It’s pretty safe to say that kimonos and pineapples are being washed away from the shores that are our warm weather wardrobes. Before you put yours away into storage, let me show you how you can extend its life a little longer by tying it back to front and chucking on some classic black pieces to keep it relevant. Let’s call this a pathetic attempt at ‘sustainable fashion‘.
Recreate my look:
Kimono / Dress / Shoes / Hat / Purse
When we were in the visitor’s information centre at Kangaroo Island, I saw a wonderful sentiment that I would like to share with you today. “Kangaroo Island is not what it was nor what it will be. It is a story about change, isolation and remoteness. Natural change is never ending. Human activity influences change. Conservation is about managing the rate of change.”
Whilst the main point about conservation is importantly clear, I think its also a great reminder of why you should travel. Do it now and do it often because the places you go today will look different in ten years.
Take Vivonne Bay for example, in a survey of 10 000 beaches, it was judged one of the best beaches in Australia by University of Sydney’s marine studies centre director, Professor Andrew Short. I’m not exactly sure how they reached this conclusion but there’s something magical about those turquoise waters. That magic may disappear in the future but for now I’m just glad that I had the opportunity to see it.
Recreate my Look:
Kimono (c/o) / Tee / Jeans / Watch (c/o)
Thought I would up my bed side table game by hopping on the marble trend in the least expensive way possible. Considering marble will be out of trend within the next few years, I wanted to do something that would cost me next to nothing. I have been contemplating ordering marble contact paper for a few months now but some rolls cost up to $50 on Etsy which is ridiculous since my side table was probably less than half that price!
ONE To create this side table, print off several copies of this marble print (download here). Take out your drawer and unscrew the knob. TWO Then, trim off the whites of your marble paper and affix it to the surface of your drawer using a gluestick. THREE Neatly, cut away all excess paper and fold it behind. FOUR Measure a piece of contact paper large enough to cover the surface of the drawer and the edges too. FIVE Slowly peel back the contact backing and smooth it over your drawer. If you fail at contacting surfaces, maybe practice contacting some old magazines to ensure your final product is always bubble free. SIX Trim off excess contact and re-pierce the hole where the knob is meant to go. SEVEN Screw knob back into place and you are finished! EIGHT (option lol) Artfully style your DIY, take many photographs and boast to family and friends 😉 Make sure they always stand 5 metres away so they can’t tell if its actually marble or not.
OPTIONAL: Before attempting this side table, I actually made a jewellery holder first. I printed off the marble sheets, glued them to card stock, contacted the whole thing and affixed it to my cork board using white push pins.
This cardigan makes me feel like a superhero in the wind. Swish Swish. Its a cozy knit and goes great with loose clothing, a big scarf and bare face and feet. Its funny because as I was taking these photographs, a plane flew by and my friend (shout out to you Mishy!) said is it a plane? is it a bird? Oh no its Karen!
// Cardigan (c/o) Lil Muse / Tee Country Road / Pants H&M / Scarf Cotton On //
Photography: Chloe ❤
Quote: Owl City ‘Designer Skyline’
The Way We Were // Entertainment by the Sea // Like a transplanted English seaside resort, Coogee Beach attracted large crowds of day-trippers pouring in by tram to enjoy a variety of entertainments, the stone wall promenade, separate swimming baths for men and women and netted enclosure for beach swimming.
I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of the beach even when its not the summertime. In some respects, the cloudier skies and stronger winds makes for an ever better Bondi to Coogee walk or in my case Coogee to Bondi crawl. We took our time on a fine Sunday, grabbing acai bowls from The Courtyard first for some pre strolling fuel before setting off at about 12 pm and making sure to stop and rest at all the beaches in between: Clovelly, Bronte and Tamarama. There are about 7000 beaches in Australia alone but for anyone visiting, this 6km walk will let you see five.
