Shift your view

Do you snap lots of pics that you don't ever use because they're not of anything in particular? Want to see the world in miniature? You can make your boring pics so much more interesting with Tilt Shift Maker. By shifting the focus in your photo, it makes things look like miniature plastic figurines. Here are some I prepared earlier. The first is the view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe and the second is in the Musee D'Orsay. If you have a go with your own pics then email the really cute ones over to us and we'll post them on here. I bet we could get a great collection going!

Oh I love you Darling...hurst

(Princess Wallflower by Beci Orpin from Outre Gallery)

There is a little pocket of coolness just down the road from me in Darlinghurst. Walk down Riley street til you hit Oxford and cross over to Burton street.

In this pretty little corner of Sydney you can find Outre Gallery, an impossibly cool gallery that stocks amazingly weird and wonderful artworks that Id love to have in my home, things I didn't even know I wanted in the first place!

Dr Pong- so called because of the ping pong table in the middle of the room- is one of those casually trendy places that serves beer in red plastic cups, like those in American frat party movies, and hosts art shows. I had my birthday drinks here and it had such an easy, laidback atmosphere. Everyone took turns playing ping pong all night and while you inadvertantly smack the other patrons with ping pong balls, they're very understanding.

Across the street, in an old sandstone cottage is The Commons Local Eating House. I haven't tried it yet but I popped in there once when it was called Pond and the building has a cramped, homely feel. It serves French and Italian food and it sounds good.

Around the corner on Crown St is Pocket Bar which has a real Melbourne small bar vibe and they do really delicious savoury and sweet crepes but it gets really packed so you need to get there early to avoid the after work rush.

Sisters from different misters...

I can't tell you how many times the two of us girls called e have been gobsmacked at the freakish similarities in our lives... and how fate, if you will, only brought us together two years ago.
Today it happened again... our dadda's are born on the same day! So...

Eat your heart out...

February 14th is fast approaching and now is the time to buy your sweetie.. some sweeties! This is definitely a different take on the old, chalky message hearts of yesteryear... found at fred flare.

Home is wherever I'm with you...

My very lovely man friend (he hates me calling him that, hence why I continue to do so) has a not so secret crush on one Marieke Hardy, formally of the Triple J breakfast team. I'm surprisingly okay with it - if he's going to like someone other than myself, it may as well be someone with a lot of spunk (not that kind, no...), who is equal parts cute and feisty.

He currently resides in a shoebox somewhere in the inner west with the bleakest of walls. I'm a giant nag with a need for nesting, so I searched the internet for a cheapie way to inject some personality in a room that contains nothing but a single bed and milk crates. Success! Meet the Rasterbator (say that five times fast).

Because I'm too lazy to paraphrase... "The Rasterbator creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size."

So while that terrible quality picture above might not look all that big, it's actually 16 A4 sheets of paper assembled together to make a creepy homage to Marieke.

Not convinced? Well... here is said man-friend taking the level of creepiness one step further. (And no I don't have his permission to post this... so expect to see a blank space here in a week when he finally gets around to reading my blog)

The worst bit? I only put this up two weeks ago...and now he is moving (to the land of $5 thai food, so it's not all bad). Who will adorn the walls of the new house? Only time will tell...

I love a sunburnt country

A few years ago my boyfriend got a job in Darwin and I reluctantly agreed to move up there with him. I was very much a city girl and certainly didn't want to move to a tropical city with a population of 120,000 and an average temperature of 32 degrees where it rained for almost 6 months of the year and experienced the occasional cyclone. Since I went up there with such low expectations it's hardly surprising that Darwin exceeded them, but I was amazed by how far. It is such an amazing place and not just in the dry season when all the tourists visit. The wet season is what I love most, with the sticky humid days and enormous rolling storm clouds. We had an apartment looking over the marina and out towards the Timor Sea and we would watch the towering grey clouds build up and then dump huge curtains of fat rain drops and lightening strikes above the city centre. Everything was flooded and green and the waterfalls in the national parks would be roaring with so much water that it shocked me, having come from drought affected NSW. Gazing at the clouds off my balcony became a bit of an obsession of mine so I took lots of photos and here are some of my favourites. Since we faced west we caught the most astounding sunsets and while these photos don't really do the colours justice, they're a glimpse into how amazing Australia is and how lucky we are to live here. Happy Australia Day!
xx Liz

Lash-tastic

I love these fantastical false eyelashes from Shu Uemura but could I pull them off? Let's face it, probably not, but they're very pretty anyhow.

