Monday, August 29, 2011

Photo booth

I've been working on some photo booth character type illustrations over the weekend. I'm quiet pleased with how this one turned out! I haven't shared many of my femme illustrations on here, however I do endeavor to change this. The girls I draw are all kinds of show offs.


Saturday, August 27, 2011

You Am I

Luke spent Wednesday evening in Newcastle, and I crossed another book off my 'must read' list. When he got home Thursday afternoon we decided our evening would be a movie & pizza night. We hired 'Suckerpunch' & 'Red Riding Hood'; was not a fan of 'Suckerpunch'. I was however, a bit smitten with 'Red Riding Hood'. Put that on the dvd wish list! Luke & I watched 'Red Riding Hood' with our hoods on, they were not however red.

And Friday evening we went to see a 'You Am I' gig. I've seen them a handful of times before, but it was Luke's first time. He randomly saw one of his old highschool friends from Gunnedah working doing the sound stuff. It was a pretty neat gig. It's always nice to see Australian bands & having people whip their hurr back and fourth!



Presents

Over the past couple of weeks I have acquired a couple of cute presents from various places around the world from my family. I guess I have pretty defined tastes in treats & every day fancy, as all of the gifts are colourful & bright!


My cousin Kate bought me the Himalayan Felt coin purse, which excites me to no end as I currently have an obsession with felt ball creations. Happiness comes in the form of a felt ball mat . She picked that bad boy up out in the country where I grew up, in Gunnedah. It was definitely a nice surprise!

The four buttons and lady beetles were from my aunty Sharon, who recently went on an around the world type cruise holiday. She brought all of my cousins back some hand crafted goodness from Prague. Mine was in the form of a lady beetle necklace and matching bracelet. They are so fracking adorable! The buttons are also from Prague, they were designed and crafted by a local artist, and intended for my button collection. She knows exactly the things I like!

My sister Ashleigh recently arrived home from her Hawaiian honeymoon, and she didn't return empty handed! She picked me up a cute-as-all-get-out necklace of a bunny xylophonist character! I am so in love with it! And to keep in with the animal theme, she picked up some cute character pegs with cute little 'pick me ups' on them. When I set up a desk, its going to be so adorable with similar assortments.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Date

A couple of days ago Luke & I had a charming little date which entailed mid morning cappuccinos & a sneaky slice of pecan pie at Cafe Macaw. Then off to the movies to see 'Conan The Barbarian' - Luke's choice. I won't fib, it was a lot more intriguing than I thought it would be. Luke persuaded me to go with a promise of a new dress afterwards, so I went. Because he is such a nice husband, he also bought me Peter Bjorn & John 's, 'Gimme Some'. Afterwards we made a quick stop by Mad Mex for dinner & came home to finish our day off with cups of tea!



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

My Sisters Wedding!

My sister got married on Saturday afternoon, and oh my! It was so super loverrrrly! It was one of my favourite days I've had in such a long, long time! The weekend started Friday afternoon with a family bbq/mini reunion at Rafferty's Resort Lake Macquarie where the wedding festivities were held. I got to see a lot of my cousins & family friends whom I hadn't seen in months. It was such a nice night.

Saturday Luke & I slept in quiet late, well, late considering our apartment was the desired breakfast haven from around 7 in the morning! We kept putting off getting up because we both had way too much whiskey at the bbq & combined with the atmospheric excitement in the apartment I was sure it would make me nauseous. At 9.30 am we got up & had coffee with everyone, & watched my Granny stress over making (very!) last minute alterations to the bridesmaid dress. My cousin Sophie was one of my sister's bridesmaids & she has been living in Europe for the past four months & the day of the wedding was the first time she had seen her dress. Although my sister is usually the resident stress-head, she was very, very relaxed - almost too relaxed - about the whole come together of the wedding!

Luke & I went for a drive to Swansea to get some things for everyone, & on our way into town we saw a burnt out car on the side of the road, and 2 kms down the road another car on fire with nobody around. On our way back the road was heavy with emergency services & there were people everywhere. It was quiet weird. When we got back to the apartment, we had some champagne, glued some bows to bells, & quickly dressed for the wedding. I put my dress on at 2.40 pm and the wedding was at 3 pm! It was all set up so beautifully, the were rose petals for the isle, flags to mark the spot & cute little white chairs.

The ceremony was over just as quickly as it began, and there was a little while before the reception started so we went back to my aunty & uncle's apartment for drinks and a catch up. My cousin Jay, who is possibly one of the biggest babes ever, and who I hadn't seen since Christmas last year, flew out the next day to China to live for 12 months :( However, when he'll be back, Luke & I should be happily settled into Sydney so we'll see each other more thankfully.