When I was in Santa Monica, California a few years back, I bought the cutest little trinkets from the boardwalk; little thong key rings filled with Cali sand. When I first heard about Little Pieces Of, I fell in love with the similarly designed concept too; pea sized glass bubbles filled with sand from your favourite beaches! You can even send your own collected sand to the amazingly multi talented artist: Katie Shriner and she’ll custom make you a necklace. It’s the perfect summertime momento – I know of a bride who had the sand she stood on for her wedding ceremony turned into a necklace too – how precious is that? Go have a stalk of the Online store, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
A fortnight ago I was lucky enough to score a last minute deal to the Gold Coast. It’s like the Miami of Australia and where our version of Spring Breakers herald every November. Not exactly in with that scene, I decided to postpone Gold Coast digging until the end of January 2015. The holidays I go on are usually intensely packed – sometimes with 3 am wakeup calls and past midnight showers so it was nice to head somewhere sunny without a plan for once. Click the scrapbook to see it expanded and try and spot my dress twin (I’ve been keeping count and so far I’ve seen it once in Gold Coast and once in Sydney!)
In order to maximise out time there, we took a 6 am flight with Jetstar! This was probably the most tiring part of our journey but we were in chill mode from here on. Watching the sunrise while we took off wasn’t too bad either. The traffic around Gold Coast is pretty easy to navigate – we usually took a bus or tram. Our hotel was right beside the Surfers Paradise tram station which was super convenient. Check out that surfboard carrier on the tram below – if this isn’t a surfer’s paradise then I don’t know what is!
We stayed at a 3 bedroom apartment at Q1. It was insanely spacious for four people and had everything you needed: kitchen, 3 bathrooms, balcony, dining room, Foxtel, game consoles, board games and even DVDs (there was Mean Girls haha!). My favourite part were the views! My goodness we could see the jetty, the coastline, I basically could touch the clouds and we were only on floor 31! The facilities were pretty sweet as well. I loved lying on my back in the pool and staring at the tip of the hotel. They even had poolside tents with awnings if you didn’t want to burn.
Gold Coast is a bit like Florida because it is home to a lot of amusement parks. Since this wasn’t our first time here, we skipped Dream World, Movie World, Sea World, White Water World. Instead, we spent our days never too far from the ocean or the pool and went to Cavill Mall and Robina Town Centre for shopping.
Although our apartment was fully equipped with a kitchen and even a food processor, we went out to eat most of the days we were there. Some of my top meals included the all you can eat pancakes from Pancake Paradise (you can order unlimited pancakes and they’re HUGE … I stopped at four), the pesto rosso from Vapiano (the wait is tiring but they make it in front of you) and the Hawaiian chicken with curly fries from Hog’s Breath Cafe.
The Gold Coast is alive up till late and I just loved watching the skyline from up high. They have markets along the boardwalk every Sunday and we would usually walk along the beach back to our hotel in the evening.
I hope you enjoyed my postcard, one by ones and trademark GIFs!
I do not do yoga (the following yoga poses are such a joke). Nor do I have the luxury of sitting in day spas that envelop your ears with the tranquil crashing of waves. I watch Parks & Recreation in an attempt to get in touch with my inner self. In conclusion, I make no deliberate attempt to relax my mind aside from my ability to fall asleep likethisfast.
However, I am blessed to call Australia home and we have beautiful beaches that produce authentic wave crashing sounds that are the perfect soundtrack to accompany your viewing of the sunrise. I dragged myself out of our stunning hotel (more on that next post) at 5am to take these pictures and my my are the results spectacular.
