Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Instax Sunday - Accessory Storage

I am a sucker for jewellery and accessories. When I say jewellery I don't mean flashy diamonds, gold and pearls and mean big and loud statement necklaces with robots and skull and big chunky rings.

Last Sunday's instax photo is a very small part of my collection, which is organised in an on the wall hanger.

But I thought I'd use this post to ask all you folks out in blog-land how do you store your accessories as I am in urgent need of storage ideas! Especially for my belts and scarves. HELP!

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - Shiny


Today's wardrobe challenge was shiny - I'm not the kind of girl who has a whole bunch of "bling" lying around so I decided to wear this dress as the fabric is quite "shiny".Here is a slightly blurry close up of the fabric with skulls and flowers and all kinds of things.My shoes are kind of metallic and shiny too - I have been wearing these shoes a whole bunch. I think they are my favourites at the moment.




Outfit Deets:

Dress - Handmade for me!
Belt & Cardy - Glassons
Necklace - Gift from Rich
Ring - Bought in Shanghai
Bracelet - Bought in Hong Kong
Shoes - Warehouse
Tights - Valleygirl

Monday, August 29, 2011

Domo Pillow!

When we lived in Taipei, we visited the most EPIC craft store called "Mama Bear" - I didn't have a whole lot of the money at the time. But I did buy a few things from the store including a DIY Domo pillow making set.

I sat in our tiny apartment stitching away at my Domo pillow - I appliquéd on his face and then started to sew up one side of the pillow. But seriously - have you ever tried to sew up a whole pillow by hand? At best its tedious!

So Domo was put away and I didn't see him again until my friend Lisa came to visit from Taipei and bought with her my few remaining bits and pieces - including Domo.

Now I own a sewing machine, I was able to finish up my Domo pillow pretty quickly and here it is as modelled by our couch.
The best thing about the Domo pillow? It doubles as a Domo costume - as modelled by me. Gotta love Monday night silliness.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Instax Sunday: Malaysian Food Festival

This is actually a photo from last Sunday - I haven't had much time to blog in the last week. But hopefully I will catch up (eventually).

It may be a little hard to see in this photo, but last weekend Rich and I went to the Malaysian food festival with out friend Nankz.




The food festival was incredibly busy - we had to wait quite a while for our food but it was worth it!
Here's a few more photos from the evening at the food festival, just hanging out and enjoying the atmosphere.

Finally, whilst we were at the food festival, we were approached by a photographer from the "Capital Times" a local community newspaper. Its publish every Wednesday, here's the photo from the newspaper.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Sunday Walk - Lyall Bay to Island Bay

Last Sunday was a stunning day in Wellington, so we decided to walk from Lyall Bay and Island Bay to get some sunshine and fresh air.


I love this Easter Island statute at Lyall Bay - it was a gift to New Zealand from Chile.
Here's a few photos I took during the walk, it's kind of hard to believe that the weekend before this one we had snow!








When we arrived at Island Bay we found that there was a little aquarium there that neither of us even knew existed! So we stopped off for a look - it was pretty good value as it only cost $1 to visit. My favourite was the octopus - I love the way they move - its like they are from a different world.






Finally here's a few shots I took in Island Bay - the sky was getting a little darker by this stage but it was still a stunner of a day!




Friday, August 26, 2011

Ukrainian Festival

Last week, Rich and I read about a Ukrainian festival that was happening in Wellington. It was pretty close to our apartment - in fact it was in the church only five minutes away, quite literally across the road.

We both love festivals and markets and I have always wanted to visit a lot of countries in Eastern Europe (sadly I haven't made it there - yet) so we decided to check it out.There was a room set up dedicated to selling Ukrainian goods like books, toys, yarn and clothing. I especially liked this little basket of goodies - if you read my blog you'll know I have a soft spot for matryoshka dolls and now I have a set of my own which I bought from this wee basket. I've added the dolls to our random collection of toys - they are sharing a shelf with some toys from Korea and Taiwan.
One of the things I love most about travelling and fairs like this is checking out food from different parts of the world - even if I don't buy a thing. Its all about the packaging and the language and the way the goods are presented. I have to say that the box of chocolates with the squirrel on it is pretty much the cutest box of chocolates I've ever seen.Here's the menu from the kitchen at the church - we did try a couple of things and to be honest I didn't enjoy the food too much. It's the first time I've tried Ukrainian food so maybe it wasn't the best quality, but to us it just tasted kind of bland. Sorry Ukraine! I'm sure there is some delicious Ukrainian food - I just haven't tasted it yet.Also on the topic of food - there were a few loaves of bread around (at least I think they were bread, I could be totally wrong!) with these delicate little flowers on them. I thought they were amazing. I also liked this cake a whole lot.

Here's a photo of the table where the plates were laid out - I thought it was really striking.I thought I'd finish off this post with one of my favourite things from the festival - some AMAZING cross-stitch. I love folk art and I am a cross-stitcher myself and I can't even begin to imagine the number of hours that would have gone into making both of these amazing pieces.

I assume the man at the top is some important Ukrainian spiritual or religious leader? I really don't know enough about the Ukraine to say - but I do know he must be fairly important and fairly loved for someone to spend HOURS cross-stitching his portrait for a wall hanging.

The second piece of cross-stitch is a photo of a much larger table runner which was just beautiful. So many hours of hard work and sore finger tips would have gone into making it.