Fashion: Sretsis

If I were a rich girl (na na na na na na na na na na na na na)... I would buy everything from Sretsis' new collection, Metamorphosis. Or ever.

life: fun times

docklands on summer nights

beauty: short hair

There's really something about a 33degree day in autumn that makes me want to cut my hair. I've had long hair for years now, actually years. Its gotten to a point where I'd get a cut and no one would see a difference because well, its the same. I've gone through stages where I've been like, "have to change have to change have to change". Nothing has really eventuated from it all but I'm determined this time!

Here are my options:

The Elva
The Ayumi
The Jolin

Oh decisions decisions! Now that I've pledged my hair cutting schemes to the internet world I can't go back, ha!

book: a short history of tractors in ukraine

I've always had a soft spot for the Soviet Bloc. Don't ask, I really don't know why either. So when my wandering eyes fell upon this little gem on the bookshelves, it's propaganda-esque cover caught me immediately.

But I have been fooled before by interesting covers, so I wasn't about to dish out 20-30 bucks for another snore. At the time, you see, I was at the airport stores awaiting check in. I had about an hour to kill at my hands so I figured a quick flip read wasn't going to kill me. I loved it! It was witty fast paced and Marin Lewycka exudes a personality Stephanie Meyer can never dream of.

The storyline of the book brings out a deep sense of family. Despite the sibling rivalry between the sisters and their mutual love/heart towards their father, it reminds us that the ingrained tension is a result of a need for approval from those we care most.

Anyway the descriptions are hilarious, (I especially enjoyed "Botticellian breasts") the style is sassy and its'a book you won't feel guilty about reading later. So go for it.

fashion: winter beanies

Yup the colder seasons are approaching and my ears slash head in general need some protection. Granted after having 47 degree days a mere drop to 19 seems freezing for me! Anyway I should explain. I was born with a rather round head. Not as round as some, true, but round nonetheless. Such roundness that is exacerabated by hats. So I choose to avoid them in general. But beanies, I can do beanies.

This one is a beret from Forever New. Something about it really reminds of of Gossip Girl. It's very preppy, somewhat different from what you would ordinarily see and the black embellishment is just too cute.

Ah yes, the earflap beanies! I've always always wanted one. They exude youth from all directions and screams "SNOW ANGELS SNOW ANGELS". Even if it never snows in Melbourne, I guess I would have to improvise in the dirt. These ones are from an online Korean brand called Slowbaba, although can be found virtually anywhere.

This is closer to something I have right now but I would have to say that scarlette is a lot more daring than just creme, no? It's a shame, this Urban Outfitter peice used to come in an electric blue but I haven't seen it for a while.

Okay I'll admit, this is pretty similar to the one above. But the pompom gives it an extra something don't you think? This is by the online brand: With Mocha. Cute.

Here's something more traditional in beanie wear. But you have to agree, the cable knit and pompoms are so much more attractive than fine knit plus football team attachment, yes? Cuteness courtesy of LORIKEET, another oneline brand.

photo source:

http://www.forevernew.com.au/

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/

http://www.yesstyle.com/

beauty: soft soft lips

I have used almost all of the lipbalms under the sun. The Australian sun that is because sometimes companys don't like to ship their stuff to us which is very sad indeed. Anyway my point is: I pretty much cannot go without lipbalm.

But then, one day i ran out. (That's a lie, i lost my trusty nivea one and had only a grapefruit nivea one that unfortunately hads a red tinge. And that fine, but I also currently have pimples above my lips and the red really brings it out. Too much information? Sorry, I'm feeling sharing today. ) And then it struck me! I had remembered reading something about exfoliating your lips. I mean its true right? If you can exfoliate skin everywhere else why not your lips? Just be very gentle!

1. sink a glob of lipbalm onto your lips so they're nice and conditioned and then wait about five or so minutes to allow it to sink in.

2. grab a soft tooth brush or a childrens tooth brush and gentled rub it over your tips in a circular movement. be very very gentle here. really. Its far better to spend more time on it than having your lips scraped away. Think about it

3. Once you're done rub another glob of lipbalm over your lips again and leave it to set. Probs 5 minutes or so again and you're done.