This post is also the beginning of my month long collaboration with Lil Muse Clothing – a quaint Sydney based online store that I filled my suitcase with when I was packing including this Boho India Rope Mini Dress. Cavill Mall is the main street in Surfer’s Paradise and with stores like Surfection and Sunburn, this dress’ obvious home was right here. I personally like the mini version that I’m wearing because you can hop around the waves with ease, however if you don’t mind getting your hem a bit soaked, there’s a maxi version too. I feel like some beach dresses lack character. It’s usually just some elasticised bustier combined with see through fabric in a turquoise or yellow colour. What I personally like about this dress is the detailed print and colour. I never would have thought blue, red, pink, purple and green could have come together anywhere else but a preschooler’s easel. I also think the rope straps and gold detailing are the perfect built in necklace because who wears jewellery to the beach unless its a live starfish earring a la Aquamarine (I still want one!!) So kick off your thongs and join me as we watch the sunrise together. Here’s to a sunny and relaxing Sunday/Monday!
Dress c/o Lil Muse Clothing – Boho India Rope Mini Dress
I was talking to a friend yesterday about how I was excited about 2015. Then she re-enlightened me to re-consider my own thoughts because I re-alised that I wasn’t actually excited about the new year but the concept of the new year.
In theory, we could wake up one epiphanic day and decide today is the day: to quit sugar for good / start saving our moolah / keep in touch with friends / give ourselves more me time / learn a new language. But in reality we procrastinate these things until New Year’s Eve where we decide that tomorrow will mark the first step to a better life.
I wish you the best of luck in keeping your 2015 resolutions …. but let’s be real, I’ll probably break half of mine by the second of January! Nonetheless, there’s something quite magical and fragile about a new year and like the prepared person I like to think I am, I’m starting 2015 off with a short series that will hopefully inspire myself * my readers to have a kick butt twenty fifteen! Today’s post is all about inspiration, next week’s will be preparation and the one in a fortnight will be reflection so get excited kids.
* {whoops I was going to try to be more selfless this year}
I think one of the best ways to start a work day or study day is to have a clean desk. I think one of the best ways to start a new work or school year is to have a desk makeover. That’s why I’ve been really inspired by WeWork: a platform for creators that provides the space, community and services every blogger needs for their creative endeavours. They know the importance of finding a place you join as an individual, ‘me’, but where you become part of a greater ‘we’. I wanted to reciprocate their co-working values through my desk area because for me its a place where I can express myself on my blog whilst being part of the blogging community.
To really see what you’ve got to work with, remove everything from your desk so you can have a blank space baby to add your new supplies. Wipe down your desk, test out all those dried gel pens from 6th grade on some paper and then proceed to throw them away.
Personally I am a big fan of mood boards, they make any bland space grand and this is the first year I’ve done one right onto the magnetised wall on my desk. Go ahead and gather all your favourite pictures and power fuelling quotes from magazines. Or if you can’t bare the heart wrenching pain of stabbing your magazines with scissors, try free papered items that you pick up at your shopping centre (This is the time to use them! Stop hoarding them in your house!). My favourites include Lorna Jane, Kikki K and Broadsheet.
After papering your walls, you can start adding the little knick knacks and random things that make you happy. Oh and the practical stuff that you know, you need to write things with.
Here’s a neat little idea for a potential 2015 project. I started a quote journal back in 2014 – its a notebook filled to the brim with uplifting quotes that I’ve collected along the way. It might seem a bit tedious and pointless at first but trust me, whenever you’re feeling down, hopeless or like a quitter, pulling out something like this will get you back on your feet fast!
Below are some examples of how I decorated my space very inexpensively! Starting from the left: an empty Champagne bottle from Christmas with a single fake rose, an ikea vase filled with unattractive markers and a framed paper bag from Kikki K’s Live Bright collection that clearly bounces off my desk with all that lilac and pink.
Some of my favourite pictures are taken on my Instagram and even though a picture is meant to say a thousand words, I have a few hundred more to add in today’s post! I think I’m going to start doing these monthly, just to give my readers a monthly glimpse into what I’ve been up to starting with the above two shots.
