New Things: Dresses

I went to the shops yesterday to get some craft supplies to make a friend something. And while I was there I thought about how new dresses make me happy, and me being happy makes Luke happy. And I had Luke's bank card, so he bought me some dresses! I wanted to get a sheer type dress with a collar to wear under cardigans for this in between cold weather and found the dress on the right from Cotton On for $10. And I was just leaving the shops when I heard this yellow shirt (in the middle) call out to me, and before I know it I was in the change room trying it on with a forrest green skirt that I also bought. And just because I was going to be trying things on anyway I picked up the dress on the left and tried it on and had no intentions on buying it. But I saw it was marked down from $70 to $25, and when I paid for everything the dress scanned at $10, the skirt was marked down to $10 and the shirt was $50. I really love the style of the yellow shirt, they had plain colours that I didn't see until I had already committed to my purchase, so I think i'll have to make another trip to the shops on Friday. Any day that involves two $10 dresses is a good one!

Start Your Week Off With..

• Homemade Lemon Ginger Tea by Gypsy In Jasper
• Sketchbook Sunday by Kitty Cat Stevens
• Dip Dyed Ombre Totes by Secondhand Sundays
• Let's Go Shopping by Goodnight Little Spoon
• Memorial Day Fangover by Roni Feels Nostalgic

I meant to post this yesterday and got a little side tracked with The X Files. Luke & I decided we would start watching that box set in between seasons of Mad Men, and it was a pretty good decision if I do say so! Agent Mulder & Scully are the biggest pair of babe foxes! I can't wait to get to the later seasons to see their apparent romantic chemistry that I remember reading about in TV Hits when I was too young to understand what that meant. Have a great little week!   

Paint Chip Wall Art

Last week my sister sent me a couple of really neat links to some DIY projects, and last Friday I crossed 'How To Make Easy Paint Chip Wall Art' posted on How About Orange, off of my list of things to do. I really enjoyed making this even though mine is really rough and not as neat as it could have been. I plan on having another go at this DIY because it was so easy, enjoyable, and most of all cheap! I bought this frame for $5 at Big W and picked up the paint chips from the hardware store. The colour possibilities are endless and although the colours in mine aren't visually offensive, I think it is a little too busy. Next time I'm going to try it with a contrasting palette. Click here for the full tutorial.

Let's Swap Buttons!

Start Your Week Off With..

• 25% off Blog Design Service by Pursuit Of Felicity
• Every Camera Has A Story by Just Because by LeeLee
• Blythe Toy Army by Shy Scout
• 5 Things With Scathingly Brilliant by Maiedae
• Snap-nots by Cardigans & Old Watches

Finally a 'start your week..' post on time this week! I'm starting to manage my time better lately, the past couple of weeks have been so busy I've had trouble keeping up with blogging. I haven't had much spare time to read any new blogs, but this morning I came across a neat blog, Cardigans & Old Watches, that I've linked this week because it has some pretty cute cat pictures. And I know all you lovely ladies out there with Older Cat Lady aspirations would appreciate them! A couple of months ago I redesigned my blog layout and needed help with the coding and html and Felicity, who runs her own blog design service, helped me out. She is currently offering a 25% off before the 30th of June deal. I highly recommend Felicity's services, she is fast, efficient and friendly. Have a great week!

New Things: Necklaces + Dress

While picking up some things for a diy I wanted to try, I walked past Lovisa and saw their 3 for 2 sale on at the moment and decided I needed some new necklaces. Every time I go to the shops I almost always leave with a new pair of earrings, and as a result have neglected my necklace collection. For a couple of weeks I've been thinking about buying a bunting flag necklace with pastel coloured triangles and I found the exact one I had in mind! Whenever I go to the shops with something exact in mind, I never find it, so I was pretty fracking excited yesterday. I wanted to get some new things that I wouldn't normally wear, like the wooden block necklace. I picked the Peter Pan collar necklace first, and only when I got home and tried them on did I realise that I don't really know what I'll wear it with. So give me suggestions!

I've had such good luck lately with bulking out my dress collection and this week the streak continued! I buy a lot of dresses that I love the look of, regardless of our compatibility, and end up 'saving' them for a good potential occasion, or never having worn them to date. But lately I've been able to talk myself out of such purchases and focus on practical everyday/weather appropriate dresses. I don't have many long sleeved dresses and with the fast approaching cold weather I will need to change that. I love that the bottom stripy part of the dress puffs out as well, and its super comfortable. I wore it last night out on a dinner date with my friend Holly. 

Read Your Book In Bed/Easy Photo Editing

For a while now I've been lusting after a wooden tea tray, and at the start of this week I found one I liked enough to introduce to my tea drinking paraphernalia. It was broken in quite purposefully today, which was an especially cold and reading-a-book-in-bed afternoon. 

