28 Things Before 29

Time to take stock...

1. make a new handbag
2. have a girly weekend in Christchurch
3. try on a wedding dress
4. make macaroons (Tried, failed, will try again soon)
5. re-scalp blythe (I'm halfway but it is taking a loooong time)
6. buy myself some beautiful flowers
7. eat dinner at a new restaurant
8. sell something blythe
9. fix blythes gaze
10. exercise regularly and lose 10 kilos (I'm serious this time, two weeks in and I've lost a kilo)
11. get a pre-approved mortgage
12. design/make/print/sell a zine
13. buy a pair of levis
14. make another pair of pants
15. wear bright red lipstick
16. crochet a scarf for myself
17. have a tea party with friends
18. bake a loaf of bread
19. finish my ruffle dress
20. take an online class
21. buy a house
22. use my new library card
23. save another $2000 (I was halfway there but then I got a dog!)
24. get a tattoo
25. buy 3 prints i love on etsy
26. draw and sell new prints on etsy
27. go out and try a new cocktail
28. write more letters

Sadly, there are things on this list that I know will not get done this year as my priorities have changed but I think I'm making pretty good progress. Four months to go!

Art Crush

Some very inspiring artists I've been crushing on lately. I really want to start drawing and painting again (haven't done much in the last 5-6 years) and these ladies ispire me the most...

Melissa Haslam (Cherry Fields)
I love the whimsical elements in her paintings and the beautiful saturated pastel colours. I adore the new portraiture style she is experimenting with too.

Stella in Hultburg

The slight exaggeration of her facial features really exaggerates the emotions of her subjects. I love the penetrating eyes and the sensuous mouths. I also love the darkness of her paintings.

Audrey Kawasaki

Always a favourite, her line work is simple and stunning. I love the textures of her wood pieces and the subtle washes of colour. The black and white line work over a middle colour is so striking.

What's inspiring you today?

Colourful!

Check out the colour in that wardrobe! I LOVE IT! I'd love for my wardrobe to be this colourful. It's so bright and cheery and having a separate lovely room for it is just the icing on the cupcake.

Originally seen on design*sponge

Wardrobe Challenge: Week Two

I'm gonna go a little easier on myself this week since there is so much extra to do in the mornings with all the distractions of a new puppy but I am still going to try and keep up with this wardrobe challenge.

This week I must wear:

1. Bright Pink Cardigan
2. Grey Pencil Skirt
3. A dress
4. Red Polka Dot Blouse
5. Wavy Hair

Meet Lily

Lily is my new little addition. She is a 6 month old Maltese/Japanese Chin X.

I picked her up on Saturday and am completely in love with her.

She is also the reason I haven't done any crafting, washing, cleaning or anything else I usually do on the weekends. I spent all weekend playing with her and it was wonderful! I can already imagine all the scrapbook pages and minibooks she will inspire, when I find the time to stop cuddling her and actually do something!

Wardrobe Challenge Update: Week One

Success. I managed to wear all five of the things on my list. Wearing two on one day might be considered cheating but I don't care. I looked good this week.

Mid-week Layout

I hardly ever manage to get a layout done during the week but last night I whipped this up really quickly, using two cute little felt flowers that MsDebs made me and a photo of Trina trying to escape our new office. The title and line comes from the Finding Nemo movie, a line that never fails to crack us up!

Early mornings...

...mean bare feet on carpet, clocks ticking in the silence and new nail colour.

Must stop collecting clothing....

I have so many cute and colourful clothes and shoes but I never seem to actually wear them, I rely on old faithfuls and then always feel like I have nothing to wear.

So with my style goals in mind, I am going to challenge myself to be a bit more creative with my wardrobe choices. To do this I am going to list five things that I must incorporate into my outfits for the next week. I will post photos and progress and the next five things next weekend.

