August 2015

What a jam packed month! It was so busy and according to my planner, September will even be more intense. Below are some of my food adventures and above is a flat lay I am particularly proud of. I have a couple of exciting features lined up just in time for the new season and I’m hoping to start introducing to you guys some new and quite different personal style looks. // Pictured here (anticlockwise): September Harper’s Bazaar, Sausage Dog from Kmart, Pandora, Essie ‘Urban Jungle, The Body Shop blush, Forever New Booties, Kikki K 365 day journal, Essano Rosehip New Zealand, Formula 10.0.6 Be Pure Mud Mask, Naked 2 via Mecca Maxima, Revlon Balm Stains, Sali Hughes’ Pretty Honest, Charlotte Smith’s Dreaming of Dior and Minchinbury Wines.

Aqua S Hazelnut & Seasalt with Sweet Popcorn via Macquarie Shopping Centre / Blue/black/rasp/straw/berry and banana smoothie at home

Lemon Tart via Brendan Dewar Patisserie / Berry White Chocolate Mousse via Passion Tree Velvet

Spit Pork soft shell taco via El Loco in Surry Hills. This was such a fiesta for all the senses!

Clipper Cafe in Glebe / Protip: Bring your Access card to get major $$ off 🙂

Venus Wholefoods in Surry Hills / Smashing Pumpkin via Shores Restaurant in Hornsby

Local brunching and coffee art-ing :0

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Stay Gold

I am finished with my first semester of university, exams and all! To celebrate, Adela and I went to our mecca that is Bondi Beach. Its a tourist spot, sure but its endless array of cafes dotted along the seaside is too attractive to pass off. After being holed up for a month, it was such a literal breath of fresh air to be outside. We grabbed brunch from Trio Cafe which is an all day breakfast place and we split the mango and lime buttermilk pancakes and raw salad both of which were de-li-cious and the portions were ge-ne-rous. Then we popped by Pressed Juices to grab something that was indeed, ‘positively life changing’ (as their slogan suggests) so we could have something to drink whilst we sat by the beach and just talked about how great everything was 🙂

I’m so glad I brought along my camera because we set it to self timer mode and went a bit crazy with candids. The following pictures are a few of the gems that I found; most notably, scenes of the sky changing colour as the sun set and Jasmine Dowling’s contribution to Bondi’s street art scene! These pictures remind me about a lot of things but above all else, to stay gold Ponyboy.

June, Came Upon Us Too Soon

June was an uneventful month with finals so I spent my time making my own fancy drinks.

I always appreciate some good tiling particularly marble and Moroccan.

2 reads: Pretty Honest – Sali Hughes and the last Princess Diaries – Meg Cabot. Highly recommend both.

A bit of a sneak peak of some gorgeous photos to come.

Title Lyrics: ‘June’ – Spock’s Beard

May(be) Baby

I was always aware that Kmart had stepped up its game for about a year now but this month I discovered the cult following behind Kmart Forecast and I was hooked. They’re doing trendy decor on a budget and everything flies off the shelf. Its unlikely you’ll find any of these pieces left this late into the month but for future reference, keep your eyes peeled and hope they bring out some more bargains like this copper lamp for $20 and the breakfast in bed tray for $10.

Oh Vogue Cafe! Situated in Macquarie shopping centre, this is my new mecca. I recommend the nutella milkshake because you need to try it once but then from there on stick to the juices and baked goods like the cronuts and cookies and cream scrolls. Skip the breakfast though because its really mediocre.

I haven’t read in a while but this month I went through a lot of books. Grace Coddington’s memoir was a delight to read in my Uniqlo sweats. On the right was my favourite outfit and something that I am yet to shoot for. I feel very English in this with the Chelsea rainboots and scalloped shift dress.

May was quite the month of sequels and nothing was really up to scratch except for Jenny Han’s P.S. I Still Love You. Pitch Perfect 2 was “aka-alright” according to my friend, Emi and you can read her fab review on the drab film here. Same goes for The Heir by Kiera Cass which was an unnecessary addition to the excellent Selection series.