One of my goals this year was to make more of an effort/spark my interest with photoshop, so I tried out a super duper easy photo editing tutorial to give your photos a vintage feel. 

1. Open your desired photo in photoshop
2. Set colour palette foreground colour # value to ff0000, and background colour # value to 00ff00
3. Duplicate layer
4. Select new layer, & select Gradient Map in Images>Adjustments
5. Select layer>Layer Style>Blending Options. In pop up box set blend mode to colour and opacity to 50%
6. Flatten image
7. Add noise filter by selecting Filter>Noise>Add Noise, set amount to 2%, select distribution as Gaussian & tick the monochromatic box
8. Done!

I played around and adjusted the tone and contrast levels on my image afterwards. For a more detailed step by step explanation click here. Alternatively, you could just use instagram!

Start Your Week Off With..

I decided this week I'd make my Monday 'start your week off with..' feature a little cuter and make some individual graphics. Mostly because I feel as though I've neglected my blog lately because I've been spending the majority of my time at work. And also because I needed a break from planning my next tattoo. I know exactly what I want, I just need to gather up some pictures, colours, etc to take to my appointment in a month. But more on that later! I hope you all have a swell Monday, I had a super uneventful Monday which consisted of a trip to the shops to buy a book, a coffee, an episode of Mad Men & some washing. Have a great week!

Yo Momma!

I hope all you saucy Momma folk are having the best day filled with lots of love. I won't get to see my Mum until after work today. She is a pretty funny lady, every second or third evening I get late night picture messages off her featuring the family cat, Gill, asleep or doing something funny. And it always makes my night better, I got a sound clip message during the week of Gill snoring!

Here are some of my favourite baby momma bloggers:

Happy Mothers Day!

Nails & New Things

Nails / New Dresses from Dotti / Hour Glass + Jar

I had the loveliest Friday today. I started off with a sleep in with Luke, and a quick tidy up before getting ready for the day. After Luke went off to work, I paid a bill, printed our Band Of Skulls tickets at the library, did some banking and got some coffee from my work. And then I went to the shops in search of a new hand bag that I just can't seem to find. I have something in mind, and always get distracted by all of the other pretty bags and never get what I actually want - a plain black envelope style satchel. After I couldn't find what I wanted I gave up on bags and bought some dresses from Dotti. The white + black dress has teeny polka dots all over, and the dark plum dress has lace diamond shape cut outs. Both dresses  are knee length, and both were on sale coming to a total of $29.95. My luck continued when I went to Target and picked up a large hour glass that was priced $25 and marked down to $9, and an old fashioned tall jar priced $13 and marked down to $6. Luke & I have decided to change up our bed room which is currently plain white and add some colour, so this lime green hour glass is perfect. And the jar will be great to fill up with things and sit on our bed sides. 

When I got home I painted my nails in diagonal stripes using some new colours from the Australis range and made the most amazing toasted sandwich. When Luke came home for his break we went for a walk and got some afternoon coffees, and I visited my parents for the afternoon. It was such a pleasantly productive day!

Evil Twin

The Retro Cookbook

 

Last week my Mum bought me this super awesome gift, The Australian Women's Weekly "The Retro Cookbook". It is filled with beautifully designed retrospective graphics, vintage food product advertisements, classic photographs of 1950's housewives & vintage  memorabilia. So, basically cover-to-cover awesomeness!

"This is a trip down memory lane - a beautifully designed book with pages from old cookbooks showing what we used to eat, old advertisements showing what we used to buy and wonderful modern recipes alongside their beautiful modern photographs. These recipes are for finger food and sandwiches, snacks, afternoon teas, family dinners, the Sunday roast, and puddings. They contrast the way we eat now and the way things used to be." - Amazon

The Retro Cookbook can be purchased on Amazon here.

Start Your Week Off With..

• Moving on by The Fiercest Lilliputian
• Cheap Dates by Lazy Explorers
• Summery Scalloped Shorts DIY by Blythe Ponytail Parades
• Cool. Uncool. Undecided. by Janette The Jongleur
• Feeling Sour by Studio 336

This weeks post is a couple of days overdue because I was enjoying my day off yesterday so much it completely slipped my mind! The start to my week has been quite splendid, I had Monday & today to myself work free. I spent all of yesterday catching up on emails and illustrations, and doing boring grown up stuff like groceries and cleaning. And today Luke & I woke up early so we could buy ourselves tickets to see Jack White's solo show in Sydney in July, and Black Keys tickets for October. That was a pretty fantastic way to start the day! Have a good little week!