The reception started at 6 pm, the second we got there we hit the bar up for some wine to start our evening. Ash (my sister) had bought some stuff off my friend E for her wedding, that she had at hers. The hot spot of the evening was the 'crazy photo booth', and Jay & I went straight over, donned some costumes & did our best Subo ! After a little bit, we sat at our tables & the bridge & groom made their entrance to 'thunderstruck', it was so much fun! On the tables for everyone's name card, we put personalised titles/inside jokes under their names, it was also a bridge for guests who didn't know each other so well. Everything & everybody looked so brilliant & beautiful.
















Picnic Delight

I've finally found a minute after such a busy couple of weeks to sit at peace with some tea & share some delightful adventures the past weeks have comprised of!

Last week on Luke's day off we woke up early to go for breakfast at this sort of old world type cafe that we always drive past & make promises to visit one day. So we went, and although it was a few stops short of awful (hence my lack of recommendation & directions to get there!), it was a nice sunny day & we were both in too high spirits to let it bother us. We picked up some tickets to Harvest Festival , which I am so super excited about! Finallllly a chance to see The National! Oh, swoon! 


After our breakfast we came home & readied our bikes for an afternoon ride & we packed my wicker basket with some sandwiches and ice tea and off we went to enjoy the sunny afternoon. It was such a cute little afternoon. We found this little picnic area near our house with a little foot bridge and a bountiful assortment of trees.





Monday, August 1, 2011

Tea Parlour

It needed its own post because of how amazing it is!







Tea Parlour blog //  Tea Parlour Facebook


Sydney

Luke & I made a lovely little trip to Sydney for the weekend where we had lots of little friend adventures. Friday we made our way to Newtown & stopped off at Corelli's, a lovely vegetarian friendly cafe that is always so busy because its so super awesome. They serve the biggest plate of waffles you've ever seen! We stopped off for a late lunch, as tempting as the giant waffles were!



After we had lunch, we fetched some weekend essentials (whiskey, pepsi & a lady beetle mask), went to our dwelling & settled in with some pre-drinks before we ventured to The Factory to see 'Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan'. It was such an amazing gig! Isobel Campbell is such a babe, with a voice like creamed honey. Unfortunately I had one whiskey too many & couldn't get any good photos.



Saturday we slept in & missed our window for a leisurely breakfast, so we stopped by a bakery for spinach rolls & take away coffees as we dashed to the train station. We made our way to Redfern to visit the 'Tea Parlour', which was such a dream! I had the best time, it was the best date I've been on! We had high tea, well, a low brow version of it that was just as dreamy! There was pecan pie, vanilla slice, lemon slice, rocky road, scones with jam & cream & cucumber sandwiches! It was all so super cute.


After we had high tea, we strolled around the city in search of sunglasses so I could see, as it was such a lovely, sunny day. After we completed our sunglasses mission, we city dwelled a little longer & then went back to Newtown. As we were waiting for a train, we bumped into some Newcastle friends, Loz & Adrian, who we hadn't seen since our friends wedding at the start of the year. It was a lovely surprise, however, it did make me miss Newcastle even more than I do. Oh, nostalgia.

We walked along King Street in search of the T2 store, and perused many a trendy stationery stores. We picked up some French Earl Grey & Madagascan Vanilla loose leaf tea. I am so excited to brew some up! And to finish off our lovely day, we had dinner at Corridor -  which is amazing! The food was so delicious, I had a beetroot+feta risotto, and Luke had some porky looking thing that he inhaled. They also serve some pretty tasty cocktails too!




Sunday morning we had breakfast at Chill Cafe, which served gigantic breakfasts. Sometime big is not always better though. During breakfast our luscious friend Dean, a Newtown local, was keen for some coffee & catch-ups so we got some take away lattes & sat in the sunny park. We hadn't seen Dean in months as he's a hectic business woman on the run these days!


After that our weekend ended as we came home. Sigh.

Red Pepper

Winter gave me the four finger slap for most of last week, & I was in a sheet sandwich with a box of tissues. On the plus side I had heaps of oranges & watched season three of 'Big Love'. By Thursday Luke & I were feeling a little better & we mustered up enough energy to make eggs & venture out for coffee. We went to The Red Pepper Cafe & had cappuccinos & lemon+vanilla scones. Red pepper is such a cute little cafe in Erina.