Where the colours are

If you have some spare time before the 11th April and it's possible to get yourself to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, then I highly recommend the Take Your Time exhibition from Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist. Without going into a massive explanation of the exhibition (which you can find here) I’ll just say that it includes a walk in kaleidoscope, a rainbow created by the projection of light onto a curtain of mist, thousands of pieces of white Lego and a tunnel of spectacularly coloured panels that I could live in for the rest of my life. I’m not very arty but I thought it was fantastic and the MCA gift shop is worth a visit on your way out too.

(One way Colour Tunnel by Olafur Eliasson, image was found here)

My Paper Heart

You've got to hand it to anyone who can make the most rudimentary items like cardboard, bandaids and earbuds cute - but somehow Phillipa Rice, of My Cardboard Life, manages just that. It's so simple, so sweet and so very silly - and it lights up my day (and makes me giggle like a loon) every single time. I wish I'd thought of it!

 

Today...

... I love the fuschias on my balcony and the lisianthus in my dining room.

... I don't love taking down the christmas tree and packing away the decorations (though we have regained a significant amount of space in our living room).

Colour my world

I'm big in to colours at the moment - well always, actually. I'm known for wearing block colours, and often loud ones at that. So that probably explains why my chest tightens a little (in a good way!) when I see this picture.

It's So She Sew's wedding dress (with this gorgeous photo taken by Andrew Thomas Lee) and I just LOVE that crazily coloured crinoline. I'd seen a dress like this in a magazine two years ago and ripped it out for keeps. Not because I'm wedding obsessed (er...don't look at my Foxtel IQ box please. It may or may not be full of Say Yes To The Dress and Four Weddings) but because I couldn't get those colours of my head.

I think the colour crinoline is a really fun and quirky way to inject some of your personality into a traditional wedding dress - whether it be one colour... or five. I'm also an absolute sucker for tea-length 50's wedding dresses, but THAT my friend is another story all together. One we might revisit further down the track eh?

Me and Roy G Biv

What's better than paying a heck of a lot of money for designer sunglasses? Having to pay more to design them yourself! Bravo Ray Bans, you've sold me - no really, you have. Clearly cashing in on the DIY revolution that's been taking place this past decade(ish), they've created a plain pair of Wayfarers for you to paint yourself. It's a pretty fun, albeit expensive, way to assert your personal style.
I found these babies on 80s Purple, and if I wasn't so accident prone (I can't have nice things.. they tend to break or get left on trains) I'd be shelling out for a pair myself. But I'm probably best sticking to cheapy sunnies and a pack of Sharpies.

Thank you STOP

A friend of my boyfriend's invited us over for dinner the other day. He and his girlfriend made us a lovely meal and were so hospitable. I had never met either of them before and feel compelled to thank them for their generosity. What to do? Send a text, email, facebook message? Or can I use this as an excuse to make the indulgent, but very necessary, purchase of some lovely Kate Spade stationery from Papier D'amour? Letter sets are so pretty and remind me a bit of birthday parties in the early nineties when they were the gift du jour (why 10 year olds needed stationery I'm not quite sure since I had noone to write to), but of course the Kate Spade sets are a whole lot smarter than those. I also found this very cute sausage dog set at French Navy.

But more old school and perhaps even cooler than the lovely hand written Thank You card, is the Telegram. I've always wanted to receive one and now I can from Telegram Stop.