This week I must wear:

1. Polka Dot Cardigan
2. Black Giraffe Print Pencil Skirt
3. Navy Blue Sateen Pants
4. Purple Suede High Heels
   
5. Red Lipstick

Style School Update Week 1

I've been busy this weekend getting all the projects done that I wasn't able to get through this week. It's important to me that I try and use up as much of my stash as possible before I go out and buy more stuff so I have had to adjust some of the projects to use what I had available.

Instead of a fabric pom pom necklace, I decided to have a go at making a yoyo necklace. I love how it turned out! Making the yoyo's was a fun thing to do while I was watching a movie and I added a few of my vintage buttons. I had tried using ribbon but much prefer the old beaded chain I had.

This is going to be a present for a friend as I have WAY to many notebooks as it is! I love the combination of aqua, blue and lime green. That is the last piece of my favourite floral fabric too.

My crafty tool belt was a fun late night project on Friday. I have saved this pink grid fabric for so long so I am glad to finally put it to good use. The grey fabric look quite mottled, because I spilled some paint on it while I was sewing it and had to trow the whole lot in the wash straight away! I kinda like the texture it gives it though. You can hardly see but it has three vintage buttons on it too. This will be good for carrying my ipod while I'm busy crafty or cleaning.

All in all it's been a pretty good week. My style file is filling up pretty quickly and I have a few goals for this week coming. So stay tuned!

Sorted!

I finally sorted out my Bloglines feeds, it was getting a little ridiculous! I had 166 feeds and 1107 saved items.

Now I have 85 feeds and 778 saved items. It feels good. Think how much time I'll save.

Sadly I still have to go through all my wedding blog feeds. I think I've gone a little overboard there. But it's going to take more time then I'm willing to give it today.

Brave and True

My words for the year are going to be Brave and True.

I live so much of my life in fear and anxiety but when I push myself I can do really brave things. I want to really try and grow this part of myself. I have a lot of things going on this year that are going to require bravery and inner strength so I hope that by focusing more on this I will be able to really learn to feel truly brave.

I also want to be true, to myself. I spend a great deal of time and energy worrying about other people and what they think of my that I am constantly censoring myself. I really want to be true to who I am and what I like and want. I hardly know what that is anymore so I am really going to dig and find out this year.

To really reinforce these things I made a new painting to go by my bed. It is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. I layered old book pages onto the canvas then used gesso to white out the area for my portrait, which I then drew on in pencil. I added a few circles, some filled in, some just stitch lines. I am really happy with it. I haven't painted in so long and it felt really good. Especially to do something with such a positive and strong message behind it.

My Style File

I spent the greater part of today starting and working on my "style file" for Style School. This was a lot of fun. I wanted it to be really colourful so used all my favourite colours and papers instead of saving them like I usually do. I keep most the designs quite simple.




I made nine dividers instead of five. This was mostly because I miscalculated the numbers when I was dividing but it turned into a happy accident because I had a few different categories and I could add in some for my journaling and the question and answer parts. I'm sure I'll fill them out no problem.



One of my big "projects" for the year is my wedding. I am hopefully getting married March 2011 (depending on finances) but I really have not a clue where to start. If I had my way I'd probably just elope! So hopefully this will be able to give me a good starting point in the direction I'd like to go.

Now I just have to start filling it up. I've made a pretty good start but have heaps more to cut out and put in it. Shame I only have one more day of holidays left!


We also went and saw New Moon today. I totally love these movies. But I really love the books so much more. They cut out so much of the story in the movies. Can't wait for the next installment. I might have to start reading the books again too!

Finally, some scrapbooking

I really wanted to get some layouts done during my break, so I finally sat down and cranked some out...




I really wanted to get some layouts done during my break, so I finally sat down and cranked some out...

Style School starts TODAY!

I've been waiting such a long time to get started on this. I've been looking forward to it all summer. Sadly I only have two days to play and have fun before heading back to work but I'm gonna make the most of it! I can't wait to get started on my style file and I'm really looking forward to the style features with some really amazing guests! Time to get started on my file...

Image from LA and Elsie. Sadly sign-ups are closed now!