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!