| The week that was | 25.08.2013

So sorry that this post has come a day or so late- my internet decided it didn't want to work last night, & after many attempts to bring it back to life, I conceded defeat & went to bed early.

It's been just over a month and a bit since university life resumed, & needless to say that time must be doing that thing again- you know the one where you blink & it's nearly freaking September! How did this happen?!

Anyway, the week that was, was in fact a very busy one. I was very lucky to be an assistant to darling Emily-May's photoshoot for her major project, & met her cat child Calcifer at the same time. This cat is so darling, & was a very clear distraction for me during the day. In addition to this, I'll be posting a stationary, outfit & shoe haul in the coming days of this week. 

Here's the week that was:

The photographer extraordinaire herself Emily-May at last week's meeting taking happy snaps.

Supplies for Wednesday's photo shoot: comfy shoes & beautiful stationary.

The Regent Cinema in Richmond. Emily-May has this amazing knack for knowing what I like & would find interesting, & the local cinema in Richmond is this beautiful art deco style building, & upstairs is a room with mirrored tile pillars, vintage lights & beautiful furniture. The cinema was lucky enough to have her do a premiere shoot of "The Great Gatsby" & this place is so perfect for it.

Words cannot explain how beautiful this cat is, & how jealous I am that this cat is prettier than me. This is Em's cat Calcifer, & if you ever have the pleasure of meeting him, prepare to fall in love.

Leftovers from Wednesday's shoot- it was such an awesome day.

Getting lush & fancy at a birthday lunch.

The joys of a warped sleeping pattern on a weekend.

Once again I'm super sorry this is late, & I'll be posting my hauls very soon!

Stay tuned x

| The week that was | 18.08.2013 |

My my my what a blur of a week its been! Due to my schedule the past week I only have a few photos to share tonight, however I am planning on doing a photo shoot this week with my darling Emily-May for my major project, so more to come!

Here's the weekly wrap up~

It was my dear Emily-May's birthday over the past weekend & she had some vouchers to spend in at LUSH- needless to say that if Heaven has a smell, it smells like a LUSH store.

Snapped this from Emily-May's car on the way back to class from a birthday lunch with my uni family. I forgot how pretty campus can be some days.

These lovely blossoms have been making an appearance since the weather started to be a bit nicer, & my goodness don't they look pretty!

Snapped this before the light completely left- this is at the end of my street, & then I ran inside & got warm again, haha.

(Sorry about the unartistic picture.) A lovely early gift from my darling, and no, even though it's on that finger, it's not that kind of ring. I'm wearing it on my middle finger on my left hand, I plan on getting it resized in the future. I am beyond in love with it, & got such a giddy surprise.

In lieu of past blog topics, I've decided to do more purchases in my posts- even though they won't be so jewellery and accessory centric. The majority of my purchases are for my shoots for my magazine, which basically gives me an excuse to buy pretty things.

I got this awesome diary for Emily-May for her birthday, from kikki.k. It's super cute, has water coloured illustrations, a plastic dust cover, and when Emily-May saw it in the store I knew straight away that it was fate for her to have it. I'm pretty hopeless with trying to keep a diary- I've gotten one of the past 3 years & there are just periods of time where nothing is written haha!

I have a stationary addiction, sorry I'm not sorry. Again, these are from kikki.k & are very cute, A5 prettiness. Good size for carrying around in your bag. You can find them here.

It's late, and I have grown weary from a busy weekend. Hope you're all happy, safe and well.

Stay tuned x

My love for Mel Stringer (´∀｀)♡

Gonna blog about another kind of purchase today, and before some indecent hour, things are coming up Milhouse!

For those who didn't know, I am a huge magazine reader/fan. I love anything that's printed- paper stock, covers, typeface choices, book design, embossing- I'm salivating just thinking about it. My room is filled with about 60% printed objects, & I will buy a book or paper or anything printed for the simple reason that it's been designed with care. My favourites would have to be anything from magnation in Newtown, Typo, kikki.K, & my new favourite, thanks to Emily-May, Papier Tigre. 

Hitching a ride on the coat tails of this love for anything printed, comes my most recent purchases from probably one of my all time favourite illustrators and graphic artists, Mel Stringer. I was first introduced to Mel in an early edition of frankie magazine (which is one of my first loves), & she provided some very cute artwork to accompany a cooking recipe. As you will see throughout this post, her adorable little illustrations capture nostalgia, her sense of humour and overall girl power badass-ness. For many editions she continued providing the artwork until she expanded into being a freelance graphic illustrator and running her own online store to sell her artworks. In 2012 for my Publications unit, I had the very exciting opportunity of interviewing her about her creative methodology and her own journey to where she is today. She was so lovely to talk to & was very open to answering my questions. With her permission, I submitted my interview and photographs of her work in frankie magazine & it became an article in a magazine my year produced, which was two kinds of amazing. So it's pretty clear to see how much I adore Mel and her work.