Love was alive in the golden days

Owen loves music. Every now and then he'll suggest a band/song for me and he is yet to steer me wrong. I'm spending the night at home crafting so I asked for some suggestions...and boy did he hit jackpot. This song is beautiful.

This film clip really tugs at my heart strings, I can imagine it was someone's baby, a true labour of love. Animation tends to make me "squee" more than anything, partially because I studied it at uni and was meant to do Honours in it before I got sidelined by the House of Mouse...it's that one thing that makes me wonder "What if...".
Speaking of, this was one of my first uni projects which is like 5+ years old now (wow, that's a bit scary) and it's MEANT to have Machine Gun Fellatio's "Unsent Letter" as its soundtrack but somehow in the youtube upload it got lost... It was my one and only go at stop motion.... hence why it's pretty lame but it still makes me smile... and think of the 12 hour day I spend in that teeny, tiny room all alone

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...

(found here)

The last bike I owned had glittery handlebars and a shiny unicorn sticker across the middle. It was beautiful. Despite my having the world's most beautiful bike, I still just never quite mastered the art of riding it. The training wheels kept me company for a long while, followed by my dadda giving me a running push start and then I'm sure there was a brief period where I was capable of riding on my own.

(found here)

It has probably been 10 years since I last sat atop a bike and I'm not so confident that the old adage is true - I think I may have forgotten how to ride a bike. That doesn't stop me daydreaming of balmy summer afternoons (oh which there is a distinct lack of in Sydney at the preset moment) riding leisurly around the inner west with Oh, stopping to buy a loaf of crusty bread at the bakery... and then I wake up and realise how incredibly wanky that sounds.

All things aside - I want a bike! A beautiful bike with a basket... (and maybe some elbow pads while I'm at it)

This bike is called Gyspy. She has a basket and PINK spokes. I think I need it.. (and a cool 1K with which to buy it)

Holy smokes, this is a gorgeous bike... (it's Dutch and called Tree of Life if you're interested)

This bike is named Jenny... my mumma's namesake! Based on that, and your incredibly cute exterior, I think we should be friends.

All bikes were found at The Bicycle Store

PS Owen is dying to do an experiment to see whether or not I really can ride a bike... Results are currently pending but will let you know how I go. Prepare for tears and grazes.

Sushi Cake- sounds gross, looks great!

Just spotted this at Coco Cake Cupcakes. Will keep this in mind for my boyfriend Mike's birthday as he loves sushi as much as he loves cake and salmon nigiri is his favourite. Don't worry, it's chocolate flavoured inside, not salmon. Genius! It could be pretty cute if you could make these cupcake sized and made all different varieties of sushi.

They advise against it, but I do it anyway!

I have a confession to make, I have a tendancy to choose a book by its cover. I know it's terrible but I love pretty books, I like the way they look on my shelves and I especially love poring over the lovely photos inside baking books...yes, I love food porn.

Here are some pretty books about baking that I haven't read yet, but based purely on aesthetics I think they are cute. I cannot vouch for the quality of recipes inside.

From the top:

Ladies, A Plate- from Penguin Books

Afternoon Tea- from frankie.com

i heart macarons- from Fred Flare

You had me at Cookie

If a cookie could somehow represent your own psyche then Nadine Ingram's cookies would represent me. Her store Cookie Couture is brimming with shapes that speak to me. I adore sausage dogs, I own more bunny figurines than I care to admit, the letter E is fabulous (of course), I've always wanted to live in Paris and eat macaroons all day and I think that most foods on a stick are fantastic, especially hearts.

Pimp my desk

Being back at work after 2 weeks off is a shock to the system. Not the least because after traipsing around the bright and bustling streets of New York, my desk just seems so dull. Thank you Raw Space for stepping in and showing me that my desk can be a pretty cool place to be. Boring old office supplies are so offensive when you could have a Babushka USB drive, ladybug pushpins, a cassette tape dispenser and (Homer Simpson's favourite) a drinking bird to keep you company!