Rounding off the month recap we have my spastic self at TGIFridays, one of the few decent cafes in Chatswood called The Espresson Room and The Choc Pot which is located in the fairly new Chatswood Interchange and where I was lucky enough to win a free chocolate risotto!

I also want to give a shoutout to this beautiful blog! I don’t usually do this but I love nordic simplistic lifestyle and her photography is gorgeous!

Photo Credits: bottom right picture 4×4 by Emi // bottom left choc pot logo by LetsNomNom

April Come She Will

Its strange the amount of cold foods and drinks I devoured this month. I think I had more ice cream than I had during summer. Pictured here is the S’mores flavour from N2 and Peanut Butter Pretzel Batter from Ben & Jerrys on free cone day. As with all food fads, both were fun flavours but not  enough to go back and back again.

Tried an acai bowl with banana, berries and shredded coconut for the first time from Coogee Courtyard Cafe & Restaurant and the Aphrodite Bowl from Devon Cafe in Surry Hills. I have to say, I expected the Acai Bowl to be thicker in consistency but I absolutely loved the flavours and textures in the Aphrodite Bowl – warm rice pudding, rose, pistachio and fig.

We had CRAZY weather in Sydney at the end of the month. It killed umbrellas, sent schools shut and freaked me into finally getting some wellies. I was originally going to pick out a pair of obnoxious red knee high Hunter boots but I’ve ended up with these Jeffrey Campbell’s instead. In amongst this, I didn’t have electricity for two days but we did have candlelight dinners and now all my candles are burnt out.

I think I have about 3 more assignments this semester and then all that’s left is finals in June so May should be smooth riding, hopefully. Things that got me though this month include Alexa Chung’s It, double pearl studs, a wristlet because ain’t no bother got hands for a bag when the weather is blowing up and finding an old Italian winter wool coat from my aunt who frequently reads my blog (Hello & Thank YOU!)

I also got my hair cut this month! I was so apprehensive because my hair is super poofy and I’m super lazy so when its short, I look like a storm cloud. I wish I could say it looks this sleek and shiny everyday but right now I’m trying to pass off my volume as the undone curls fine hair people are always trying to achieve.

Post Title: ‘April Come She Will’ – Simon & Garfunkel

Gold Coast Digger

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!)

Transport

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!

Accommodation

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.

Sights

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.

Food

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.

Night Life

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!

A Gal at Bal

According to the Urban Dictionary, definition number seven, chinos are: A type of trouser made from chino cloth. Although they are very comfortable and soft, they come in the most grotesque colours possible which really makes them stand out. The fact that they are sold in excess in stores such as Abercrombie and Jack Wills doesn’t help their reputation much either. Chinos, the everyday hipster’s choice of trouser wear. So what then are chino shorts? To me they are the conservative short, which means they are the perfect piece to go with the bustier – a garment Victorian women wore to get their va va voom on. Since I have no desire to show off too much skin, I decided to pop on this light see through chiffon shirt and one button it up all easy breezy.

There you have it, all ready to set sail! Or at least walk along the boardwalk. How lovely does Balmoral look on this cloudy Saturday? I think the cool tones are the perfect complement to my sailing appropriate look and I love how bright the pictures turned out. Sometimes, a picture sans blue sky is really okay after all! And where do sailors brunch? The Balmoral Boathouse of course! Get the quinoa bircher it could seriously feed three!

Today was actually meant to be a DIY post and the last post in my New Year series but Optus decided to cut my internet for two days because the roof of a tower fell off or something so I have been in agony for the past 60 hours. It got to the point where I turned up two hours early to a party so I could use the host’s internet (thank you beb) and stood in front of the Apple store for an hour to leech off their fast wifi. Sue me, I’m so twenty first century.

The footless seagul { :(((( } and food shot by me, outfit shot by Adela