Summer time is undisputedly my favourite season but this year, the magnitude of what it embodies has been multiplied by ten because I get to truly experience it all sans distractions. In the past, its always involved catching up with school work, reading for school, stressing to friends about school and staying indoors far too much. However this year, I’ve been lucky enough to finally be done with school (momentarily) and spend my summer by the sea and pool including Bronte Beach (on the left) and Magenta Shores (on the right). I have two and a half months left before summer ends and I intend to spend as much of it as possible outdoors so if you would like to see more of my daily snaps in real time, check out @stylesmorgasbord on Instagram.
I’ve also had a lot of fun creating flatlays to capture what I’ve been up. I finally received my L’s on Monday so I can learn to drive and I’ve also been getting into interior magazines lately, particularly Belle and Real Living. I’m working with WeWork in the new year to share my creative working space so I hope you guys are excited for January 2015 because the general theme will be fresh starts, getting organised and preparing yourself for a kicking year!
One of the ultimate to do things on my bucket list include experiencing a white Christmas. When the weather is thirty degrees, snow angels, ugly sweater parties and hot chocolates topped with cream and mini marshmallows by the fire aren’t exactly practical. That being said, I have enough holiday cheer to rival Buddy The Elf so I still try to make the best of it anyway. So far, I’ve kick started my Christmas Cookie Bonanza with these amazing Lemon and Pistachio cookies; thrown a one person wrapping party featuring me and Pentatonix’s Christmas album: That’s Christmas To Me and decked the halls like a winter wonderland.
Lastly, when I started Style Smorgasbord, I was quite apprehensive about the nature of blogging in this genre. It’s perceived as a bit vain, kind of staged and those who do it are bona fide narcissists who are fiscally irresponsible and live in a world of excess. I didn’t want this blog to define me as superficial. But then I realised I could redefine what kind of blog I am maintaining and my goal is to start integrating other aspects of what I am passionate about into my blog starting in 2015. I think I’ve also grown a lot this year and that has partly been thanks to the internet. It has really opened my eyes to issues that I was previously ignorant of and also taught me about the kind of privilege I am lucky to have and the power I hold to help the less privileged. So to anyone who’s ever thought that fashion is purely superficial, I hope I can prove you wrong.
“Be like the squirrel girl, be like the squirrel/Give it a whirl girl, be like the squirrel” {White Stripes ‘Little Acorns’}
Considering this is my fifth post AND we’re only a month away from Christmas (27 SLEEPS!), I thought it was time we added some DIY-ing onto Style Smorgasbord. So today, I have a tutorial for some ornaments that I originally saw at Bed Bath and Table. I’ve been seeing a lot of twine kinda ornaments this year so when I saw this ornament in store, it was about $5 and I thought, hey I could totally make it myself! Of course, my take doesn’t produce the most uniform of decorations but I was really pleased with the result! To learn how to make these really inexpensive ornaments yourself using materials you’ll no doubt find in your house, keep reading! Oh and since I am obsessed with Christmas, expect a few more tutorials in the upcoming weeks!
ONE: To begin, take one sheet of newspaper and scrunch it up until it is egg shaped in size. Tape these acorn bodies into shape to make sure they hold together.
TWO: Taking some glue, spread it all over your egg and begin wrapping twine around your acorn, beginning one third of the way down and wrapping it tightly until you get to the base. Hold the base for about 30 seconds and it should stay in place nicely. Alternatively, hot glue could speed up this step!
THREE: Cut off a short piece of twine and attach it to the top of the acorn using tape so it creates a loop.
FOUR: Now this step took some experimenting and I used a variety of materials until I found a really solid one! I ended up using thin cardboard, cut into little semicircles but you could also try paper bags and cereal boxes. Then glue each semicircle around your acorn starting from the bottom to the top. The more semicircles you have, the better it looks!
Five: And then you’re done!!! If you want to make some branches like I did, just go hunt for a few thin but sturdy branches, tape them together, paint them white and stick them in a nice glass vase. Mine’s a maple leaf from a Canadian maple syrup if you’re wondering! I think these acorns would also look super lovely on a traditional tree or strung as a garland above the fireplace. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely weekend!
STYLE SMORGASBORD 