adele

I love all music and listen to it every single day. It might be with the kids twirling around my feet or tucked up in bed with my ipod. I love to listen to old favs or songs depending on my mood for the day.

At the moment I can't stop playing Adele. Her music is beautiful and her voice is amazing. Like a cross between Carol King and Bette Midler.

She sings exactly how I like people to sing - delivers her lines clean and simple and with so much emotion. I can't stand when people get a note and sing it up and down and trill the hell out of it. To me it ruins a song and it makes it sound ridiculous.

After you are blown away by her gorgeous voice, random people on the nets decide to look past the talent and decide to talk trash about Adele's weight.

For pete's sake.

Adele is absolutely gorgeous. Her clothes are to die for. Her hair and eyes and skin......sigh.

What a beautiful and talented singer. I love her music and I dare you to listen to Someone Like You and not be reminded of a broken heart.

Happy Weekend to you.

xx

christmas dress

I do love this dress so much.

Ben got it for me for Christmas from a beautiful vintage shop called Walk In Wardrobe in Belgrave. It is jammed packed with dresses and if you live in Melbourne you should come take a look because you won't be disappointed.

This dress is so easy to wear. It has an elasticized waist with perma pleats so when you sit the material doesn't go flat. It also has a strapless elastic band for the top. I think that is why the dress is in such fantastic condition. There are no buttons or zips to add to dress depreciation.

The belt I found at Savers. It's lovely. Hand painted on a velvet band. The shoes were also from Savers and the belt and shoes cost $6 all up.

Bargain!

Dress - Walk In Wardrobe

Shoes - Savers

Belt - Savers

Cardigan - Cocolatte

Pendant Watch - Camberwell Markets

on the table

I do like to switch around what I put on our table fairly often. Changing the top to suit the season or whatever holiday is coming up next. Sometimes a change is needed if I find something lovely to put on display.

The table runner was made by Ben's Aunty in Queensland. I love it. I also don't like to iron it because I don't want the table to look to perfect to sit at. I like it a little more homely and lived in.

The cake display was a purchase from Ikea and the basket of flowers was from a little discount place of odds and ends around the corner in Ferntree Gully. The plates were my find from yesterday and they look lovely with the jug I found at the vintage store in Toodyay on holidays.

If you have seen the Australian show Kath and Kim, you would know the characters Prue and Trude. Well Prue and Trude sold Ben and I the old vintage milk crate that sits on our table years ago in Perth. The snootiest couple of sales ladies we have ever come across. Still didn't let the snobby women stop us from buying the milk crate. It needed to be saved! The bottles I found yesterday fit the crate perfectly. I will be on the lookout for another two.

Can you tell I love nesting? Drives Ben mad. He comes home and everything is moved around. No wonder the poor love trips into things all the time.

booty

I saw this beautiful picture on Rue Magazine and I love it. The wallpaper is beautiful. The colour of the shelf perched above the chest of draws. All the mementos and treasures. It's a lovely vignette.

I have been on the lookout for a shelf so that I can try and create something like this in our bedroom.

Yesterday I was driving past the local good will store and stopped the car to have a look and while Elton and Audrey were rummaging through the piles of toys I spotted this little shelf. I am going to give it a paint and replace some of the missing hooks but once done this will look great above our own chest of draws with perfume bottles on the top and pendants hanging from the bottom.

I also found this lovely print in a chipped gold frame that I will leave as is because I love that old look. A couple of lovely bottles and two Ironstone plates from Japan that will set off a fresh batch of biscuits or a cake just right. I do love any blue or white combination on plates.

What did it cost me.......my booty cost $5 all up!

And Ben is really happy too because he gets to drill more holes in the wall for me. Yesterday he told me that the walls are weak because of all the holes.

He's kidding....right?

rose coloured glasses

Yesterday we went into the city to go to the Queen Victoria Markets. I love the markets, especially the food side because of all the great cheese. I do love cheese.

So we are wandering around and I spotted these great glasses. I do have two pairs of reading glasses but they are a little outdated, still good for reading but not a favourite. I put these on and they were the right strength for my eyes and they cost $5 and are rose coloured and a little bit Dame Edna. Perfect!

An optometrist would probably be cursing me right now saying that I need proper prescription glasses and those cheap magnifying glasses are making my eyes worse, but speaking as a girl who picks cars not because of how good it is but for the colour......they are pretty.

After I had safely put my new purchase in my bag we went to the pet store to have a look at the animals and this little kitty stole my heart. Look at that face.

British Shorthairs (Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland) are my favourite cat variety and if I had $1200 and a lobotomy this cat would have come home with us. $1200!! We slunk out of the shop pretty quick. I will stick with our two $40 mixed suprise breeds.

After our day trip we came home and had cheese and a french stick and watched a movie.

It was a lovely weekend.

happy weekend!

