest!!

2008-10-03T16:30:00.006+10:00

ok sorry it's about a week late, but i'm posting a couple of photos from manifest which was last saturday and sunday. it was the first time i have gone, and i quite enjoyed it although i'm not sure it was worth paying $20 for one day... i think it was a bit disorganised.
it was at melbourne uni, and me and my sister wen min and her friend patrick got there at about 10:30 am, and although we had already pre-registered we still had to wait in line for about 2 and a half hours to get our passes. which was rather annoying to say the least. and then we wandered around for awhile, looking at all the people in costume (there were so many people dressed up! i wish i had! so i will next year!!) and looking at the merchandise for sale and the fan art and stuff. but everything was a bit confusing as they didn't have many maps around (although i go to melbourne uni so i know where all the buildings are and stuff... but we didn't even know what building each activity was in, there weren't clear maps or instructions so i felt we may have missed out on a lot just because there wasn't a clear timetable/signage.)
anyway, it seemed to me that there wasn't even that much to do! other than buy merchandise and go to the screenings. i think there was a line to watch the cosplay competitions but it was so long it hardly seemed worth waiting in line for it... confused... but i have to say it was still a very enjoyable day!! 'armageddon multimedia expo' is on in november so i might go to that although it is $18 to get in.. hmm... am i a nerd or what? ok photos.

what i wore... living doll pinafore skirt * kmart black singlet * living doll white bolero (see photos below for more detail) * friends of couture cardigan from episode * random cream coloured hair bow thingy * necklace from diva * brown havaianas * glassons bag.
as you can see i kind of had a colour scheme going.. woo! it was such a lovely sunny day. i felt so spring-like, especially with the floral pinafore and light colours.. hehe

me and a big plushie kirby :P

me and a big cuddly kon from bleach !

cool costumes: inuyasha, i dont know who the next guy is, aaand someone from naruto (not sure which character.)

scary mask :P

not sure what anime they are from but the costumes are great!

grimmjow from bleach

zaraki kenpachi from bleach

this chick had an awesome cosplay outfit, though i don't know what it's from.

this was one of the best cosplay i saw all day!! it must have taken so long to make and soo heavy!! those back wing thingies looked like they were made out of wood.

two girls who were with the guy above- not sure what anime they were all from.

in conclusion... i do wish i had taken more photos! but i was a bit embarrassed about asking everyone :P next time i will take more!!
some of the costumes were sooo fantastic! it's amazing how much time, effort and money people can spend on creating them, it really requires a huge amount of dedication. some people especially go into so much technical detail! like having exactly the same patterns on their clothing and having the right colour, length of fabric, buying wigs, etc. it's extraordinary!! i wonder how many hours is spent planning, designing, making and everything?? :o

i went to the races for the first time

2008-09-29T21:01:00.008+10:00

hey heeyyy :) i am pretty much almost normal again!! except lately i have been feeling so, sooo tired!! so sad!!
anyway, i haven't posted at all this past week because to be honest i have barely left the house. and when i did it was like.. to go to the library so that meant jeans and a jumper, pretty much, nothing special. so i have spent half the holidays at home, sick.
except on friday night megan had free tickets for the races at moonee valley so we got the whole gang together and went... hehe. it was like grand final eve night or something like that. but i had never been before so i decided to dress up nice, and then when we went i realised everybody there was dressed up quite casually!! people were wearing like, thongs and shorts and everything :P so i felt a bit silly and stared at :o and my heels were a little bit painful, and we didn't stay that long anyway. oh well. at least i looked nice...everybody together

trying to take a nice photo with daniel is especially difficult with everyone jumping up behind us!

what i wore: pink bauhaus dress bought from myer... it was like $20. but i think it's missing a belt in the middle. if anyone knows what it looks like please tell me!! * tony bianco heels- i bought these from an op shop for $5 and they are like new!! * second hand bag bought from a school fete for $1 * white bow hair clip. * black jacket (in 1st and 2nd photo) is CKM i think.

my lovely daniel looking very snazzy :) except without his hat because it was too windy. the vest is too cute, i bought it for him from savers :P

so we didn't end up staying very long at the races. we just walked back to megans house afterwards and played scattergories. haha :D

well, i was going to post about manifest (melbourne anime festival) but i will do that tomorrow!! <3

sick sick sick...

2008-09-22T21:20:00.009+10:00

hello everyone. i am sooo sick... >< sportsgirl jacket (from savers!) * red stripy top from episode * black skirt from living doll * agent 99 leggings * big w shoes * necklace from diva * earrings from equip * bag from glassons

the 2nd photo isn't very flattering! but that's the problem with getting daniel to take my photo, he can't put up with me going "that's ugly, take another one" so have to make do with what he took :P
we went over to megan's house for the night. we watched sweeney todd and the joy division documentary. i closed my eyes during all the gory neck slitting bits!! the joy division was alright but some bits were a bit boring. control (the movie) was better :P but it's good to learn the factual stuff.
megan has these awesomely awesome red and white polka dotted tea cups! they were cute as!!
and the red and white matched my stripy top! :P here they are with berry tea from T2.
ahhh i hate being sick!! my body feels so sore :'[ i have been pretty much doped up on panadol and medicine all day!! argh!!