Home Again!

Hello lovelies! It's true - we are home again and we had the most INCREDIBLE time in Vanuatu. It's one of the most incredible places I've ever visited. The weather was lovely, the beaches and snorkeling were stunning and the people were some of the most lovely people you could ever hope to meet. There is a poster when you arrive at Port Vila Airport which says "Welcome to Vanuatu - the happiest place on earth". When I arrived I was pretty skeptical about that sign - but after spending a week in Vanuatu I think it could well be the truth. I have many, many photos to share and stories to tell - but its late and tomorrow I return to reality (work!) so I will just leave you with this photo of the first resort we stayed at on Hideaway Island. It's pretty fabulous.

Friday morning op shopping

Hello all! I decided to take yesterday off to just relax and prepare for our trip - I still don't feel very prepared at all though.

Seen as I was having a weekday off at home (which very rarely happens) I decided to take an  early morning trip to a couple of op shops in Kilbirnie. The main reason for this was to see if I could pick up any Jubilee worthy items for the swap I am taking part in over at Faith, Hope & Charity Shopping - but I did also manage to find some goodies for me as well (of course!).

First up, this wee plastic serving container - I think its pretty cute and I am going to use it to try and get at least some of my jewellery collection in order.

Next up is a couple of vintage sheets for upcycling - the pinky coloured one will become a dress. The white flowery one is really too thin to make anything wearable from (except perhaps as a lining)>  I'll most likely use it as fabric for embroidery or to make pouches and things from.

There seemed to be a lot of great shoes at the op shop this week - but they all seemed to be too big or small for me. But I did find these very cute flats.

Finally - I picked up these cute bowls, there was a set of four but they were selling them at $3 EACH which is a little rich for my op shopping budget. So I just bought two - they are really lovely though.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend - I can't believe I am flying to Vanuatu tomorrow morning at 9:30!

Progress - so far....

Hello All! I just felt like it was time I should do a bit of a "reflection" post on how my change into a healthier lifestyle is going - you many notice I don't use the work "diet" that's because I think diets are total crap!

Most diets seems to put ridiculous constraints on people - usually they lose weight to start with but then put it all back on as its just so hard to maintain. I've also heard of some pretty crazy diets, one of my friends told me that his mum was on a "bread diet" in the 1980's where one day a week all she would eat was bread - literally just bread, no butter or sandwich filling just bread. Madness.

Anyway, last year I decided I needed to do something about my diet and exercise we had come back home from living in Korea and Taiwan and I was just feeling kind of bleh. I think its due to the fact that when living in Asia I was eating a better diet (especially in Korea) and also moving a lot more during the day. When I returned home I went back to a desk job and food here is much heavier/richer than food in Asia. Plus I had just come home for being away from home and it turned out I wanted to eat all the food!

Although my sensible and logical brain knew this was a pretty crappy idea - the part of my brain that said food is delicious and exercise is boring took over and I put on too much weight for my liking and started feeling generally crappy and bummed.

But fortunately, I'm not the "woe is me" type so I decided to join a gym and get back on a healthy eating plan.

These two photos were taken about the time I decided it was time for a change, the one in the red dress was taken pretty much on the week I started a programme at my gym called "break" - which I have now done twice.

I do realise I wasn't hugely overweight or anything, but I just felt bleh and I didn't want to feel like that - I didn't want to get puffed walking up stairs or hills (and there is a LOT of those in Wellington) and I just wanted to feel good about myself.

So for the first time ever I got a personal trainer - which was a little scary, as I like to think I can do EVERYTHING by myself. But the truth is you can't do everything by yourself - my first trainer Aimee was just incredible. She was really good at reading people and their abilities and if you tried your best, she was just pleased as punch BUT if you were slacking she would tell you that you need to sort yourself out. One time in a class a lady in one of my classes who doesn't always give it 100% was complaining to Aimee she wasn't losing weight and she just told her straight out "It's most likely your diet and you need to work harder" woah.

My current trainer is Cara, who is a recent arrival to our part of the world and originally from Ireland (she came to Wellington in September last year) and she is really great too.

The first time I did the break programme I lost around 10 kilos, the second time I did it I didn't lost so much weight but I gained a lot of muscle and a generally better body shape - by that I don't mean skinny! I am still an hour glass, but an hour glass with a lot more definition.