This made me laugh and laugh again.

Happy Weekend to you!

winter wishlist

Nothing pleases me more than knowing that at night the doona is pulled up under my chin and in the morning and late afternoon I put on a cardigan. The cooler weather is here. Autumn is coming!

That also means taking a peek into my wardrobe to find what I need to turn my summer things into warm and practical.

Like tights. This year I am buying lots of tights in different colours and patterns. I can still wear my lovely dresses but I will feel alot warmer.

Tara from Little Girl Big Closet is great at teaming her dresses with tights.

Cardigans. I love them.

I buy the cheap ones for around $7 from Cocolatte and I have to pull them out now and again and remove the little balls of fluff that gather under the arms..(with a razor blade and very light strokes....if you do it too hard you will put a hole in it)...but while they are cheap you do have to replace your favourites now and again.

I also love to look on Etsy and found this lovely cardi from Detroit Dollface. I was sold on the collar.

I am on the lookout to find the perfect cape. Not too short. Not too long. Just right. Like this one from Tiny Vintage Wardrobe.

I love brooches. They can jazz up in the dullest outfit. I am going to try making a few handmade ones this year from some scraps of vintage material I have that is too small to be made into anything else. I love the over sized bow.

image from we heart it.

A beautiful bow belt from Darlingtonia.

get pinning!

I have a new place to store all my photo inspiration I find on my travels in blog land.
It's called Pinterest and after comparing other photo board sites, this one is pretty good and easy to navigate.

You can make your boards any way you please and when you see something you like on the nets you can pin it and it's stored just like that. It also references the place you found your inspiration from, so if you want to use it later on, on your blog, you know who to credit.

I wish I could come up with some great idea. Then we could retire in Paris and eat lots of cheese.

photo from house of bliss

i miss the kids

Elton is repeating his year at kindy because we wanted to give him a chance to process all the new changes in his life from last year. Being Autistic we want him to set his own pace and we are not in any hurry to put pressure on him to move along with everyone else.

Elton was really delighted to be back in the place he knows so well. Elton knows where to find the blocks, the best place to sit and read a story, how fast to charge down the hill to the swings. It was lovely to see him feel confident. He knows the layout and what goes on and he has taken to the new year at school like an old pro.

When Elton went to Kindy on his first day last year, I walked home crying like Ted in the last scene from There's Something About Mary, but I brushed away the tears because I still had Audrey at home.

But now she is gone too. In Elton's group at kindy. Being only 15 months apart they are now in the same year.

Kindy is 3 half days a week but at the moment they are the longest hours of my week. I shuffle around and don't know what to do with myself. I don't have anyone chatting to me, no tiffs to break up, no drinks to get, nothing to pick up off the floor, no hugs.....I miss the kids.

It's so sad sometimes being a Mum. I want the kids to grow and become and do great things, but I also have days where I want to freeze time and keep everything just the way it is.

It's strange learning to be alone again. I have never had this many hours since the kids have been born where I have been alone.

It sure does take some getting used to.

back to the future

I have forgotten what I started here on my blog so I have decided to go back to the basics and start again. Beginning with a makeover.

I tried to get fancy with columns and tabs but it really just wasn't me. I'm just a plain old girl in $3 shoes.

I am trying to kick start my blog again after long lulls and wondering what to talk about. Now I am going back to the future and capturing what I started here to begin with......"a place to store my thoughts, recipes, ramblings, love for my family, clothes, crafts and vintage treasure hunting."

oh my stars............

How are you?!

We had the downpour of the year and it flooded the phone exchange and we lost our nets and our phone....for nine long days.

I have been sending pigeons with messages tied to their legs, but today the connection returned.

Happy Valentines Day. With or without a partner, you can still get your love from somewhere else...a big group of friends, a lovely workmate, the man that makes you your coffee, your pet, a whole crew of kids. Love is all around.

Just like in this scene from Frankie and Johnny. A fine, fine, fine movie, with one of THE best kissing scenes of all time. Al Pacino just about swallows Michelle. It's good.

she's got legs

The other day I was on the nets and saw this picture which completely inspired me for dressing for Winter.

Tights. With different coloured shoes. With open toes.

I can remember when wearing tights with open toes was a fashion no no. I can remember Wayne Cooper embarrassing a girl at the Melbourne Cup Carnival on National TV for wearing peep toes and tights.

This year I am going to try something new in the legs department. Too many years have gone by where I have teamed my shoes with tights and matched them. This year my legs are having a birthday.

I think Beth has captured the 40's look perfectly. It could have been just another dress, but adding the tights and heels gave it that classic old fashioned by still chic look and it has finished the outfit off. Plus you can get good wear out of the dress when the cooler weather kicks in.

And Emily.....she is the grand master of tights and heels.

Who really listens to fashion no no's anyway?