road trip

We went on a road trip to Daylesford. It's a beautiful country town about two hours from our home heading west.

We climbed a tower, had coffee by the lake, watched movies, had fish and chips, shared a tapas plate, drove through Ballarat, went to wineries, The Chocolate Mill, the Sunday Market, found a fantastic bookstore and I finally got to go to Lark, a shop I had been wanting to see for so long.

I also found the greatest vintage warehouse(s) in Daylesford. It's called The Mill Markets. I also got to go to another Mill Market in Ballarat.

They are amazing! The huge warehouse is divided up into stalls. About 4x4 metres and you fill up your stall with vintage anything. I could have spent hours and hours there. I went twice to the Daylesford Market and still didn't see everything. I said to Ben "This is the place I would love to come to for my Birthday every year!"

I found this beautiful dress. From the 60's in some sort of woven material with flecks of blue, green and red. It also had the belt and not one flaw I can see.

Dress - The Mill Markets Daylesford

Shoes - Savers

Brooch - cannot remember for the life of me.....

The Mill Markets....vintage heaven.

I also found a vintage Mexican Wedding dress. I have a couple and just love them. The embroidery is so beautiful and happy, and they are so comfortable.

I also found fantastic herringbone heels in perfect condition. These will be perfect for winter to jazz up a block colour dress.

And from Lark I got the little love heart for our wall and some daisy earrings.

I loved this beautiful pale pink prom dress. The sleeves floated and the skirt was tulle underneath and heavy. Sadly, too small in the bust.

This dress would be wonderful for a wedding. It was gorgeous.

Was thinking of my friend Ali (who loves Mad Men) when I saw this.

This would be perfect as a drinks side table. I can see fancy glasses on those shelves and some vintage cocktail accessories on a glass topped tray.

Kicking myself for not getting this vintage pyrex. It was the perfect shade of blue....but I got sidetracked. The place is huge!

And I almost got the big knife and spoon. Mum and Dad used to have this exact pair hanging on the wall through my whole childhood. Would have been so funny to have them hanging up.

I will kick myself again.

mad hatter

I am sorry for my lengthy blogging delay. My Mum came to visit and I took a break from the computer.

Mum went home on the weekend and I have been catching up on my reading and online shopping wish listing and on my travels came across a new collection by Shabby Apple.

It's called Mad Hatter.

I think the styling is wonderful and I love the makeup. I also love the perfect dresses and the bows and pleats of the maxi skirts.

Sadly the dresses in this collection will not accommodate my generous bosom as the dresses fall under Numbered Sizing.

Shabby Apple have two different sizing options - Numbered Sizing and Fits Generously.

For me, Numbered Sizing most likely will not accommodate my boobs (by an inch!) but Fits Generously does. I have a gorgeous dress from Shabby Apple and I have room to spare. Also buying from overseas that one inch can be a huge difference when deciding if you will risk the purchase or not.

So I will have to admire this collection from afar.

Lotta and The Hasbeens

I am lucky enough to own a pair of Swedish Hasbeens which I found up for half price through ASOS.

They are beautiful shoes and so well made and very comfortable....once they wore in! I was walking like a cross between John Wayne and someone walking across hot coals for a good month. I was actually going to cheat and wear them in a bath of water, but was afraid they would stretch too much.

The shoes came with a care sheet and it said that the light colour can age to a deeper tan with sunlight and it's best to not wear the wooden shoe on a very wet day. The wood can also stay in good condition if you rub it with olive oil and if you get a dent in the wood, give it a light sand and apply the olive oil.

My Swedish Hasbeens.

I also scored these beautiful wood shoes on Etsy. They are vintage from the 60's.

These little wooden clogs came from Rubi shoes and cost $20! I must admit they have been fixed by me more than I can count (with lots of smalls nails and a hammer) but for $20 you don't mind hitting them with hammer after every wear.

The new collection of Swedish Hasbeens are due to be released in March and I love the styling inspiration for the the beautiful shoes.

I love these Margot shoes in Mint

and the Pink High Saddle Shoe.

If Swedish Hasbeens are a little out of the price range, Lotta from Stockholm have clogs for half the price.