Okay this is probably something you shouldn't be doing all that often (1 every two weeks perhaps?) but it allows for your lipbalm to better sink into your skin so it can do its job. It will also mean you won't have to use it nearly as often. Yay!

fashion: sretsis

Sretsis Southern Hemisphere A/W09

craft: masquerade pt2

I made it in time, haha at the night before the party. I got really worried about it actually because im terrible at mixing purple, let alone magenta. They all turn out to resemble something not dissimilar to shit brown. But its okay because I went out and bought some paint instead. Anywho, here is the finished product.


The paint on its own looked a bit plain so i decided to use glitter all over. Also, the rhinestones were a bit bigger than I thought so I only ended up using two, which was annoying because I bought two packets. Whatever.

materials used:
blue craft glitter
purple craft glitter
gold craft glitter
orange rhinestones
purple paint
blue paint
purple feathers

cost: just under $25
It was a bit more than I was willing to use really but, I suppose now I have heaps of pretty things to use for other projects, yay for me.

fashion: christopher kane

Light vs Dark.

Pretty, no?

food : chokolait

On a rather cold summer's night fox and i were roaming the streets of melbourne for a cozy hangout that supplied also chocolate, a vice we share. After discovering that the beloved and very pretty interiors of koko club were not open we knew not of what to do. But saviour behold! Chokolait was!

sort of, i think they were only open until we kicked outselves out. Nonetheless drinks were great and yummy! Fox had a classic: belgium hot chocolate

And i had a hot jaffa:

They were really great and yum and just what the doctor ordered! Between this place and Koko black , i think i liked the food here better but Koko Black's interior design is prettier. So i guess it just depends on how you're feeling right?

sound: wear sunscreen

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99...
Wear Sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You're not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing everyday that scares you
Sing
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss
Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind…the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own..
Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time it's 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen...

 

Baz Lurhmann – Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

life: eureka tower

at day
at dusk

at night

Melbourne is a glorious, glorious city. Pictures taken from the Eureka Tower.

craft: masquerade pt1

This is very late and is something i will never tell any prospective employers, but my friends very special 18th is this friday and I am still yet to come up with a mask. Oh dear. The thing is, i was going to buy one but purple is a very difficult colour to find in masks and yes, it must be purple for dress code reasons.

But I have two ideas I am considering so I did a rough sketch.

Here is option one. It seems a bit more blue than purple doesn't it? Maybe if I changed the feathers to purple then it will be better. The orange stuff around the eyes are meant to be rhinestones and I'll make the yellow bit in the middle more glittery perhaps.

And here is the second one. Its obviously more purply and whatnot but is it too boring? Bear in mind my crafting skills are rather limited. Anyway, its going to be all purple feathers with yellow glitter outlining and orange rhinestone adornments.

I don't know if neither of these work out, I guess I'll have to go and buy one. Let's hope it won't lead to that.

literature: growing up asian in australia

That's me. I grew up/ still growing up in Australia, so of course I felt the very necessity to read it. So I did.

Let me just say something about Asian Australian writers. They are very different from the traditonal Asian writers as their style is more relaxed, less "us against them", something I can relate to more. And I like it.

Growing Up Asian was great. The stories are hilarious, touching and memorable. From stories about family and the attaching generation gap, to ones of racism and acceptance, these are anecdotes from those who have been there done that.

My favourite moments include:

Papa Bear, Chin Shen

"After calling himself John for a year, my dad realised he needed a name that symbolised something more than the average white Australian male. Something strong and heoric- something that embodied the promise and hope of his newly adopted home. But instead of looking through the phone book or a book of names for potential monikers, he took a trip to the local shopping complex. That's where he laid eyes on the brightest, reddest sign he's ever seen:

TANDY ELECTRONICS"

Tourism, Benjamin Law

"...This seems to be an exercise in which Asians of all nationalities, ages and socio-economic backgrounds naturally excel: buying shit. Venture into my childhood home, and in amongst the epic piles of suburban debris, you'll still find a plush blue whale wearing a Seaworld cap, T-shirts emblazoned with Kenny and Belinda- the now defunct Dreamworld mascots- and a pox of hideous fridge magnets. Oh my god, the fridge magnets."

interview, Anh Do

"What did you want to be when you were growing up?"

"I wanted to be a martial arts champion, like many young Asian kids. I once signed up for a ninjitsu class. One day I bumped into the instructor on the street and he said, 'It's been seven weeks since I've seen you in camouflage class!' I said to him, 'That's because I'm getting really good.'"