Here's a couple of more recent photos so you can see the difference the healthy eating and exercise has made - I'm not on some crash and burn exercise/diet regime where the goal is to lose as much weight as quickly as possible, but rather I'm working slowly and surely to get to my goals.

So has it been worth all the time and money? I really think it has - I feel a lot better about where I am now than I was about a year ago.I still have a way to go to reach my final weight loss goal - but that's why its a goal right? I'll just keep working hard and in the long run it will all pay off.

I hope you all have a great Friday xoxox

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge: Stripes and Spots

Hello all - today's Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge was stripes and spots - which gave me the perfect chance to wear my new-to-me frock from Recycle Boutique.

Recently I've decided that I need to wear brooches more, as I have a whole bunch of them I hardly wear. The HUGH lapels on this frock were the perfect change to rock this unicorn brooch from Alicia.

The spots part of my outfit consisted of a poka-dot pair of tights I bought from Glassons earlier this week.

Here's a little something I forgot to show you all yesterday - my brand new gummy bear bracelet! I bought this at the Wellington Underground Markets last Saturday too, from a vendor selling all kinds of amazing miniatures.

If I'm wearing green then I HAVE to wear this green peacock ring that I bought to wear to our friends "Green" themed party last year.

Finally the whole outfit - green, stripes, spots and gummy bears.

OUTFIT DEETS:

Dress: Vintage, Recycle Boutique
Tights & Belt: Glassons
Bracelet: Wellington Underground Markets
Necklace: Clothes Swap party
Brooch: Alicia @ So Pauve
Ring: Equipt
Boots: Bought in Seoul

I hope you're all having a super week - I have to admit I'm a little uninspired at the moment as I am just counting down the hours until we leave for Vanuatu on Sunday! Hurrah!

Weekend Fun Times

So another weekend has already gone! This last weekend was actually pretty fun - here's a wee snapshot of a few things I did.

On Saturday morning I did a bit of shopping in town and went to Recycle Boutique as its been a while since I've had a chance to look around and I picked up a couple of new things.

First up is a vintage swim dress which I am pretty excited about - especially since I'm off to Vanuatu next week. This is so perfect for our holiday.

I also picked up this cute vintage shirt dress for the office - 100% polyester baby!

I also went along to the Portrait Gallery of New Zealand with some friends and followed that up with a trip to the Wellington Underground Market. This market sometimes has special theme markets and last weekend the them was crafting, so I managed to pick up this rather cute novelty fabric with pegs all over it - I got three metres of this fabric! Now I just have to work out what to do with it.

Later on in the afternoon I went to a Wellington Pink Ladies event, a High Tea at Martha's Pantry which is a very cute little tea room. They have so many lovely vintage things and the high tea was so dainty - I also had the most incredible tea. It was so fun, I hope I can go back there soon.

On Sunday I had a quiet day, Rich was finishing off an assignment (he's now all done and no study for a whole month - yah!).

But I did manage to complete this and I thought I'd share it with all of you now - although you're not getting an action shot as its too cold to prance about in a sundress!

Here's a close up of the fabric - its strawberries and super cute! 

This is another dress from my Simple and Chic sewing book and its called the "Indian Summer Dress" - speaking of that book, I recently added some of my projects to the "Simple and Chic Sewing" Flickr group and I got some positive feedback from Christine Haynes which caused all kinds of geeky excitement! You can see the Flickr group here.

I hope you're all having a fabulous week!

Queens Birthday Mini Golf

Last Monday was Queens Birthday Monday which means we had a day off work - which was awesome. We have been talking about playing mini putt at a place called Carlucciland for a really LONG time and with our friend Nilanka's birthday coming up, we decided last Monday was the perfect time to check out Carlucciland (unfortunately most of Wellington seemed to be at Carlucciland also). So what is Carlucciland you may ask - well the pictures do kind of speak for themselves, but the back of the golf score card kind of explains....