In preparation for my imminent moving out in the coming months, I have been collating pieces of work to bring to my new habitat, and it was no contest as to whom's artwork I would be buying. Mark has his Doctor Who artwork, some of which are from the show, others are fan art which are these amazing galaxy constellations with the TARDIS floating around in it, so I feel like bringing some Mel Stringer will make the space a bit more eclectic.

You can check out Mel at this awesome locations:

Her portfolio

Her shop

Her Etsy store

Her tumblr

Her instagram

Below are the prints I have by Mel, which are available at her shop.

The Bedroom Series: Cat Nips

The Bedroom Series: Fairy Floss

The Bedroom Series: Puffy Pout

The Bedroom Series: Happy Tattoo

Fairy Dust

Bad Teeth

Cute Butt Club

You've Never Called Me Weird

That's today's post! I'm feeling so under the weather at the moment- having a head cold & the semi-flu sucks. I'm gonna curl up in my comfy pants, knitted scarf & have a GirlCode marathon.

Stay tuned! x

Catch ups & shopping haul with Emily-May (midgeymay)! | 13.07.2013

Okay so something pretty damn magical happened today- the planets aligned & I finally got to catch up with this lovely lady today!

This is my dear friend, Emily-May, also known as midgeymay. Her delightful blog features reviews, hauls, unboxing & all other manners of loveliness, including her heavenly cat Cacifier. You can experience her loveliness here.

Emily-May & I go to university together- we have been in the same classes for the last semester, trekked the streets of Melbourne together, and amazingly, will be together in the Graduation Show project taking place in the coming semester. She, like me, has spent the last two months of holidays working her butt off, so we were extremely fortunate to have a day off together. Emily-May was very keen to go to the make up counters in the Pitt Street Myer, & I of course would never one to pass up the chance to go into the city, so that was the imminent plan. And boy, what a plan it was. Below is a small snapshot of today's purchases:

We met around lunch time & hit QVB for little bits and pieces- we ended up first buying at Sportsgirl with their awesome accessories & handbags (oh the handbags!) & I ended up getting a black handbag, as shown below:

Madison Push Lock Bag at Sportsgirl

After pottering through card shops, we slowly made our way around to Pitt Street. Emily-May was very keen to check out the MECCA Cosmetics display, & got a bit excited about their perfumes, which, of course, smelt heavenly-

We made our way around to the Illamasqua (don't ask me how to pronounce it, I can barely spell it!) which was a brand I hadn't heard of- but Emily-May, being the English rose she is, mentioned that she had seen someone on Youtube talking about it, & turns out, in true form, is an English brand. Emily-May wanted to check out their foundations after liking what she saw on said Youtube review, & we chatted with the young lady at the counter. She was super helpful & promptly matched Em's skin tone with a very nice foundation on top of a primer. The difference the foundation made, and having a comparison of one side of her face being her usual make up, and the other being the Illamasqua, was amazing-Em's got flawless skin tone and colour, & she was beaming with the way the foundation was sitting on her skin.

I was curious & asked the Illamasqua lady to colour match me, & both Emily-May and myself were amazed at the difference between each foundation. I honestly didn't think my skin could have ever looked as natural and dewy- it has quite a decent amount of coverage without even using a concealer, is very light on my skin & matches my natural skin tones perfectly- and to top this, the foundation and primer, which Em & I both purchased for ourselves, were actually cheaper than most drug store foundations. I'm all for anyone using whatever brands work for them, & that the most expensive products don't necessarily do a better job than lower priced ones, but after having Illamasqua on my skin, I'd be hard pressed to find another foundation that does a better job. The only set back with Illamasqua is that the only make up counter they have in Sydney is at the Pitt Street Myer, so if you wanted to try out their products you'd have to go into that store. Both the skin base foundation and skin primer are shown below:

Illamasqua Matt Primer & Skin Base Foundation in Shade 8.5 at Illamasqua.

Whilst on the coat tails of make up, we went around to Priceline- Emily-May snagged plenty of bargains, & I got the Artiste Professional Foundation/Concealer Brush 50, and the Savvy by DB Perfect Finish Loose Powder in 01 Translucent, both items are shown below:

Artiste Professional Foundation/Concealer Brush 50 at Priceline.

Savvy by DB Perfect Finish Loose Powder in 01 Translucent at Priceline.

& just because we're a huge believer in signs, Em got the both of us a set of these:

Rimmel Instant Art Press On Colour in London Style at Priceline. 

(I will completely and utterly take this as a sign.)

After all this shopping, we called in at Wagamama & got some amazing grub- I managed to take this picture of Emily-May's Chicken Teriyaki before it was 'destroyed'- her words!

Chicken Teriyaki before the destruction!

And lastly, a very sweet gesture from the lovely lady- a belated birthday gift! Emily-May has the most exceptional taste in everything, & she was sweet enough to get me a beautiful notebook with the most seductive paper stock. The cover has got a light layer of pastel squares & it's beautiful:

The beautiful card. 

Papier Tigre notebook at Paper Tiegre.

Quite the big post today! I'm working less this week, so I will be doing a Birthday haul, featuring Emily-May & my good buddy Clarissa.

Stay tuned. x