Growing Up Asian in Australia is compiled and edited by Alice Pung, a Melbourne write and lawyer and is published by Black Inc. Books.

art: jonathan harris

I'm not really sure what to call Jonathan Harris actually. Web-artist, artist, storyteller, curious mind, all sorts of things. But what is so interesting about his work is the fresh use of web media to extract information to collate a picture of humanity. It's gorgeous. It's kind of hard to describe without sound like a complete tool (which I already do), so please, be game and visit these projects, they are lovely. Or if you are not, you are seriously missing out.

http://www.wefeelfine.org/
http://www.love-lines.com/
http://www.justcurio.us/
http://iwantyoutowantme.org/

food: pancake parlour

It is only with restless indecision that I usually wind up at the Pancake Parlour. I usually am not very satisfied, but I usually know that I won't be; prices are over the top, food is average at best. Their saving grace is whimsical and wholly likeable traditional Alice in Wonderland style decor and charming parquet flooring and polished booths. And finally at last, on the menu something to talk about; Chocolate strawberry Jubilee pancakes.



In fox is a deadful (or dreadful) blogger part 2, here is what is left of the Chocolate Jubilee; a triumphant, over the top (excellently so) combination of chocolate pancakes, icecream, whipped cream, hot chocolate fudge, chocolate flakes and strawberries. Wow.




Fuck it looks like crap. But trust me, it is go-ooo-d. Probably too good. If you don't love life you don't deserve such rampant and disgusting decadence.

life: bake day

These days I don't really feel like buying clothes, or accesories, or shoes or anything for that matter really. I went to the market with Fox and came face to face with a potential steal and yet I could not even be bothered to consider it. All I want these days are food.

SO! The other day i made my way down to my friend Sushi's house and baked. First on the agenda were cupcakes. We used the spongecake recipe from The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls. Pretty much, best book ever.

They were great. I love it when cooking adventures are successful. I also love creaming, its so satisfying when the sugar finally blends with the butter. This was also our first time icing. With one of those icing thingos that is. Haha, Sushi's icing thingo looked like a massive syringe. Our first batch of icing was a bit too, how should i put it, solid? So we diluted it with some milk, but we had to be careful because otherwise it would look as though our syringe was lactose intolerant.

We decided that sugar wasn't going to fill up our stomaches. Well i mean it can, but we'd feel guilty about it. So we made a potatoe salad. Yum yum yum! You can't go wrong with 'taters. Anyway, if you were wondering: the secret it Dijion mustard.

One of the other reasons I went to Sushi's place, aside from oogling at her buys from the U S of A which she just came back from, was to pour my sadness out on a third party. Sushi wasn't so sure about that, so we decided to pour some alcohol. Into cake. Introducing our tiramisu. It was a lot easier than i thought it would be. All you need is a lot of ingredients and the perfect sponge cake.

Chocolate was one of the things we had heaps left over, so we decided to make chocolate strawberries. The thing is to not let the chocolate touch water because they kind of repel, we didn't know. So they failed. And they should have been the easiest ones too. Oh well. We ended up scraping the chocolate off when we ate them.

Miam miam!

travel: taiwan's usa homage

International Studies 101 says Taiwan and America are besties 4 lyf so when i was in the so called "renegade province" i paid particular attention to anything that alludes to their sexy sexy liasons. I found two.

First stop was a rock formation that bears an uncanny resemblance to good ol' Nixon himself. Note figure 1. and compare with figure 2.

Can you see it? The sea covers up most of his jaw but that nose, forehead and hair is very much distinguishable don't you think. In the Nixon photo he has his hair greased back which you doesn't usually but please use your imagination a little. Hilariously and coinscidentally, the stone rock Nixon is overlooking the China Taiwan Strait. Mother Nature, good on you.

Second stop: the mini Golden Gate Bridge. This one wasn't an actual pitstop but my family was so facsinated that our very friendly tour guide stopped the car just for us. I love Taiwanese people, they're so nice. Despite the fact we were dirty mainlanders. Anyway repeat process as above.

So instead of cars on the mini me, we have people. I don't know about the engineering on the one in the U S of A, but let me tell you when it gets windy mini-me really lets you know about it.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, true.

music: details in the fabric

I'm late, I'm late I know. The "new" Jason Mraz album, We Sing We Dance We Steal Things. has been out for quite a while but it wasn't until recently that I actually listened to it. Bad fan, bad fan. But wow it's pretty amazing. Rumour has it he produced it on his avocado farm. Good work.