"Admire the sculptures as you weave through this unique Wellington landmark, get up close and interact with the remarkable metal sculptures that make this a truly exceptional mini golf course. These intricately placed art installations complete with strategically placed rocks allows the golfer to get up close, revealing how these behemoths were formed by nature. Discover small ferrous kiwis only inches high to giant metallic spiders, snakes and other metal creates inspired by nature"

Sounds fancy doesn't it? Well the sculptures are pretty crazy and I am pretty sure everything in the park is made from recycled materials (the golf course isn't far from a city dump - that explains a lot).

Rich and Nankz - getting their mini putt face on - in case you wondered, Rich won with 58 strokes and Nankz and I came second equal with 60.

A creepy clown and a creepy as hell life size doll....

After finishing up golf, we went and had a look around the sculpture garden, my favourite thing was the spider car. I stood in this thing for a photo, but none of us were really sure what it was or what it might have been.

My second attempt at sleepwear

I do really rather like the idea of making my own sleepwear. I only wear nighties to bed, which makes sense given I never wear trousers, jeans or shorts when I am awake!

At the moment, I don't really have any sleepwear patterns so I decided just to use a simple dress pattern I had in my Simple and Chic Sewing book.

The pattern is for a simple summer dress so it's not really fitted at all which is perfect for sleepwear. I got this fabric at a op-shop and this is the second project I've used it for so it was well worth the $3 I paid for it.

But I will say this - I am not very confident at sewing with this type of fabric, its really quite slippy so I had a few problems with it. First of all I was REALLY annoyed about this as I have a tendency to be a little too hard on myself as I want everything I do to be perfect and there are seems on this nightie that are far from perfect.

However, this nightie has to be one of the most comfortable nighties I have even owned - so I am less worried about the imperfections, I can live with them! I think I might make a couple more using this pattern, as its just perfect for a nightie.

Here's a close up of the fabric - yes it's kind of like camo skulls - I know that's not likely to be to everyone's taste but I like it.

I hope you're all having a lovely week - tomorrow is Friday - yah! Looking forward to the weekend as I really need to work on my holiday wardrobe.

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - Flamboyant Leggings or Socks

It's now official - winter is here. Usually it doesn't bother me too much, but today I was feeling rather bleh about the whole thing, when I left work at about five it felt more like eight-thirty as it was so dark already - winter I hate you! But on the upside I do live in a house with central heating and I only live 10 minutes from my work, less than 5 minutes from my gym and maybe 10 minutes from the supermarket - so I don't really need to walk to far over all of winter if I don't feel like it - I guess that's the joy of urban living.

Today's Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge was flamboyant tights or socks and given the bleak weather conditions I chose the socks - its not the kind of weather in which you want your ankles exposed!

I ended up wearing mostly black today, which isn't like me at all! Perhaps a reflection of my mood due to the weather.

I bought this shirt dress YEARS ago from a local chain store called Pagani, it was one of my favourite stores for years - but now it seems to be much more hit and miss. Sometimes I go in and I don't see a single thing I like. Mind you, I rarely buy new clothes these days anyway so I guess it doesn't matter too much - for me it's op-shopped, vintage and handmade.

I have actually altered this dress ever so slightly - my Mum bought back these wee skully fellows for me on one of her trips to Australia and I attached them to the frock. I really do love these guys - I like to think he's on a date with a fancy skully lady!

I had to wear my boots today as the weather was so appalling, which means I didn't get to share the full joy of the stripey cherry socks with the world! Oh well - there will be other times...

I bought this wee scarf from one of the Asian import stores in the Left Bank Arcade on Cuba Street - I really do love a good scarf and with it being winter, I do seem to wear them more than necklaces. I guess that add an extra bit of warmth and every little bit counts!

Rich said I should have a photo with his football. Fun fact - Rich is crazy for football (or perhaps in your part of the world you call it soccer). I know, there is that myth that every Kiwi male had been playing rugby since before they could walk - but its not true! Rich loves his football - he plays and watches football and currently is sporting three stitches and a black eye to show how much he loves playing.

Well its time for me to say goodbye - I'm off to work on an embroidery project and cheer myself up by watching "Shaun of the Dead". 

OUTFIT DEETS:

Boots - Dr Martins, bought in Seoul
Socks - Calico Jacks, Cuba Street, Wellington
Tights - Farmers or Glassons - I don't remember which!
Dress - Pagani - embellished by me
Cardi - Glassons
Scarf - Asian import store in Left Bank Arcade, Cuba Street.