Take a picture.. it'll last longer.. no really...

found here

I've been on the internet for over half my life. I can remember looking up Hanson chatrooms and writing down URLs by hand (one was seriously over 100 characters long and I think I got it wrong anyway... the art of Cut/Paste had not yet been passed on to me).

It is safe to say I love technology and the ease of the digital age. But gosh darn, I'm really getting over digital cameras. Okay, I take it back... digital cameras are actually fantastic because they mean so many more people are capturing lifes little moments and not stopping to worry about wasting film - they're snapping away like crazy folk. But the problem is... no one is printing the photos! They're sitting on USBs, CDs and hard-drives and not being looked at or laughed at or loved.

I turned 24 two weeks ago and only JUST got photos from my 21st printed. What is that all about?! And I'm pretty sure that all digital records of me from 1998 to 2002 disappeared with our last computer, never to be discovered and guffawed at years later in a shoebox under my very messy bed. That's a bit sad (or great, depending how you look at it, because I was mid-teens and those photos are just awkward).
So my vow this year is to get snapping with whatever camera I can get my hands on - be it digital, film or instant. But the most important part is to - get the photos printed. Stick them up on your fridge, give them to friends for no real reason, make a wall of photos and upload them to the book of face (even those sloppy drunk ones if you must). And make it snappy.

found here

PS I really love this photo. It's so dorky and cute! It's something my mumma would have made me do... like wearing cherry earrings and making you pose, knowing full well you're cringeing inside and out. LOVE YOU MUM xx

It's Friday, I'm in love...

Heart plates from Made 590 (it's in Newtown.. not far from Leichhardt funnily enough... Ctrl + H)

Silver TOMS! Looks like these shoes had a party and forgot to invite me.

PS The concept behind TOMS is fantastic. In their own words -

TOMS Shoes was founded on a simple premise: With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One. Using the purchasing power of individuals to benefit the greater good is what we're all about.

Be still my giant, inflatable heart!

In case you haven't heard my loud squeals of delight... fred flare is now shipping internationally!
So this crazy large infatable heart could be all yours... or mine!

The sweets and treats of the Big Apple.

As a Sex and the City fan who happened to be on Bleecker St on a snowy New York New Years Eve, it would be remiss of me not to visit Magnolia Bakery, the very store where Carrie ate a cupcake sparking an enormous cupcake trend. We were lucky that the line wasn't too long and since I'd read reviews that said their cupcakes weren't that great I bought a Banana Pudding instead. Ooooh, good choice! The puddingy, wafery, banana creamy deliciousness was everything I hoped for and more. Here is a really bad photo of it:

Ok, so I'm guessing I'm not the first person to discover how fantastic Crumbs Bake Shop is since they have about 16 stores across the USA, but having been living under a rock in Sydney imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled across their Madison Avenue store. This is where I satisfied my cupcake craving (3 times). The Baba Booey and the Smores cakes were out of this world. I hope they bring out a recipe book so I can attempt to recreate their amazing peanut butter cream cheese encased in chocolate cupcake at home.

I visited Dylan's Candy Bar on the Upper East Side full of fantastic random candies that I will include later in this blog, the Hershey's store in Times Square where I bought Reese's peanut butter chocolate sauce and the M&M's store with its wall of lovely coloured M&Ms where I ended up purchasing approximately 3 kilos of chocolate...oops!

All in all, I was sad to leave NYC but the extra 3 kilos I put on over only 6 days will be a reminder of the amazing tasty desserts I enjoyed during my stay. I heart New York, but I especially heart sweets!

Um....!!!!

'Scuse me while I go and die (never one for drama...) but I needed to share this news!

fred flare is shipping internationally!

You really should be cheering for two reasons - 1) you can get your hands on some of the coolest stuff the internet has to offer 2) I'll stop whinging that no one ships to Australia. Win Win!
And sure, it ain't cheap... but a girl has got to have some cute in her life.