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!