I am dreaming about a pair of red Highwoods for winter.

Dream. Dream. Dream.

if I had $200.......

If I had $200 and needed an outfit to wear to a special occasion, say Valentines Day.....this is what I would purchase -

This pretty bird dress by Laura Ashley is lovely. Soft pink with green, blue and red parrots. $119.

Romantic long lace cardigan by Ruche $37.

Vintage drop earrings from B Ellen Designs $3.60.

Vintage purse from Nice $10.

Vintage red bow heels from Aquanetta $27.15

I am very fond of the side bun and would style my hair this way.

Total: $196.75 (does not include postage - don't have to tell your other half this amount because technically you can't wear postage.)  :)

modpodge

Yesterday I did a bit of rearranging. This is not a new thing. I spend most days moving stuff from one place to another. Poor Ben is constantly banging into and tripping over things that I move.

I had a couple of wooden boards long forgotten in a cupboard that I dragged out. The round board had long ago lost it's glass dome in a smashing incident, and the long wooden board I picked up on one of my many op shopping expeditions.

I knew I wanted some lovely vignettes so I took out my old faithful...my tub of mod podge to pretty them up.

To say that Mod Podge is used sparingly around these parts would be an understatement. I love this product and have used it on at least 60% of our furniture. I am pretty sure if Ben stood still long enough I could Mod Podge him a whole new outfit.

So I basically found some paper I had laying around and mod podged it onto the boards and now I think they look really special.

If you haven't used Mod Podge before it is a no-brainer. It's a thick white glue. You paste the back of your paper (or vinyl or fabric etc) place it, then glue over the top. Let it dry and glue again until you have a nice coating. It always looks better the next day when it has had proper time to dry and you stop playing with it.

And a tip - if you adhere paper to canvas, use a toothbrush to apply your mod podge. If you swish the brush in x strokes, when it dries it looks like an oil painting!

Mod Podge haven't paid me anything or given me a life supply of product. I just really love talking about products that work really well.

sag

I love awards season.

I turn on the tv and watch the red carpet and give my own commentary such as, "love it" "hate it" "what was she thinking!" "what is with the hair?" "move! I can't see George Clooney!"

Today was the Screen Actors Guild Awards and my picks of the day were - Emma Stone.

A cocktail length gown by Alexander McQueen. The best length in my opinion. It always looks old school and classy. Emma looks gorgeous!

Dianna Argon looks so pretty.

The pink dress with the v neck is so lovely and soft and feminine. Complimented with maiden braids she looks beautiful. 

This is the best I have seen Jane Lynch.

This stunning blue dress is the most gorgeous colour. V neck dresses are so flattering and best thing about the full skirt - it has pockets! I am a pocket girl.

Jane looks amazing.

Oh to be a movie star and wear beautiful dresses.

toni journal

I have a couple of different journals that I made to jot down what is going to happen this year.

The first one is my Forever journal.

I saw the idea on Design Sponge and loved it. I also wanted to do something like my Mum does. She has a diary every year that she carries in her handbag and she can tell you everything that happened on a particular date for the past 15 or so years.

I put this on the breakfast table and every morning I write down what we did yesterday.

I made this out of cheap index cards and the box I found at Office Works and the cover pages for each month are from recycled Frankie magazines. I had a date stamp and ink already.

You won't see any results for a couple of years, but you have to start somewhere.

The 365 journal is my ideas journal that I got from Kikki K.

When the year is over I like to gather up all my favourite photos and I make a little book.

This one was printed by Blurb and I really love the way it turned out. Elton and Audrey have been wanting me to read it at story time which is really lovely.

I really wanted to take part in Project Life but I didn't want to purchase a binder, card pockets and paper if the project died at home. Meaning...I wouldn't have the time to continue on and it would have been a waste of money.

I went to Office Works and found this recycled binder for $2, some plastic photo protectors and have used index cards and recycled magazines for my paper.

I also journal when I want to. I didn't want to set any rules or be too strict on myself. I have a little photo printer at home and I use my sewing machine to bring it all together. It's been nice having most of the resources at home if I just looked for them.

I am really enjoying it and at the end of the year I will bind the sheets together and make a book.