One song in particular that I love is his collaboration with James Morrison "Details in the Fabric". The thing is, every year for a while i've found one song that's pretty much defined my year and last year there was nothing. Nothing at all. And then i heard this song and, wow. There it is. Details in the Fabric, my soundtrack of 2008. It's all about failing, or something ending and moving on from that. It may be sad and terrible, but it's ok. Everything is going to be fine. And that's a nice thought. Especially in the background Fox and I come from where we're really expecting to take a certain path, it's so nice to hear a voice that says "hold your own, know your name and go your own way". It really is.


So here is it:



Thank you Jason, thank you James.

travel: hong kong disneyland

Admittedly, this wasn't the first pit stop of my travel around the Orient but I couldn't wait so here we go.

Yay for Disney! I had expectations of this place because everyone, even the taxi drive, said the place was tiny and takes about half a day to go around. Not true! (Incidentally the public transport system in HK is amazing so don't get cabs, they will rip you off) Although maybe its because we spent hours in the lines for rides, but that sort of thing is to be expected in theme parks yeah?

Anyway, Disneyland was like a dream, really. The place is so clean that if you saw a lone wrapper somewhere, it is only be surrounded by about fifty cleaners fighting it scoop it up. But that's not why it was dream like, oh no no no! It was the music, which was everywhere! Speakers where located eveywhere running little renditions of your favourite disney songs and, because it was near christmas, carols too. It was so cute, it made waiting in line almost okay, sort of. Plus the decorations were super cute! The place was separated into sections to showcase the various disney movies with food themed as well! There was an itenery that was to follow so you could properly experience the whole thing, but we lost it which sucked. But! If YOU go, don't lose it, use it! It would be very advantageous!

People were right about the rides i suppose, they really are for little kids. My sister had a blast. But i wasn't really bothered about that. When you're at Disneyland you feel likt you're five years old, you feel youth seeping out of your ears so who cares about rollercoasters when you can instead ride on teacups, Dumbos and a million "i'm not sure what there's are called but they're kind of like haunted house rides in that you sit in carts but instead you go to like the 100acre woods and stuff" rides?

The above photos were taken from the "It's a Small World" cart ride whereby they showcase the culture slash traditional dress of the various continents. They were super pretty! I had more photos but my camera was running out of space so we had to let them go. Sadfaceforevz.

We saw Disney characters walking about too. That was very exciting for me, especiallly because the first one we saw was Mulan. Like, zomgomg etc. They have schedeuled times and stand around they designated spots. Mulan stoof underneath an oriental looking tree, Alice (from Wonderland) stood near novelty sized teacups and Merlin around the Sword of Excalibur. As it was Christmas-ish time we saw the "Let it Snow Parade too" which was pretty sweet and all the princesses came out and we all ooh-ed and ahh-ed, because how else are you meant to act around your childhood dream? The only annoying thing was that they all spoke Canto so for us non-canto speakers we were like wtf mate? But i spose it was in HK so what can you expect under a one country two systems rule?

The most amazing thing about Disneyland were the lights at night. Wow, it is so beautiful I didn't ever want to leave. I hadn't experienced something like that ever since the Eyes Lies and Illusions show at ACMI so you know it must be good.

A really cool thing was that, when we first entered the gate of Disneyland we were given holigraphic glasses to look through when the light came out. Oh, here's what we saw:

I'm not sure how well you can see this, but they're snowmen!!! The lights come up as snow men. How cool is that? Very! But still the best was yet to come. We stayed until the very last second before closing time, to get the most out of our money yes? So as we made our slowly and reluctantly towards the gate we suddenly hear sounds of exclamations and then look up. It was snowing! Small white flakes floated down towards us, it was snow! Artificial of course but snow nonetheless. It was amazing.

Recently I've heard a rumour that a new Disneyland was to be built in Shanghai. And you know what? I've never been to Shanghai before...

fashion: cassie ainsworth

With the impending release of Skins Season three (oh boy oh boy do they look young! Like babies!), I'd like to revisit one of my favourite characters from the first series, Cassie. Completely nutty, but charmingly so, Cassie seems immune to the normalcy of the world, even in her clothes. Obviously she is a complete clothes horse, whimsical, willowy and gorgeously pretty, regardless, there are some absolutely wonderful style moments. Apparently all of Cassie's clothes on the show belonged to Hannah Murray, the actress that played her.